The Power of Faith in Eating Disorder Recovery
I spent most of my life searching for a way to feel good enough. I looked for just the right outfit to make me feel cool and confident. I poured over magazines for beauty tips and style advice. I read diet and nutrition books to learn “the secret” to eating that seemed to elude me. I tried an endless stream of videos and classes to whip my body into shape. But no matter how much I searched, I never seemed to find what I so desperately needed to “fix” myself.
Much to my surprise, my efforts of chronic dieting and compulsive exercise only made me feel worse, not better. I began to wonder if I could ever do enough to finally feel good enough. At one of my lowest points, I questioned if healing my relationship with food and body was even possible. Then I felt the Lord whisper to my heart “I am the cure.”
The power of faith in the eating disorder recovery process cannot be understated. As Christians, we have special blessings in our eating disorder recovery through our trust in God, our identity in Christ, and the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. I relied on all three in my own recovery journey and can personally testify to the power each provides.
Building on a Foundation of Trust in God
Healing from disordered eating and eating disorders requires rebuilding trust with our bodies. This can be hard to do when dieting and disordered behaviors have taught us to distrust and disconnect from our bodies. As Christians, we get to rebuild this trust from the ground up based upon our trust in God the Father. We know God created us. He made our bodies wonderfully and His design is good. We trust God, so we can trust our bodies.
“We know God created us. He made our bodies wonderfully and His design is good. We trust God, so we can trust our bodies.”
With eyes of faith in recovery, we can see our hunger and fullness signals as gifts from God built into His amazing design of our bodies. These gifts can guide us in healing our relationship with food. Learning to listen for the cues and sensations in our bodies doesn’t just improve our ability to honor our hunger and feel our fullness without fear, it also speaks into our ability to respond to our emotions and move our bodies in ways that promote well-being.
Thanks to God’s incredible and intricate design of the human form, our bodies are constantly communicating with us about how to care for ourselves. Trusting these body signals is highly individualized and personalized because God made each one of us unique. What a blessing to be able to trust the internal wisdom of our bodies, put there by God, rather than external wisdom of the world telling us what we “should” and “should not” be doing.
Reclaiming our Identity in Christ
Just living in our appearance-obsessed culture can make the lies of the enemy seem like truth. It's so easy to let our worth become wrapped up in weight. The experience of dieting and disordered eating just ties that up in knots. We have to do the work of untangling our body from our worthiness. Our faith is such a blessing in this untangling process. It helps us to recognize and remember that our worth is inherent because we were made in the image of God. With eyes of faith, we can see that all bodies are good, because God made them and called them very good.
Restoring our relationship with food requires uprooting our worth from the world entirely. It's not enough to simply reject the lies of diet culture, we have to believe what's true. Our faith enables us to plant our roots down deep into our identity in Christ.
Reclaiming my identity from diet culture and, by faith, fully believing who I am in Jesus Christ has been pivotal in healing my disordered relationship with food. I invite you to speak life and truth over yourself with these statements of faith:
I am chosen by God and adopted as His child. (Ephesians 1:5-6, 11-12)
I am not defined by my appearance.
I am a set-free child of God. (Romans 8:1-2)
I am not the number on the scale.
I am the made-new child of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
I am not made to be measured by culture’s definition of beauty.
Learning to Live by the Spirit
As we rebuild our relationship with food and body and allow the Lord to restore and redeem it from diet culture, at first it can feel like we are fish out of water. We are basically learning a new way to live our everyday lives in how we eat, how we move, and how we see ourselves.
But a beautiful thing happens as we learn to notice and trust our body signals: those listening skills and awareness we cultivated make it easier to hear that still small voice. The more we tune in to our bodies, the easier it becomes to tune in to Holy Spirit. This opens the door to not just Spirit-led eating, but Spirit-led living where we allow Holy Spirit to guide our choices and show us what we really need.
The more we tune in to our bodies, the easier it becomes to tune in to Holy Spirit.
Faith is a powerful force in eating disorder recovery. It gives us a foundation of trust in God the Father to begin the healing in our physical bodies. It helps us to reject the lies the world tells us about who we are and stand on the truth of who we are in Christ. It leads us forward in a new way to live, by the Spirit. As we trust God, lean into Him and depend on Him, our faith will naturally increase. What a beautiful gift! As it enables us to recover, our faith increases and then enables us to live a restored, redeemed, and renewed life.
Our healing is not just for us, it is for the glory of God. As we allow our faith to shine through as the most powerful force in our eating disorder recovery, it begs the question:
How could you ever trust your body again?
Because I trust God the Father who made my body.
How did you reclaim your identity from your body?
Because of who I am in Christ.
How did you learn a new way of living, eating, and moving?
By the power of Holy Spirit guiding me.
The glory of God is displayed as our relationship with food is healed and restored by the power of Jesus on the cross and Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
Prayer for Faith in Recovery
Praise you Holy Trinity for your amazing power and grace! Apart from you we can do nothing. Abiding in you, we can do great things for Your kingdom. What a privilege it is to partner with You in this life and especially on our recovery journeys. Thank You for Your goodness and mercy which restores, redeems, and renews us. Increase our faith so we can live fully - from You, in You, and for You. Amen.
Erin L. Todd is a wife, dog mom, attorney-by-day and writer-by-night living in St. Petersburg, Florida with her husband Robbie and french bulldog Rufus. As a redhead who battled insecurity and body image issues for over 30 years, she now claims the concept of being both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously. Her blog “Ginger In Progress” was born from a spiritual awakening where Jesus set her free from diet prison. Now she is on a mission to empower and equip women to Follow Jesus Not Diets. She is co-host of the Intuitive Eating for Christian Women podcast which teaches listeners how the principles of intuitive eating align with scripture so they can improve their relationship with food, their body and God and cast out dieting for good!