After I got home from Training Camp I felt as if I was on one of the highest mountaintops in the world! I had received healing and COMPLETEfreedom from my eating disorder, I grew closer to God than I had ever been in my entire life, and I learned how to remain in open and constant conversation with Him rather than just seeking Him during the midst of my quiet time or when I was praying. I learned how to just "be," I spent meaningful and intentional time with friends and family, and my heavenly Father revealed new things to me about myself that I had never realized before. The time between Training Camp and launch was full of beautiful discoveries and quite fulfilling, but it was also a very difficult and trying time that often made me feel as if I were being taken past my breaking point.
For those of you who don't know, I am 24 years old. I developed an eating disorder around the age of 11, so it was something that I lived with for over half of my life. I allowed it to claim stakes in my identity, I allowed it to rule and reign in my life, and I didn't accept it as just a part of my story, but rather that it WAS my story. When I received healing and freedom from this at Training Camp it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders and I could finally breathe freely once again. The only problem was... I had no idea who I had been before my eating disorder. When people would ask me and still ask me "who are you?" I know exactly what I'm supposed to say. "I am known. I am seen. I am loved. I am held. I am healed...." and so on and so forth. I know what my Papa says of me, and I know that His truths are the only thing that matter, but it's still hard to know just exactly who you are when something that you held onto as part of your identity for so long is completely taken away in the blink of an eye.
Something I began asking God when I got home from Training Camp was, "who was I before my eating disorder?" It had been my life for so long that it was all I could remember and it seemed to loom in each and every memory that would come to mind. I just wanted Him to give me a glimpse into what life used to be like before rigid constraints of calorie counting, before the secrecy and the lies that the disorder demanded, and before moving my body was only seen as exercise and the prayer of sweating off pounds rather than just for the sake of fun.
My team and I are currently in Belize and we will begin our first ministry assignment tomorrow. Today was a national holiday in Belize so we were given the day off. After finishing my quiet time this morning I felt God asking me to go outside and play soccer. Why? I had no idea, but it wasn't like I had much of anything else going on so I said "what the heck, sure!" I put on my chacos, walked outside to the soccer field next to our house, found the most inflated soccer ball out of the bunch, and began playing. I took off dribbling down the field as fast as I could and kicked a goal into the top, left-side of the net. I took off back down the field dribbling the ball, then I decided to give a go at juggling even though it had been years since I had done so. As I started getting the hang of it again, a giant smile came to my face and I couldn't stop laughing at how good of a time I was having. Immediately God said to me, "remember when it was fun, rather than exercise?" My mind flashed back to when I was in the second grade playing soccer for the very first time. I had no idea what I was doing, no concept of the game or how it worked, but all I knew is that I was having the time of my life and that was enough for me.
What a beautiful gift to have that memory brought to mind, and to realize that getting outside doesn't have to solely be for exercise but rather I can just let go, let loose, and let the fact that I'm having fun be enough. Thank You for today God, and for not only reminding me of who I once was but also who I'm starting to become.
-Meagan
