By: Rachel Dodson RD, LDN
Not long ago, I sat in my counselor’s office, slouching into her comfy chair in the corner of the room. I’ve spent many hours laughing, crying and processing in that chair the last 2 years. Looking up at the ceiling I said, “I don’t want to do this part.” I didn’t want to grieve the loss. I certainly didn’t want to feel the pain of a season of suffering. And I really didn’t want to do the work of healing a newly formed wound.
Maybe these feelings sound familiar? Maybe you or someone you love have walked through a season of grief or suffering? However, moving through a season of grief and suffering while pursuing recovery from an eating disorder can add a whole other layer of hardness to an already disorienting season. As a believer in Jesus, who is both a registered dietitian and personally recovered from an eating disorder, I wanted to offer you some biblical truths as you give grace to yourself in the seasons of unexpected loss, pain, and disillusionment that may take place in the midst of your recovery.
What I have learned over the last 10 years of my life following Jesus is that the Christian life is not one free of pain and sorrow. Jesus himself tells us in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus promises us that we will have trouble. He also promises us that he has overcome the world - in Greek, the verb overcome is written in the perfect tense - meaning it refers to right now AND the future. It’s a current and ongoing action. We will suffer in this world BUT Jesus has already won the victory over the cause of all of our trouble, so we can have peace in the midst of suffering AND have hope for an end to suffering because Jesus is victorious. Thanks be to God.
Throughout scripture, God reminds us he is with us in the midst of suffering -
Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Isaiah 43: 2-3 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”
John 11:4 “But when Jesus heard it he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it’.”
In this broken world, we suffer. We grieve and experience loss and pain that we were never meant to experience based on God’s original design. But we have a God who promises to be with us in the midst of our suffering, who will never leave or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:8). Jesus himself isn’t a stranger to suffering - “He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief” (Isaiah 53:3). Jesus himself suffered - he was humiliated, abandoned, betrayed, wept, bled, and experienced death. Jesus suffered so you and I may be healed and made new in him (Isaiah 53:5 and 2 Corinthians 5:17). “His broken body pours out healing on every square inch of his cursed creation.”
What I have found most healing in seasons of suffering, is preaching the gospel to myself. It’s so easy to forget the power of the gospel, but God came to us as a person in Jesus and lived the life we couldn’t live and died the death we deserve. Three days later Jesus rose from the dead, offering salvation and the forgiveness of sins by grace and through faith in Jesus. Jesus suffered and died on our behalf because God loves us that much. Jesus paid our debt and made a way for us to be with him forever because he loves us that much. Jesus has the power to bring dead things back to life and we can trust him with our circumstances because the gospel proves how faithful he has been and will be.
The gospel means that our here-and-now suffering isn’t meaningless. Suffering has the potential to form us in ways we never could have imagined. We wouldn’t choose it but God wastes nothing (Romans 8:28) and can repurpose our suffering for our good. He doesn't have to use our suffering, but I think in his kindness, God knew we’d suffer in this broken world, and he’s just so good that he’d use it for our good and his glory. And in the midst of suffering, not only can we find comfort that Jesus knows how we feel (Hebrews 4:15), but we can cling to the promise that one day, suffering will end. Every tear will be wiped away; death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more (Revelation 21:4). All of our pain will be woven into a tapestry of redemption. That is our hope. Jesus himself is our hope. “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8: 24-25). If you can’t see it right now, hold on. We can cling to his promises in the waiting - “...they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” and “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness” (Isaiah 40: 31 and 2 Corinthians 12:9).
If you are in a season of suffering while also pursuing recovery from an eating disorder, remember that God is with you and has given you practical tools and community to help you. It can feel safe or familiar to turn towards eating disorder behaviors when grieving, but remember using behaviors won’t make the suffering go away or take less time. Cling to truth like Romans 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Hold onto hope in the midst of suffering.
A few practical takeaways from my personal experience as a Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian in Pennsylvania:
Blaming your body is not the solution - your body is not a problem. God made your body very good (Genesis 1:27 and 31). Yes, our bodies are subjected to futility (Romans 8:20) and now live under the effects of a fallen world, but they are not to be punished for our circumstances. Sometimes our circumstances are just crappy. Resist the temptation to blame your body and use eating disorder behaviors.
Seek support from your people - friends, family, your treatment team - we were not meant to navigate hard seasons alone and in isolation (Genesis 2:18 and Proverbs 18:1). One of the most healing things I’ve found in seasons of grief is to just be with people - share a meal, watch a movie, take a walk, and even just snuggling a friend’s newborn baby so they can take a dang shower. Sometimes we just need others to sit in our pain with us and weep with us… Jesus himself did (John 11:35). And sometimes we just need to remember there are still beautiful things happening outside of our circumstances. So call your people. And if someone you know is in the midst of suffering, reach out to them. They may not know what they need, but to know you are there and available, it changes everything.
Seek God - seek the Lord, he promises that when we seek him with all of our heart, we will find him (Jeremiah 29:13). Jesus tells us in Luke 11:9, when we seek him in prayer, we will find him. Keep seeking him in prayer. Jesus himself tells us we should always pray and not give up (Luke 18:1). And when you don’t know how to pray - remember the Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know what to pray (Romans 8:26). We also have the entire library of scripture to pray. One of the most powerful things we can do is pray scripture and agree with truth in the midst of difficult circumstances. No matter what our circumstances are, we can trust that God is for us (Romans 8:31). He sees us (Genesis 16:13), knows us (Psalm 139), and will comfort us (Matthew 5:4 and 2 Corinthians 1: 3-7).
Tend to your physical needs - nourish your body by making sure you are eating enough. We saw this in the well-known Minnesota Starvation experiment - after half a year of not enough calories, weight loss, and high energy output, depression and emotional distress reported among the men in the study were universal. One eating disorder medical doctor reported that she saw a major improvement in her patients' anxiety and hopelessness after just 2 weeks of adequate food intake. Eating a wide variety and including nutrients like protein, omega-3’s, fiber, magnesium and vitamin B12 can benefit your brain health. God himself cares about our physical needs - He designed our bodies to need food. You can read more about this here https://www.recoveredandrestoredtherapy.comremember about how God met Elijah in his distress and refreshed him with food and water in 1 Kings 19? God acknowledged and met Elijah’s physical needs, even stating, “get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” God made sure Elijah’s physical needs were met before he stepped into his greater calling. In John 21, Jesus himself cooks Peter breakfast. Jesus showed his love and compassion to his friends by making them a meal and meeting their physical needs.
Tend to your emotional needs - a woman I go to church with sent me this - “emotions must be renewed - hate to love, cursing to blessing, resentment to forgiveness, anger to peace, and heaviness to praise - God himself transforms us.” Transformation is slow, grief hurts, and the grieving process hurts. With time, wounds become scars and scars tell a story. We can move forward with scars - in fact, our scars can show other hurt people healing. And it’s okay to be honest with God - He already knows what is in your heart (1 Samuel 16:7, Luke 16:15). So take your sadness, anger, frustration, and grief to the Lord. He is waiting for you at the foot of the cross.
Take it one day at a time - Some really helpful advice my counselor gave me in the early stages of grief was to do what you need to do in order to get through each day. We have to take it one day at a time. And if you’re anything like me, this is actually terribly hard. Sleep and eat adequate nutrient-dense foods, move joyfully if appropriate, go outside (Vitamin D!), and do the things that are specifically life-giving to YOU. Everything in my physical body wants to rush through grief, but I think as we move through grief and learn to hold both - the simple joys and suffering that every season can bring, we are being transformed and we are becoming who God created us to be. We are “allowing our souls to grow up.”
Romans 5:3 “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” We can hold onto the truth that ultimately, suffering will lead to hope. How can I be sure? The resurrection - the resurrection starts with grief. Think about the 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. They walked away in disappointment stating, “But we had hoped that he (Jesus) was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.” And who were the disciples telling? Jesus himself - the risen king. God’s love for us is the kind of love that outlives death. “Resurrection is a profound moment of clarity that then defines all of the ordinary.” The Gospel gives meaning to our suffering. And we can be sure our suffering will lead to hope.
I am not a grief expert; I am a human who is also in therapy and I needs tools and my community to help me walk through all of the things that get thrown at us in life. I don’t think having an eating disorder is a choice, but I do think recovery is a choice. I don’t think God causes suffering, but I do think hoping in a God who can make beauty from ashes and resurrect dead things is a choice. Belief is a choice. Psalm 38:9 says, “All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.” He sees you, He knows you, He loves you. He is worthy of our hope. God has taught me a lot about hope over the last year and a half. It’s so easy to be hopeful and believe the promises of God when we are at the top of a summit - answered prayers, desires fulfilled, times of celebrating… What's much harder to do is believe God when prayers go unanswered, when desires continue on as unmet longings, and in times of grieving. It’s hard to have hope in the valley, when His light feels dim. But his promises are still true even if they don’t feel true because of our circumstances. This time last year, I wrote this about hope that I thought I’d share as an encouragement;
For When Hope Feels Scary
Hope delayed makes the heart sick. And yet, hoping feels raw and risky. Hope risks disappointment. Hope risks having to heal again. Sometimes choosing hope feels like I’m choosing to reopen a wound that was seemingly healing just fine.
But will I ever regret having hope?
Hope is a confident expectation in the waiting. Sometimes in the waiting, we suffer. Martha suffered when she waited for Jesus at Lazarus’s tomb. Mary suffered as she waited for the days following Jesus’s crucifixion. Choosing hope means being willing to wait and being willing to wait sometimes feels like suffering.
But suffering produces endurance, endurance character, and character hope. And this hope - hope in Jesus - will not disappoint us. Why?
Because Jesus came and Lazarus was alive again. Because Jesus rose and he overcame the grave. Because Jesus died and now I get to live. And I think Jesus would want me to choose hope.
Choose hope. Choose life. He who promised is faithful.
If you are interested in exploring more about the Christian faith, or if you are a believer in Jesus and are struggling to see God in your eating disorder recovery story, check out Remade. Remade: (make something again or differently) is a weekly Christian eating disorder recovery support group. The bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. If you are a believer, you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you speaking clarity, life, and direction to your inner life. There also is a deceptive enemy scheming to sow lies and confusion into your inner life. As your story of redemption unfolds, know you are not alone, as you learn to discern God’s whisper vs the deceiver’s lies. Relearn who you were made to be, who God designed you to be. Recover, restore, and be remade in community.
Resources and references:
Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders by Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani
https://www.practicingtheway.org/course (Session 5 - meeting God in pain and suffering)
Other Mental Health Services Offered in PA, NJ, DE, SC, MD, CT, and FL
We offer a wide variety of services related to eating disorder recovery including trauma therapy! We offer Weekly Support Groups, Nutrition Services, and Family and Parent Therapy as well as Coaching, all tailored to meet the specific needs of the individual. We offer our services for Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge Eating, and Orthorexia as well as Maternal Mental Health, and eating disorder therapy for athletes online in New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Maryland, Florida, and Connecticut! We are here to offer our support and understanding in a safe and non-judgmental environment.
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Recovered and Restored is an eating disorder therapy center founded by Gabrielle Morreale, LPC. We specialize in helping teens and young women heal from eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, and binge eating disorder and treat disordered eating, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. We provide eating disorder therapy in the towns of Horsham, Upper Gwynedd, Lower Gwynedd, North Wales, Lansdale, Hatfield, Blue Bell, Doylestown, and nearby towns with eating disorder therapy. Also providing virtual eating disorder therapy in New Jersey, Delaware, and Florida. Some towns served virtually but are not limited to Pittsburg, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Center City, Cherry Hill, Haddonfield, Mount Laurel, Cape May, Avalon, Brick, Dover, New Castle, Bethany Beach, Marydel, and Oceanview
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