Striving for the perfect body

It seems like a lifetime ago, but there was a time in my life when my every thought was consumed with controlling my body. I taught myself to hate my body. I stared at pictures of women and called them “thinspiration.” I wrote blog posts on how to starve your body and joined groups that gave tips on how to survive on 0 calories or worse yet negative calories. I found pride in working out so much that at the end of the day I had -2000 calories in my body from all the exercise I tortured my body with.

When I was in college I could barely focus because I had not eaten. I was so focused on trying to keep a model looking body, but I was dying inside. I remember the day I biked 7 miles on a roasting hot summer day with diet coke being the only thing I had that day. I felt so sick to my stomach that I  lay  in my bed afterwards thinking I was going to die.

I hit rock bottom. I couldn’t do it anymore. Perfection was unobtainable. So I made the choice to give it all to Christ. I was going to give my whole life to Christ–and it all went away. Never again did I starve my body. Never again did I deplete my body of nutrients. Somehow, supernaturally I was healed. I was made perfect. Still to this day I have never starved my body or had the desire to. I have always had this inner gut check that has kept me on the straight and narrow.

Before I was saved I didn’t realize what I had was good. Not because of my size, not because of how I looked, but because I had been created in God’s image.

My vision had been clouded. I didn’t understand what it meant to love my body. But the day came when I realized I couldn’t live up to my expectations for myself and I finally let go and let God. That was my turning point in giving my life to God. I was so consumed with self till  I finally realized I could not live up to my own standards or the world’s. The ways of the man were always changing, they were always demanding something new and something better.

I left the self hatred at the cross. From that moment I never again starved my body and I never again worked out excessively. He healed me.

Now at 28 years old I’ve found myself accepting my body in a way that I had never imagined.

Because God sees me as beautiful. Whether I workout or not.

I was striving for the attention of man not realizing I had the attention of heaven. God was watching from heaven and  loved me  in my oblivion to His hand  in my life.