I was spending the week with my parents last week, and I’m always so grateful for the conversations that inevitably end up happening.
My husband has to travel to New York once a month for work, and so I get to spend some time with my parents, as I hate staying alone 😉
But my mom and I were having a heart to heart just about life recently.
Ever since I went to inpatient treatment for anorexia back when I was a senior in high school, my life has really never been the same.
Not because of the fact that I kicked my eating disorder to the curb and adopted recovery…that is, safe to say, a life-changing outcome of that experience.
But rather, the igniting of my faith, and the radical trust and dependence on God that I developed as a result.
Now that has been the most life changing outcome. Because frankly, recovery wouldn’t have happened without the trust and reliance on God.
But we were talking about how, since then…some 16 years ago, the way that I have lived my life has been radically different.
Before, I needed to be in control, in the driver’s seat, agonizing over every decision, with a white knuckle grip on an outcome I thought I could control.
But since inpatient, and realizing that I need to surrender my life — hand over my eating disorder to God — and put my life in His hands to guide and carry me through recovery, I have applied that to every aspect of my life.
And let me tell you, it makes life so beautiful.
I feel as though I am just in this free fall of trust. It’s scary to surrender your life, your choices, your everything to God, but there is complete peace when you do, knowing that God has everything under control. He wants good, good things for His children. And whatever His will is, whatever happens in life, I can trust knowing that it is what God wills for me.
Sometimes, when I think back to the pandemic, and how during that time, my husband and I fell in love, got engaged. He decided that he wanted to move to Cincinnati, we bought a condo, (which I didn’t live in until after we were married btw), got married, got pregnant on the first try and have a healthy baby girl on the way… I am saying these things just to show that I had surrendered my life to God.
My motto has always been, if it is in God’s will, it will happen. The door will appear, it will easily open, and I’ll feel total peace about it, no matter what is on the other side. And let me tell you — these doors have just kept opening and opening, and it’s been the most peaceful journey, knowing that I am right in the center of God’s will.
Are there things that I still worry about? Sure. My acting income has all but dried up because I’m pregnant, and blogging income has certainly slowed as TikTok has taken over the zeitgeist. But I know that a door will come along soon, or perhaps God is either redirecting me to another path, or He wants me to focus on growing this baby. Again — I’m just trusting in His goodness.
It’s that free fall of trust. Free fall is scary, yes, but there’s a peace that comes from completely surrendering to God.
Which leads me to the lead that perhaps I have not only buried, but completely impounded here….we bought a house. We’re moving.
Not out of Cincinnati, but rather, out of Downtown Cincinnati, and into the neighborhood where my parents live, and my sibling’s family live. 🙂 In fact, the house is a 3 minute walk from my parents’.
It is just crazy to think of the journey God is bringing me on. From wanting to be as far away from my past as possible and fleeing to NYC to rediscover who I am for 12 years, to moving back home right down the street from my parents.
God brought the most incredible man into my life during that time. A man who, not only would love me in a way that reflects and affirms God’s love for me, but who would lead us in both our walk with Christ, and lead us back to Cincinnati.
I tell him every day that he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
And this house that we bought — it was another thing that we know God orchestrated.
It never even went on the market. It was a pocket listing. There were five other offers on it. We saw it on a whim on Sunday morning at 9am, made an offer at 4:45, and two hours later it was accepted.
During the whole process, we just prayed that His will be done. If we were supposed to be in that house, we trusted that God would make it happen, and if not, we knew it wasn’t “the one.”
We submitted our offer and then ran to Mass at 5, and during Mass, we just prayed: to let His will be done, and if this house was not what He wanted for us, — if it was going to be too much of a financial burden, if now was not the right time being pregnant, if there was something else He had planned for our future, then give us peace in the outcome instead of disappointment.
And sure enough, the realtor called us on the way home from Mass: we got the house.
A free fall of trust.
The last thing I’ll say is this: at inpatient, one of the biggest things I was afraid of, that was really keeping me entrenched in my anorexia was the fear of my future.
I couldn’t see beyond the hell I had created for myself — it was a tunnel vision of food restrictions, a relentlessly exhaustive exercise regimen, keeping all the lies and deception going, desperately obsessing over over tenth of a pound on the scale. My life was in a word: frantic. And as a result, I couldn’t even imagine a life beyond anorexia.
I couldn’t even imagine a world where I was free. And I couldn’t even remember life before the eating disorder.
I was so fearful that if I let go of the eating disorder…something that I could control…I don’t even know what would happen. I had set the bar of perfection so high for myself — with failure not being an option — that I would rather have to quit by default than not achieve perfection. (AKA: enter anorexia.)
I was crippled with the fear: what would a not perfect future look like? Who would I even be if I wasn’t killing myself trying to achieve perfection?
It was only in surrendering that future to God and actually putting my trust — my life — in His hands that I found peace and strength to adopt recovery.
That is what I mean by a freefall of trust. It is scary to relinquish control over your life. But there is so much peace in knowing that He’s got you.
So that was a bit long tonight, but that’s where my heart is right now. This explains my absence on Monday, as I was dealing with mountains of paperwork for the sale and getting ready to list our condo. But again, Steven and I are just in so much peace that this is where God wants us!
Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your friendship. And thank you for walking with me through this crazy adventure of life.