Mental Health/Emotions

Anorexia: Our Hummingbird Ways?

I love hummingbirds. And here’s an interesting little factoid about them:

“Hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death, and are able to store just enough energy to survive overnight.”

I immediately thought of my anorexic experiences.

I recount my mindset, offered in my book, “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death Of An Eating Disorder.”

” …I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but I still kept going. I had to. Progress—just a few more pounds, then I’ll be done. So I’d continue every morning: six hours of boot camp torture on little or no food or water. I had gotten to the point now where I feared drinking water would make me fat.

Every morning, my heart and pulse would pound and race. I could feel throbbing from veins that were sticking out on the backs of my knees and the crooks of my elbows. Every morning, I would stand up, shaky, dizzy already, only to then have everything go black. And then, I’d wake up, lying on the floor. Passing out was now a regular part of my day.

Anorexia: Our Hummingbird Ways? Read More »

How are Praise, Surrender & Worship Connected?

Perseverance for me is essential because the alternative is defeat and loss of faith. Defeat and loss of faith is totally different from surrender.

Surrender] is knowing that God is Lord of lords, King of kings. It is knowing that I must and need to depend on Him totally and completely at all times.

\0/ praise …..
it is so easy to praise God when all is going well in our lives. We are happy, joyous and free but then the you know what hits the fan and our lives become unmanageable. We find ourselves totally powerless. fear creeps in and anxiety rules.

It is time to ….
/0\ surrender

How are Praise, Surrender & Worship Connected? Read More »

Demolishing Strongholds

A stronghold is a faulty thinking pattern based on lies and deception. Deception is one of the primary weapons of the devil, because it is the building blocks for a stronghold. What strongholds can do is cause us to think in ways which block us from God’s best.

Two very destructive and common strongholds:

The first one: You see God incorrectly:
One of the most popular and devastating strongholds to have, is an incorrect image in your mind of who God is, and how He sees us. People who see God as a taskmaster, live their lives with an unhealthy fear of God.

What strongholds can do is cause us to think in ways which block us from God’s best.

The first one, where you see God incorrectly: One of the most popular and devastating strongholds to have, is an incorrect image in your mind of who God is, and how He sees us.

People who see God as a taskmaster, live their lives with an unhealthy fear of God.

There’s a good kind of fear of God, which is more like a holy respect for Him, but there’s another kind of fear that is very unhealthy that the enemy wants us to have, and it’s the kind of fear where we see God as a taskmaster, cruel, cold, distant, uncaring and would snap the whip at us the moment we step out of line.

Demolishing Strongholds Read More »

Naturally Twiggy? Fat Shaming

I once saw a black and white photograph of the ultra-thin model Twiggy eating what appeared to be a plate of batter- dipped fish and French fries. And it provoked something. It had to do with the trigger-rife connection involving her thin physique and disordered food/body image concerns.

Twiggy (real name, Lesley Lawson) was world famous for her look, one which showcased a boyish, thin body, short hair and large eyes that were further accentuated by painted on eyelashes. Named “The Face of 1966” by The Daily Express, she took the 1960’s British Mod Scene and the fashion world by storm.

Yes, Twiggy was a game changer. And, because of her androgynous and thin appearance, she has long been criticized for promoting unhealthy body image messages.

Over the years, she has addressed those critiques when it comes to the topic of eating disorders and her own body:

“I was very skinny, but that was just my natural build. I always ate sensibly — being thin was in my genes.”

Reading that statement, therefore, brought up the concept of beauty variation.

In today’s culture, there’s been an obsession with the thin image. That’s no surprise. But, in more recent years, there’s been a growing movement to promote a variation of body shapes and sizes. Curvy, “plus size,” and “real woman” have been some of the buzz words used to describe and promote a healthier, more inclusive definition of beauty. And that’s wonderful, and, believe me, much needed, especially concerning impressionable youth.

Naturally Twiggy? Fat Shaming Read More »

Roles. Do we box ourselves in?

When we’re little girls, many of us have, at some point, wanted to be an actress. I did. I was “bitten” by the bug at age nine, when I played a baby doll in a school play. From there, I acted in various productions and eventually graduated from college as a theater major.

And during that time, I was exposed to Shakespeare and of course, his female characters. Juliet, Ophelia, Queen Gertrude and Lady Macbeth were the most influential to me.

I first encountered the Juliet character on a Brady Bunch episode (Marcia Brady was cast as Juliet in a school play). I know. It was during the time Franco Zefferelli’s film was out, portraying our young star crossed lovers. And, by the time I hit high school, I’d seen the film. What wasn’t to like? Drama, a love story and two very beautiful lead actors; Juliet was played by Olivia Hussey. Anyway, it lines right up with my desire to be beautiful. And that was, of course, a large part of wanting to be an actress.

And so, it begins – acting.

By the time I entered college, I decided to be a theater major. I was a great way to express myself – and a nifty way to avoid having to take math classes as well. (I was hopeless at algebra). Anyway, by college, I was introduced to Hamlet – and the leading lady role of the young, fragile – and crazy- Ophelia. She was the love interest of Hamlet (again, the star-crossed lovers theme) and I bought into its mystique.

Or rather, I bought into the ingénue’s mystique. Ingénue. According to its definition, it means:

An unsophisticated girl or young woman: a girl or young woman who is naive and lacks experience or understanding of life;
A naive character in drama: a character in a play or a movie who is a naive inexperienced young woman

Really?

Roles. Do we box ourselves in? Read More »

Each of Us is that 100th Sheep

“My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.” Jeremiah 50:6

Most of us are familiar with the parable of the lost sheep and the passage about the good shepherd.

Flock of sheep. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
Luke 15:3-7

“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” John 10:11

And most of us have seen the matching artwork, the depiction of a loving, attentive Jesus holding a lamb in His arms.

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart… Isaiah 40:11

Yet, there seems to be a disconnection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jesus loves us; He’s our good shepherd. But do we REALLY personalize it? And what exactly would that mean to us?

Each of Us is that 100th Sheep Read More »

Life Doesn’t Have a “Re-do” Button

All our steps are ordered by the Lord;
how then can we understand our own ways? Proverbs 20:24 NRSV

Over Christmas break, the son of one of my fellow teachers was killed in an auto accident. Both of his parents work for our school district and are loving, wonderful people. Their younger daughter was in one of the plays I helped with. It was a devastating loss for our small community.

When it happened, I tried to get my head around it. Oh, not the fact that such a young person had died and the reason for it, but rather simply that it had happened at all. I began to think about games, in particular computer games, and the ability to “redo” a game when the outcome wasn’t what I wanted (in effect, when I lost). I began to wonder if his parents wished that they could “redo” those few hours before he died, keeping him at their home rather than allowing him to drive several hours to his house and subsequently dying.

I think that all of us, at one time or another and for one reason or another, wished that life had a “redo” button, wished that we could relive a certain situation in order to change the outcome. When Proverbs speaks of the Lord ordering our ways, some in the Christian community would see this as confirmation that God has predetermined everything that happens to us and that we don’t have free will. I personally don’t agree with that view. But what I see this as is the Old Testament version of Romans 8:28:

And we know that God causes everything to work together” for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (NLT)

Matthew Henry writes:

Life Doesn’t Have a “Re-do” Button Read More »

Obsessed with Unattainable Thinness?

The legendary sex symbol and movie star, Sophia Loren is now 80 years old. Wow- think about that. I know it made me think about the parameters of beauty.

And it made me think of a more current pop culture Sophia, Sophia Vergara (from the sitcom Modern Family). The actress once did a wonderful television commercial for her Kmart clothing line.

The thing which caught my attention was her emphasis on “real woman” figures when it comes to clothing. In the commercial, she breaks into her design studio, breezes by designers hovering over their thin body sketches. She then takes a red pen and draws two sets of curvy bubbles over the bust and derrière areas of the drawings, stating, “you can’t draw a woman with straight lines.”

Bravo and Amen, Ms. Vergara!

Since then, I’ve been having a little “Sophia on the brain.” Both Loren and Vergara have been known as smoldering, exotic beauties with va-va-voom bodies to match. And it’s great to see someone be celebrated who is closer to a “real woman size/shape.”

Obsessed with Unattainable Thinness? Read More »

Finding Forgiveness in Confession

Blows that wound cleanse away evil;
beatings make clean the innermost parts. Proverbs 20:30 NRSV

We see sin in ourselves most often when we are in pain. In fact, it often takes the hard circumstances in life for us to even stop and listen to God. And He uses those hard circumstances to keep us from running off the precipice of the cliff of sin.

It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 2 Samuel 11:2-3 NRSV

Most of us are familiar with the adulterous affair of David and Bathsheba, the wife of one of his commanders. The Israelites built homes with flat roofs and used their roofs for rest and relaxation when it was warm. Whether or not Bathsheba chose to bath on the roof hoping to catch the eye of the king, at that moment David was presented with a choice. He didn’t have to ask who she was; he could have averted his eyes. He didn’t.

The result of their extended affair was that Bathsheba got pregnant. In a fit of panic, David ordered her husband, Uriah, to the front where he was logically killed. David then took Bathsheba into his home (and his bed) and his wife, thinking that his sin had been unseen. I’m sure that he believed that he was doing the “right” thing by marrying Bathsheba, that this marriage was a sign of penance toward God. But God wasn’t fooled. Manipulation is never part of repentance. Yes, we are to make restitution, but first comes confession. And David hadn’t confessed.

Finding Forgiveness in Confession Read More »

Surviving an Abusive Childhood

Whether it’s been through abuse or disorder, I learned to fear.

Child development experts state that newborns have only two fears: loud noises and falling. Babies’ brains and nerves grow rapidly in the first two years of life, but they are born with very immature nervous systems. This means that they cannot interpret or handle certain sensory input — like loud noises or the feeling of falling.

So, that means, all other fears are learned.

That’s certainly been my experience. Growing up with an abusive dad, there was always this “or else” undercurrent of dread. My life experiences with conditional love further sealed the deal to the performance-based nature to both love and life:

“I desperately wanted my dad to notice me. I learned very quickly that one surefire way to do that was by winning awards. When I won something, I wasn’t completely worthless or useless. I was productive; I was ‘earning my keep.’ I set impossible standards for myself. Try as I might with award after award, I’d eventually disappoint everyone, including myself, proving that I wasn’t worth anything after all.

My perfect attendance record in school is an excellent example. For three years in a row, I did not missed one day of school, knowing that I would win a perfect attendance certificate, tangible proof on paper that I was worthwhile. It became a standard I had to maintain because my dad seemed pleased in my performance. Of course, he never said that he was proud of me, but he did lay off the criticisms briefly. So for the next few years, I went to school with colds, sore throats and influenza. I remember going to school once with a temperature of over 101, sitting at my desk, on the verge of throwing up, yet only thinking of that certificate.

Surviving an Abusive Childhood Read More »