I did not intend on sharing my own story when I started out writing this series. The reality is that I do not consider my own experiences and struggles to be very different from those of many other women, certainly many that I have talked with about these things.

As I was writing the posts, the Holy Spirit impressed a verse upon my heart. That “if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” John 8:36. You shall be free, the Bible promises. I remembered the years of loathing and fighting against my body, I remembered the sense of expectation and perceived judgment from others about the way I looked, I remembered the rigid ‘rules’ I would hold myself to with food and with exercise, I remembered the failure and desperation and futility of it all.

And I realised then the power of God in my life. That on my own I was unable to break free, but through my relationship with Jesus, I am free indeed. I thought it might be good to share this so that if you can relate to this struggle, you know there truly is a way out and I am proof of it. And more than anything else, to say to Jesus, thank you my beautiful, beautiful Saviour.

At the age of 20 I took drastic measures to lose weight. I had been used to being on the ‘heavier side of slim’ and resolved to lose it all. I remember seeing a movie at the time with a scene where the lead actress had breakfast. There she sat reading the paper glamorously dishevelled and sipping black coffee, an untouched plate of scrambled eggs on the table in front of her.

As I watched the scene, impressionable and impressed, I became aware of the actress’ collarbone area which was clearly visible. All of the bones protruded. It was literally a case of skin and bone. For some weird, irrational reason I was really struck by this, and it became a kind of benchmark for me in my quest for thinness.

My bones eventually protruded like that. I lost all the fat off my body, so much so that it affected my menstrual cycle (which happens in cases of extreme weight loss). Insomnia is also a side-effect and many nights I lay awake in my bed unable to sleep because my tummy was cramped with hunger. I didn’t mind this though; in fact I delighted in it thinking that my body would be that much thinner by the morning.

The affirmation of others only spurred me on. I started to get approached by agents and model scouts in cafes and at the gym. I thought these opportunities would somehow be really validating but ironically, the same insecurity that was driving my weight loss was the same insecurity that plagued me at an audition or photo-shoot, which I inevitably mucked up (and then felt even more insecure!).

It truly is a mirage. You believe that once you “get there” you will feel acceptable and confident and in control but actually, all the same insecurities and doubts are still there – only in a thinner package. If anything, the insecurities get worse because now you feel the pressure to maintain it!

And that’s where things became horrible. Life turned into a prison of self-imposed rules governing everything from what I ate, to how much I ate, to whether I fulfilled my daily quota of full-on exercise at the gym. I felt “safe” and “on track” if I stuck to the rules and did not deviate from my little daily rituals, but if I did (and of course you do!), then that was it! Fear, failure, frustration and a sense of desperation would take hold and after that, a steely resolve to somehow make up for the failure by some kind of deprivation.

In a journal from that time I wrote an entry about this “failure” after having a meal where I ate too much for my rules. One part reads “Panic. Weeks to get back to where I was. Weeks to feel OK again. When am I going to feel OK again?” The wretchedness of it all makes me so sad to read now, “sinews stretched and so sore [from my crazy amounts of exercise]. So hungry …”

Tyrannical rules are impossible to sustain. Instead of joy and anticipation, it would fill me with fear and dread to be invited out to restaurant with friends for example. Food with any kind of fat content was not allowed in the prison I had created, and I could not be sure I could control that at a restaurant.

Of course these futile attempts to maintain thinness eventually involved more drastic measures. This is a slippery slope and it easily becomes compulsive. Even though I did try to force myself to throw up, thankfully, I was never able to. As I look back I see this as God’s preservation on my life as I don’t know where this might have led. It’s important to say that from a medical point of view, I was neither anorexic or bulimic. What my experience shows though is that struggles with body image can be painful and uncontrollable without being as acute as a formal eating disorder.

Around this time I had a full-on encounter with God (that is a story for another time hopefully). I had always gone to church and ‘believed in God,’ but this was something very different. Christianity is not about living a good life and going to church out of duty, it is about having a relationship with the Living God. If no one has ever told you, Jesus is alive right now and He wants to show His reality to you and give you eternal life and love you and free you. Do you know how deeply you are loved by Him?

“And I ask Him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us” [Ephesians 3:17-20 – The Message] .

And so when I had this Love encounter, I was changed. I could not leave Him on the “Sunday morning shelf” anymore, it’s impossible. I passionately and joyfully made Jesus the centre of my world and He began to heal and restore the deepest parts of me that were broken and had the default thinking of this culture we are part of.

The most insidious part of being trapped in this kind of pursuit is the self-rejection that goes hand in hand with it. This took some years for God to heal in me as I struggled to believe Him rather than the tape that had always played in my mind that I was unacceptable. It still plays from time to time more than ten years on, but now I am “so rooted and grounded in [Christ’s] love” (Ephesians 3:16) that it rolls off me.

Now, I have freedom. I enjoy this body that God says is wonderful and marvellous and fearfully made (in psalm 139). I enjoy being toned or soft and revel in the knowledge that my husband loves me as I am! And even more, loves that I am a woman at rest. And last, but by no means least, I love this freedom to enjoy coffee and cake and as many restaurants as my friends invite me to . Truly, Jesus says, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of” John 10:10.

Thanks so much for reading this series on ‘Beauty.’ May these words below be for each of us, and may each of us respond to His glorious invitation ~

“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me …” Song of Songs 2:10

© Copyright 2007 Birgit Whelan