How to Defeat Harmful Habits (Counseling Through the Bible Series) (30 page)

“You’re gonna pay for yesterday. Open the cabinet.” Jena knew what was coming next. She saw the deadly stockpile of medicine in front of her. “Take the pills, any you can find. Do it! I don’t care what—just take something. You’ve been bad, and you must be punished.”
⁹⁴

Jena sensed herself weakening, the belittling and the bullying becoming too much for her to bear. But then she reached for the sharpest of “swords” contained in a stack of index cards strategically placed by the mirror.

“I am God’s creation, made in His image. God takes pleasure in me,” Jena read aloud.

There was an uneasy silence. Jena continued, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I have been chosen and set apart for God’s holy purpose.”
⁹⁵

The Bible had once again proven itself to be powerful: “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
⁹⁶

The sinister sister had once again been rendered speechless.

People like Cherry, who suffer from anorexia or bulimia, need to be told
it’s not about the food
.

They
need
to acknowledge that their true need is to have emotional wounds healed, and they
need
to understand that the starving and the bingeing and purging are actually distractions that cause them to avoid facing painful feelings deep within.

Anorexics and bulimics also
need
to be firmly told that society’s constant message that “thinness is the way to happiness” is a lie. People with eating disorders tend to isolate themselves from friends and social activities, and experience self-loathing rather than self-acceptance. Healthy eating leads to heightened energy, as well as a more robust attitude toward life.
⁹⁷

The primary need of the person suffering from anorexia or bulimia is not the food they need to receive, but the Lord they need to believe. They need to know experientially the One who made them and loves them and longs to heal them and meet their deepest inner needs.

“My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus”

(P
HILIPPIANS
4:19).

If you have concerns—or if others have expressed concern—about your weight or your eating and exercise patterns, take to heart these general principles:

1.
Agree to get a thorough medical checkup
. This condition is life threatening!

“The prudent see danger and take refuge,
but the simple keep going and suffer for it”

(P
ROVERBS
27:12).

2.
Acquire as much knowledge about eating disorders as possible
—for yourself and for those close to you.

“Plans fail for lack of counsel,
but with many advisers they succeed”

(P
ROVERBS
15:22).

3.
Attend weekly (or regular) sessions
with a knowledgeable, professional Christian counselor.

“Apply your heart to instruction and your ears
to words of knowledge”

(P
ROVERBS
23:12).

4.
Admit your inability to control your eating patterns
.

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want
to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”

(R
OMANS
7:15).

5.
Abandon the idea that you just need more willpower
. This is not a diet or willpower problem, but a battle that addresses strongholds.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ”

(2 C
ORINTHIANS
10:4-5; read also 2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

6.
Allow yourself to forgive those who have hurt you.
And even forgive yourself.

“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you”

(C
OLOSSIANS
3:13).

7.
Act in total faith on God’s power
to rescue you.

“In you, O L
ORD
, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame
.

Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness; turn your ear to

me and save me. Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go;

give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress”

(P
SALM
71:1-3).

The false starts should have proven fatal for Cherry Boone O’Neill. The huge ingestion of food into an emaciated body…the wretched ritual of purging…the swallowing of 60 laxative tablets in one sitting.
⁹⁸

Make no mistake—Cherry had a death wish, and it looked like it was coming true.

However, a full family intervention motivated Cherry to seek medical and mental help. She desperately needed a comprehensive understanding of the emotional needs she was trying to meet through her eating disorder. “The need for acceptance and approval—the need to be perfect—had been a driving force that ultimately brought me to the brink of death…I expended every effort to be the best I could possibly be in any given area of endeavor, only to repeatedly fall short of my goals and risk losing value in the eyes of others.

“Trying even harder, only to miss the mark again and again, resulted in compounded guilt and self-hatred.”
⁹⁹

This type of self-loathing guilt is seen in the Psalms:

“My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear”

(P
SALM
38:4).

No single approach to breaking addictions is ever enough because bondage is multi-faceted, and thus deliverance must incorporate numerous approaches. All addictions involve not only the body, but also the heart and soul of those they hold captive. That being the case, it is understandable that the Bible instructs us to

“love the L
ORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”

(D
EUTERONOMY
6:5).

When we have the grace of God operating in our lives, we are both equipped and empowered to make good use of the following treatment approaches to gain inner healing and overcome eating disorders.

•
Care from a medical professional:
Anorexia and bulimia exact a tremendous toll from the body. Health consequences can remain years after harmful eating habits have been conquered. A doctor and dietician can often offer helpful advice and treatment for those who have suffered from an eating disorder.

•
Counsel from a mental health professional:
Deeper issues and insecurities that contribute to an eating disorder must be confronted for lasting change to occur. Often a professional counselor can help direct someone with destructive eating patterns to a healthier view of one’s self and of food.

•
Connection with a community of believers:
Being part of a group of people who desire to follow Christ, are willing to reveal their vulnerabilities, and are available to offer and receive support is essential for permanent life-change in a believer. Become an active part of a group of Christians so you can receive spiritual direction and cultivate bonds that can support you when you need them most.

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ”

(G
ALATIANS
6:2).

Once Cherry started to receive sound biblical counsel, sustained support from her new loving husband, and an awareness of her true worth in God’s eyes, the humiliation of those tangled times of life began to lessen. “I likened myself to an intricately designed, fine gold chain that had become badly tangled in knots,”
¹⁰⁰
Cherry recalled. And it became a refreshing revelation “that the chain had never lost its original value merely because it was tangled.”
¹⁰¹

At age 23, Cherry realized she needed to discover her own God-given identity—apart from her famous parents and apart from her husband. She began to gain a true understanding of her worth. After all her years of struggle, she was eager to answer a befitting question: “Who is this Cherry, anyway?”
¹⁰²

Not only Cherry, but women all around the world need to know their God-given worth because the images holding them are inescapable—the idols of thinness that typically trigger anorexia.

The media’s message is this: “Beauty shines as the smallest number on the bathroom scales.” That lie is literally destroying young women. Even women in other countries who at one time weren’t exposed to Western media are now being snared by the
self-starvation syndrome
.

Decades ago, anorexia was primarily associated with young, affluent, white women. Now this eating disorder is being diagnosed within all demographics: all races, ages, and socioeconomic levels.
¹⁰³

South Pacific islanders in Fiji have traditionally held to a different concept of beauty than those in the West, but according to a study conducted by Dr. Anne Becker of the Harvard Eating Disorders Center, that began to change in the late 1990s when television became more easily accessible. In just three years, the number of teenage girls at risk for an eating disorder more than doubled, and the number of girls who said they forced themselves to vomit in order to maintain a specific weight increased from 3 percent to 15 percent.
¹⁰⁴

When Cherry Boone O’Neill changed her focus, she was set free from anorexia—she looked to a different standard, an eternal standard, God’s standard of truth. Based on the Bible, your true worth isn’t based on your outward appearance, but on who you are in Christ. In Him, you are infinitely loved and valued:

“Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our L
ORD
”

(R
OMANS
8:39).

According to the Bible, you can…

•
Know that if you have come into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus
, your
true identity
is in
Christ
Himself.

– You are a new creation in Christ. You are no longer what you were.

– If you allow Jesus to become the focus of your life—not food, not compulsion, but Christ—you will increasingly find freedom.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

(2 C
ORINTHIANS
5:17).

•
Know that the old “you” died.

– When you trusted in Christ alone as your Savior, the old “you” died, and He gave you a new nature, a new life, a new identity—in Him.

– Your thinking and behavior patterns may still compel you to crave food and obsess over thinness. These patterns, however, no longer need to control you because Christ has broken the power of your sin.

– As you learn to renew your mind with the help of God’s truth, the Lord will continue to break those compulsive patterns and set you free.

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”

(G
ALATIANS
2:20).

•
Know that even in the midst of your trials
, you are totally accepted by the Father.