It was a downright heavy day, and I couldn’t pinpoint why. Nothing in my life seemed overly difficult. I simply couldn’t find an explanation for the heavy feelings of dread, self-loathing, and hopelessness that consumed me out of nowhere. I was sobbing as I grabbed my prayer journal to process this with Jesus.

“Lord, I feel like I’m being full-on attacked through a beratement of lies! I know this isn’t Your truth and it doesn’t even sound like me, so I’m bringing it to You to help me through it. I’m crying because I feel ugly, gross, and unworthy to exist or take up space in the world. I feel I’m a waste, and that no one can stand how large my body has become. I feel like a disappointment to myself, family, my team, and to You. I feel that my husband and family deserve better. It feels like this will never improve. Despite all my recovery efforts, it doesn’t seem to make a difference in my body and I FEEL OVER IT.”

Now, before contacting my team out of concern (and thank you if t...

Shame is like a smothering cocoon; it seems "safe", and it's not. The only way you can emerge from it is to invite someone else into the space so they can help you break the seal. It shines light into where there was only darkness. And once there is a pinhole from sharing (or confessing, which I honestly believe is a deeper, more intimate action), true healing and transformation can result.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” -Isaiah 9:2 NIV

I discovered this when I told my husband, after 28 years of marriage, and 32 years of knowing each other, about my past struggles with food & body image. And by making that choice, in 2011, to invite him into that dark, what I thought, ugly space, our relationship deepened and there was more intimacy in our emotional relationship and in our marriage.

I recently lost a friend to an eating disorder. She regularly talked about the guilt & shame she felt over w...

I was 8 years old when I got my first look at pornography. 

It was way before the internet, and at that time, this type of book would either come through the mail in a plain brown wrapper or be purchased at an adult bookshop. I can’t tell you how my parents got them, I know it was easy to find them in their closet.

With a bit of effort, I would climb onto an open drawer and up to the top shelf where the stack of “picture books” were. And on stay-at-home days, if my mom was working and out of the house, this was a ritual, something I anticipated. This was the pattern until I was 19 and accepted the Lord. I actually took them with me when I moved out, and then dumped them in a dumpster, like a sacrifice.

At 8 years old, I had no idea what these feelings were going on in my body as I looked at the pictures, but I did know that when I grew up, I would look just like those beautiful women, with large breasts and curvy hips and make-up and manicured nails.

Unfortunately, my body did n...