If you haven't already noticed I changed the title of my blog from Allured by Christ Through His Mercy to Eden. The origin of Eden is of course from the book of Genesis in the Bible. It is the Hebrew word for 'paradise'. It also means 'delight.'
Why the change? Well this word has been heavy on my heart for some time now for lots of different reasons, right now, for me the word represents 'beautiful', 'pure' and 'new beginnings'...
I feel as though God planted this word in my heart for many reasons, some beyond my dreams! If you'll recall back about a year ago I created a Vision Board with all kinds of dreams I have for the future. Well, one of the boards included my BIG dream of having a flower/gift/coffee shop. While I was in the hospital and working on some therapeutic matters my dream was re-awaken, but this time with a name... EDEN! With this name came the acronym:
Extending forgiveness
Dispelling guilt & shame
Embracing unconditional love
Navigating truth
The acronym reflects more of what Eden has meant to me in my journey to forgive, love and accept myself as I am just as the Lord does. This is something I have to do and all the time because I am super hard on myself, in fact, I am my own worse enemy. This self-hate has caused me time and time again to pick up my lovely eating disorder as a means to feel control over whatever it was that I messed up. And then the vicious cycle is begins again... I get mad at myself for 'failing' and using my eating disorder yet again to 'feel better' and so rather than forgive myself and move on I practice my eating disorder more and believe the LIE that it is the only thing I am good at. So now, day by day, sometimes hour by hour, I am working on being more gentle with myself by extending forgiveness, dispelling guilt and shame and loving myself unconditionally just as the Lord does.
My hope is that Eden would be a place where this acronym can be reflected into the lives of others... I see Eden as either a shop I own and run on my own or have it connected to some type of ministry or program that gives individuals who go through their program the opportunity to work and share their talents at Eden. Either way Eden will be a place people can count on to have just the right gift or floral arrangement to brighten someone's day, but also a safe haven to come sit and relax at with a cup of coffee and pastry, comforting tunes and friendly faces.
Honestly this all seems quite impossible... my dream seems too BIG, too far fetched. But I am going to hold onto to several of God's promises and do my part to make my dream come true believing that this dream will do more than touch my heart, but to the heart's of many others.
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matt.19:26
"Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Ps. 37:4
He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matt. 17:20
Choosing Sin...
Since being home from Mercy I have failed to fight against the enemy. Mercy was an incredible experience that I am truly so grateful for, but leaving I was not yet comfortable or confident in my new-found identity in Christ. I quickly started to believe and take to heart the lies of the enemy had been feeding me and... the biggest one, 'you are not free because you still struggle, freedom isn't possible for you.' Believing the lies led to me compromising my freedom through actively choosing to restrict. I can honestly say that I have continued to choose the eating disorder over the Lord. I am not proud of this by any means, but I have continually chosen to do what was comfortable for me, my 'normal', gone the easy way rather than what was right in the eyes of the Lord. The guilt and shame I feel through my continual wrong choices has only fed into the enemy's attacks more. Let me just tell you, sin is a scary, dark, lonely place and once your deep in that pit, its very difficult to dig out.
I want more for my life than this all-consuming, life-stealing behavior and yet over and over I have convinced myself 'it's not that bad,' or I continually put off the action of positive, life-giving change till tomorrow. But I fear that if I don't change I will live a very selfish, lonely, sad life or die. Neither sound appealing to me by any means!
Double-minded..
I have dabbled back and forth with making changes over the past semester, but nothing ever lasting more than a few days. Once it started getting hard I gave up thinking it was easier to stay with ed than fight against the attacks from the enemy.... what a LIE! I still wanted control (although it's really all an illusion, ed really had control over me), I was too fearful to completely let go and trust God- I thought I knew better than God. I was never fully surrendering to God. I love what Katie says in her recent post about surrendering and I can totally relate.
Who am I.... ?
Part of my problem is I do not know who I am without Anorexia and I am scared to completely let go and trust God to show me, to lead and guide me into a true discovery of myself.
How sad is that? My identity is anorexia. It is who I am, what I do, what I am good at. It's all I know and have known for 13 years, it's what I expect of my life and what people expect of me (or so I tell myself). The best way to understand the anorexia in my life is by equating it to being in an abusive relationship with someone. It's not a lifestyle that I am proud of by any means. Its ugly as all get out and I wouldn't believe all that I've done to engage in, to be in a relationship, with ed (eating disorder).
It's so ironic because I despise who I am with ed, and yet I don't cut off the relationship because I don't know who I am without it.... what do I truly love, enjoy, desire?? With ed I am a lonely, a liar, selfish, obsessed with nonsense, waste money on food, selfish, lethargic, spiritually dead, prideful, anxious, guilty, shameful, un-peaceful, selfish and soooo much more. I do not want to be any of these things and when I choose to replace my relationship with ed to the relationship I know I have with Christ I can be and do differently! I have finally, truly come to a place where I am truly committed to take care of myself. I can't say that there was one thing that triggered the desire to change, God has been working on me for a while. All I know is that I hate the way I feel physically, emotionally and spiritually when consumed by an ed and I want more in my life, so much more than ed.
Choosing Life...
Being home with my family for the holidays has really caused me to re-evaluate my life and my choices. The first few days I was home I felt tense, shameful, guilty, sneaky and detached and I hated it. My family means the world to me and I hate to see them affect by my choices, but more importantly, in thinking about the grotesqueness of what my life has looked like for the past several months, I knew deep down I was making a choice every time I practiced my ed to to choose over life, to sin against my God and that just didn't sit right with me. And in seeing families enjoying one another through the holidays, I also knew that to have that, a husband, kids and a career one day, it would not be possible without doing different. To do what is right even when it doesn't feel good. I am finally at a place where I am willing and ready....
So since I have been on break from school and work (this coming semester is my LAST!!!), I have used this time and the support of my parents to help me get a good foundation of taking better care of myself before I go back to Denton. I've been taking it one step at a time, surrendering multiple times a day, praying... doing what I need to do to claim the victory that is already mine through Christ! I am more in Him than this ugly, life-stealing disease!
I have debated for the last several days about whether or not to get back into blogging some and decided my debating was turning into worry, fear and procrastination. I knew if was going to do it I just needed to quit thinking about it and analyzing it, like I do with EVERYTHING, and write! My thoughts and concerns varied:
what will my first post be about??
will I have the time to do this??
should I switch to a different blogging site/platform??
do people really want to hear what I have to say??
what will my first post be about? .... it needs to be something good ??
what will other people think??
can I stick to the goals I so desire to publicly acknowledge??
what will my first post be about??
Im sure there were MANY more thoughts, in fact I know there were, but most of them were fleeting-- that crazy, negative self-talk that time and time again has done nothing but keep me stuck. So, rather than answer all these questions (which if I did u might not see a posting till Summer 2011), or allow those fleeting thoughts to tear me down, I said to myself,
Everything that you are doing is keeping you from writing, from moving forward, from doing yourself a favor... Meagan, this blog, at this time is not for anyone else, but you and your health and well-being. You know you want to make positive, but tough changes in your life and believe that working towards that will helpful through writing, but by not getting your butt in gear and starting you are allowing yourself to stay stuck. You are doing what you have always done, you are living in fear. Your blog is just that, YOUR BLOG! You can do whatever the heck with it you want and it DOESN'T have to be perfect, nor does what you share have to be perfect. This season in your life is about you, your healing and growth, your journey with the Lord, allow Him to speak through you and to you in the process to touch others and quit trying to run the show, or think things have to look perfect... quit trying to control things like you know better than GOD! He doesn't ask for perfection, just progress.. He makes up for where you are lacking. (this is me talking to myself... not out loud, ha!)
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10
So my friends, this blog, my blog, at this time in my life is for me. Its to help me rediscover who I am apart from who I have been and what I have known for the past 13 years. I so desire to have much, much more than what I have had in the past years and know that the Lord desires to give it to me if only I would trust & obey....
As a preface to my upcoming writings I want to state several things for accountability and my own sanity...
I will do my best to have no expectations about what I write and how often I write
What I post doesn't always have to be fancy or decorated (as my dad would say: 'KISS- keep it simple stupid')
I will write from my heart rather than what I think people want to hear
I will challenge myself openly physically, emotionally and spiritually and allow myself to be challenged by others.
I will do my best to have no expectations (this needs repeating)
I will not spend an unreasonable amount of time on my blogging escapades
I will be honest
I will remember that this blog is for me and if God chooses to use it to touch lives then so be it
So here is to a fresh start in the New Year!
"greater things are yet to come, greater things are still to be done..."
As you may have noticed its been quite a while since I have written and since its been so long I have so many thoughts running through my head about what I want to write about and that the Lord has laid on my heart to write about..Ha, over the past weeks I have made a list of different things and it’s beginning to become a bit lengthy.I thought that I should do something about it…The last month and a half have been a whirlwind, very busy, with a few ups and downs in between.I have desired to write and share but haven’t made it a point to sit down and do it.Some of my reasons are valid and some are silly excuses.I am not here to explain away why I haven’t had a chance to write out of a need to please or seek forgiveness, BUT I do want to share my for the sake of sharing what the Lord has laid on my heart about what has kept me away.
I do love to write, share and be honest with you all about my journey, but let me just say being honest and doing life is hard!Not only is there the fear of what other people think…a fear of rejection, but there is also accountability that comes from the honesty of what I write. I also have this desire to people please and come across as though my writing is perfect and profound (minus the typos) and everything in my life is butterflies and rainbows; that I don’t struggle living life anymore after being at Mercy and everything is hunky-dory!Therefore I don’t write because:
1) It drains me to write share with ’perfection,’
2) If I share what I think people want to hear rather than the truth, I am lying…a hypocrite, a whitewashed Pharisee, and
3) If I am honest there is no secret, no hiding, and I am now more apt to receive an even deeper accountability than before, one that honestly scares me.But this process of honesty will create a life of more of HIM, my God, and a lot less of me.
So, the other morning I was walking, praying and thinking about all this blogging business.God shared shared with me that all my reasons and excuses for not writing are obsolete, and my fleshly desires to write for attention and praise are selfish.He would much rather me not write at all than to write for my own boost of ego.He asked me, ‘Meagan, are you writing this blog for yourself - your need to feel good about yourself and your need to please or is this blog for Me; to share honestly your walk with Me and all that I am doing in your life?’Wow God, thanks for the straightforwardness. ;)I now have no more reasons or excuses to not share his Gospel by sharing what he is doing in my life.My expectations and desires for this blog and my life are continually being aligned with Him.I want to share God’s heart and I want to do it for NO other reason but to bring praise, honor and glory to him and to share with you the fact that if He can do it for me, He can and will do it for YOU!In sharing I am taking a step of obedience as well as being more vulnerable and authentic than I actually feel comfortable with.
Isn't it funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us....?
With all that said, let me just share how gracious God has been this past couple of weeks.I have been struggling a lot with the fact that I still struggle with thoughts, temptations and slipups with my old ways.I believe I, without even realizing it sometimes, get angry with God that he didn’t completely heal and restore me to where I don’t struggle at all.Goodness how I wish this was the case!I went through an incredible, Christian program where God really did meet me where I was at, nothing should be wrong with me anymore; why do I still have these thoughts and still do the old at times?As I have said before, because I live in a fallen world, where satan is alive and active, these things will still be there.It’s whether or not I choose to accept this fact, not be bitter that I still struggle at times and to realize that God is my solution to this struggle…. I have an answer unlike before, but will I choose Him?I don’t have to be this perfect, healed Meagan!It’s just not possible and if I was perfect I wouldn’t need Him, for He is perfect in my weaknesses. He calls me because of my weaknesses, not despite them, because in them he is found and seen! You see, I often times find myself having the same thought processes as Paul:
"I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
Romans 7
Reading Paul’s struggle between his desire to do good, but to still struggle helps me see that God understands and empathizes with me completely.He is not ignorant to the inner struggle of life and sin!I try to worship the one true God and even have good intentions to worship him, but don’t always follow through with that.
I read Matthew 6:24, God explaining why I cant have him and the world, “You cannot worship 2 Gods at once, loving one, you will end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other [you become devoted to one and despise the other].”I know this to be true because I experienced it in the past! When you become so consumed with one something, you lose sight of the other things. "I will always remember what someone once told me, whatever you place in front of God you will lose..."
Things I often times find myself worshiping and/or placing in front of God (sometimes without even realizing it):
Myself
People
Image
Exercise
Facebook
Food
Busy-ness
Tv
Shopping
My thoughts
"People are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams.” (And I would have to add to that... at the expense of God.)
And then I read in Proverbs 27:19-21 about the way I live my life reflects the truth within my heart.How I choose to react is a reflection of my thoughts, temptations, beliefs and desires. How true is the statement "ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS? Honestly, two of the biggest heart struggles I am having right now are trust and control, which I would say kind of go hand in hand.So will I choose to live a life of worship to false, unfulfilling gods or will I worship my God?
I was conversing with the Lord about my struggles with worshiping only Him and my temptation to do otherwise… he gave me these very convicting words…
“Is it easier to give into temptation than to fight the thoughts that come from resisting your fleshly desires with the truth and strength I have given you?”
POoOooowWWww- that hit me hard!!!Its sad how often I choose the to bow down to the false gods in my life rather than my true God because its comfortable, or I am fearful to do otherwise, or I am simply too lazy to fight the thoughts and emotions…Sometimes its easier to go through the motions than to be proactive and fight for my freedom.But going through the motions is no way of living, it’s not what I want and I know it’s not what God wants…
The Motions
By: Matthew West
This might hurt
It’s not safe
But I know that I’ve gotta make a change
I don’t care
If I break
At least I’ll be feeling something
‘Cause just ok
Is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life
I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
Without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking
What if I had given everything?
Instead of going through the motions
No regrets
Not this time
I’m gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love
Make me whole
I think I’m finally feeling something
Take me all the way
To sum everything up, I love this statement I read on the back of Francis Chan's book Forgotten God, "We were not created and saved merely to survive our time on earth, but to pursue the Spirit-filled lie of effectiveness God desires and we desire." My desire is not to survive through the worship of un-fulfilling, worldly things, but to live my life here as a spiritual act of worship to my one true, all-sufficient God who will in turn give me the fulfillment I yearn for beyond anything I could ever create for myself.
My life story up until now has been far from what I ever dreamed my life would be like. The journey I have been on has been quite a roller coaster… I’ve experienced happiness, loss, hurt, abuse, love, growth, a need to control, fear, anxiety, peace, understanding, pain, depression, shame & hope. God has definitely rocked my world, continually reminding me that I am nothing without Him, but in Him I can do ALL THINGS, including overcoming the obstacles I face.
It has taken me years to grasp this concept that the Lord is my only source to true freedom. I have struggled with anorexia & many other life-stealing issues for 12 years now. My eating disorder (ED) first surfaced as a completely innocent action of simply ‘watching what I ate.’ You see I grew up being really thin (not on purpose) & received lots of comments about how little I was. Ill never forget my dad always saying I had bird legs and calling me Olive Oil (from Popeye). He wasn’t the only one to comment though, many others had their own things to say. I never took offense to any of the comments, they were a compliment to me. Little did I or anyone else know that this attention I got from my thinness reinforced my desire to stay thin. Needless to say, as I began to experience the loveliness of puberty, I unconsciously wanted to maintain my thinness. Its crazy how something so innocent can turn into something that steals your life from you. I had no idea what I was getting myself into…
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
I simply wanted to feel in control of something, because everything around me seemed to be changing or out of my hands. Between losing to death or distance, changes in my body, the ups & downs of relationships & many other circumstances many of us experience growing up. I hated all the uncertainty & the powerlessness I was continually battling day to day over many people, places & circumstances. The truth of the matter was… I didn’t trust the Lord & the fact that he was in control & has known the whole time what he was doing with my life & all things I was dealing with, both good & bad. But since I was unable to give my worries to the Lord, I tried my best control them myself through anorexia. Before I knew it the once innocent action of dieting wasn’t so simple anymore. The control I longed for & felt like I had a glimpse of at first soon consumed every aspect of my life.
This illusion of control I felt I had actually has had control over me. My once innocent desire for control has literally starved my body, starved my heart & completely starved my soul leaving me empty & guilty of allowing satan to steal from me so many things. As a believer I have the choice to choose freedom through Christ or death through my sinful ways. My desire is to receive & fully embrace the free gift of an abundant life that is mine through Christ by actively turning away from sin. This sounds simple, but it’s not… having lived in the grips of anorexia for so long I’ve developed a way of life with this disease playing a major role in who I am & what I do. Ill be honest, its scary thinking of life without an ED, because its all Ive known for so long. To me my eating disorder is my identity, my best friend, my comfort, my strength, my control & has ultimately become my god. But in all that my ED has taken away from me I look forward to the freedom that’s all mine!
“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sonsof God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Romans 8:13-17
My motivation for keeping a blog about my journey of healing my heart, body, mind & soul is to share with each of you how the Lord has been doing & will continue to do in my life. I also want to keep everyone who has been so kind to pray for me up to date on my journey & to offer hope to anyone struggling with any sort of hurt, unhealthy habit or hang up.
For those of you who don’t know, I will be leaving for Mercy Ministries in Nashville, TN October 13, 2009 (see below for more info about Mercy). At Mercy I will continue my journey of healing for about 6 months. While I am away I plan to keep you updated by writing about my experiences & sending them home for my mom to post on here. Im sure she will also keep you updated by what I write her in personal letters to her & our conversations on the phone.
Yah, so I’m not going to have access to a computer, ahhhh!!! Im sure I’ll live though, ha! It will be good for me to get away & stay focused on the Lord & my recovery. If your interested in going old school & writing me by snail mail I’d love to hear from you! Please know that I will do my best to write you back, but will be very busy while I am away.
The address is: Meagan Vrba
c/o Mercy Ministries
15328 Old Hickory Blvd
Nashville, TN 37211
Thank you so much for your continued prayers, support & words of encouragement. They are all very much appreciated & felt. I am incredibly blessed to have you all as a part of my life!
