1/10/14

Feedback from a Professor...and Former Bulimic

Dear Marie,

Thank you for your sincere, honest, straightforward, inspirational book! I am a 36-year-old, single woman living in California. I was severely bulimic for 6 years, and for another 6 years after that, I struggled with non-purging bulimia (bingeing and restriction). I also developed alcoholism during those years. I wasn't raised to believe in God, but I always knew my eating disorder was a form of sin and dated back to my early experiences with lying and petty theft as a pre-teen.

I accepted Christ in 2007, much to the dismay of my family. I now work as a professor, teaching about the sociology of addiction. I also mentor women struggling to recover from eating disorders. I was very excited to find your book, because I think it will be a huge help for one of my mentees in particular, named Laura. She will go several weeks without bingeing and then get mentally tripped up about the boundaries of abstinence. She knows it's not wise to eat trigger foods, but she's also wary about making them off-limits because it perpetuates food rules. I'm going to suggest she try your advice to make certain foods off-limits for 6 to 8 weeks and then pray to seek further guidance.

Your advice and insight is spot-on, based on my own experiences and observations. I've seen a lot of bulimics (including my own sister) and a lot of spiritual and nutritional approaches to ending the habit, and everything you wrote rings true.

Eating disorders are crippling. Yes, they are triggered by family and environmental situations, but I also believe they are a serious site of spiritual warfare. Sometimes I think people who come from non-believing families are particularly targeted by the enemy, because he knows how many opportunities we have to help lead people to Christ.

I am so grateful to know you are out there! Please pray for my mentees and let me know if there's anything I can do to help you.

In Christ,
K

1/1/14

"For the Rest of My Life" - Anniversary of Broken Chains

Ten years ago today, (January 1, 2004), I suffered my very last hangover. I had forgotten that today is the anniversary of Jesus redeeming my life from the pit, until a few minutes ago. Listening to "For the Rest of My Life" by Third Day, I was struck by the appropriateness of such a song to remember God's faithfulness:



Lyrics:
Staring at the edge of a canyon
It all feels so far away
Somewhere it all went wrong
The sun has come and gone
I'm left here standing in the rain

You rescued me from the darkness
I feel the warmth and the light
Somehow you pulled me out of
A sea of pain and doubt
I'm never going to go that way again

For the rest of my life
Will You be by my side?
I can't make it by myself
I want You and no one else
For the rest of my life

And when my memories have all faded
They all seem so far away
My one and only hope is
I'll still be holding You close
I'm never gonna ever walk away from You again

For the rest of my life
Will You be by my side?
I can't make it by myself
I want You and no one else
For the rest of my life

For the rest of my life

For the rest of my life
Will You be by my side?
I can't make it by myself
I want You and no one else
For the rest of my life