Letter To Myself From August 1, 2011
Updated: Oct 9, 2020
This letter is from a time in my life when I struggled immensely with my eating habits. I recently graduated from high school and was about to go off to Iowa State to start my college experience. I had been starving myself for the past four to five months, and a friend had just died from a rare disease.
Many emotions were swirling around in my heart as I wrote this letter. So many thoughts filled my head that I had to jot them down. It was probably one of the first times I journaled. The message is partly a word to me and somewhat a word to God, pleading with him to help me change.
The most prominent emotion I felt was frustration. I was angry at myself for starving myself, and I wanted to stop. I was tired of the lies, and they were becoming just that, lies. I was agitated that I had taken life for granted. Life felt too precious to throw it away on something as shallow as an unachievable image.
This letter is in my study Bible that I have had since high school. It lives by 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. The passage is about the body being a temple of God and commands everyone to honor God.
"19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
My body belongs to God. He made it, and I have to treat it as a gift from God. No more starving myself. No more skipping meals. No more emotionally eating. I have such a huge problem with my body. I have to stop calling myself fat. I have to stop putting myself down because I ate too much. I have a problem with emotional eating. As soon as I screwed up starving myself, I would eat everything. I am sick of it. I’m sick of seeing myself as fat when I’m not. I’m sick of eating so much at one time that I want to baft. God told us in 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 that our body is actually his as everything else he created, so I should treat it that way. Just because I am not model skinny doesn’t mean I’m fat. I am a very normal weight for my height. Some other great features God has given me are my powerful athletic arms and legs. I am very athletic and can do lots of things with my body that others can’t. My hair is so beautiful and long. I can do just about anything with it. It is so gorgeous. My eyes are my next good feature. They are a beautiful shade of blue. I’m going to stop calling myself fat. I’m going to start eating healthy all the time. I’m going to stop letting the scale rule my life, and my weight keeps me up at night.
Dear God,
Please be with me in the weeks and years to come. Please help me to remember 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20. I know I need to start treating my body better because you have me this awesome gift. I am very blessed to have such an awesome body. Please help me to treat it as your temple from now on. In your name, Amen.
Renae
Though it wasn’t a full 180 after writing that letter, it was a starting point. That moment was the first time I had been so fed up; I decided to do something about it. A few more incidents occurred before entirely changing, but if it wasn’t for this letter, I don’t know where I would be with my eating disorder.
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