When I was in residential treatment for my eating disorder, there were many people there for whom recovery seemed easy. Whatever their rock bottom was had awakened them to their illness, the pain it caused, and jolted them into what I would call a honeymoon period or recovery high. For them, the idea of entering a new stage of life in recovery was exhilarating. They were excited to try new foods, give up purging, over-exercising, binging, and let their eating disorder go. In fact, they seemed to have been cured from their eating disorder within a few days of being in treatment, and in some cases, the cure seemed to come overnight.
But this was not the case for me. For me, recovery felt like a slow and agonizing death. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes it felt like many deaths. Each bite of food was like many individual deaths. Each moment I chose to not binge, purge or over exercise felt like a death.
I was incredibly jealous of those who seemed to not struggle with giving up their eating disordered thoughts and habits. In my agony I begged Jesus to calm the storm in me as quickly as he calmed the sea in Matthew’s gospel:
And when he [Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And Behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:23-27)
As I prayed over this scripture I cried, “Jesus, why are you sleeping in my storm? Can’t you see I’m trying to get better and that I’m perishing anyway! Calm the storm or let me sink!”
When the Holy Spirit spoke to me, I did not hear what I expected to hear. Instead of words of comfort and promises of healing, I heard Jesus’s rebuke to the disciples when they awakened him, “Why are you afraid, O men of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26).
In that moment I realized, Jesus’s first response to His disciples was not to calm the storm around them. It was to rebuke them. I wondered, why? How could Jesus be so rude?
As I prayed over this message it occurred to me that throughout scripture Jesus says many times, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23). Jesus never promises that life will be easy, or that no harm will come to us. In fact, he warns that life will be difficult, and that harm will come to us. As I meditated on this and the hardships of life, the Holy Spirit revealed to me that in his rebuke to his disciples, Jesus was pointing out that there is more than one kind of peace. There is the peace that comes from having no external turmoil, and there is also the peace that comes from trusting in the presence of God, despite suffering.
Being a Christian is knowing that we are not alone in our suffering. God can handle every situation we encounter and will give us the grace to overcome any situation we encounter. We can find peace in God’s presence and in knowing that should a situation lead to long-suffering or death; God will help us through—to more this life, or to the next life. In other words, while there is the peace that comes from having no external turmoil, there is also the peace that comes from trusting in the presence of God, despite suffering.
There is the peace that comes from having no external turmoil, and there is also the peace that comes from trusting in the presence of God, despite suffering.
I’m going to remember this quote. I love that you always say what I need to hear.