“So, Krista, have you ever struggled with an eating disorder?”

Constance Rhodes, founder of Finding Balance and author of Life Inside the Thin Cage, was on the other line. She had just asked if I would sing *Beautiful People, a song I wrote, and participate in an interview on the new Finding Balance site.

“No,” I replied, proud to say I had dodged that bullet. “I’ve never had anorexia, bulimia, or any of those other, you know, major eating disorders.” I paused. “I just have typical girl stuff. You know, sometimes I’m preoccupied with eating and working out, fear of what the scale will say. The normal stuff.”

But as the words escaped my lips, it hit me: this shouldn’t be “normal.” This isn’t the way I was meant to live.

As our conversation continued, I thought back over the past 10 years; my patterns and tendencies, the skewed view I had of my body. Times that I worked out, not to be healthy, but in an effort to erase the effects of eating. Times that I deprived myself in order to feel control. Times I let the numbers on a scale determine whether I was satisfied with myself or depressed for the day.

Because I had never given myself over to anorexia, bulimia, compulsive eating, obsessive exercising, or taking laxatives, I had missed the reality of my own borderline disorder. I had tread meticulously, careful never to cross over into full-blown sickness. But the truth is, for more than 10 years, I had wrestled with a sometimes-paralyzing perspective on food, exercise, and my body.

These past several months have been revealing, tough, and freeing. There’s no war won yet, but as with any addiction, any disordered way of living, big or small, the first battle is just admitting something’s wrong.

Then, after we admit, we dare. Dare to listen to truth, and dare to believe it. I’ve been listening to the truth about my body lately, hearing God whisper tender realities over the screaming lies of a dysfunctional society, over my own hypercritical voice. And I believe Him – most of the time.

In these trenches, He says, “You are beautiful. This is the body I made for you. I sculpted every line, formed every curve, molded every inch. My fingerprints are all over you. And I don’t make mistakes.”

If Constance were to call me today and ask if I had ever struggled with an eating disorder, my answer would be different. “Yes. It’s still a battle, too. But I am daring to see me, to see the beauty and the truth, to be free.”

*Use QuickTime to view music video

~~~~~

If someone you know is struggling with any type of eating disorder, please get help immediately. Go to Finding Balance for information, personal testimonies, and access to trained professionals.

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“Everyone has a story.”
Neil LaBute, director

A few nights ago, I found myself smack dab in the middle of one of those rare, sweet moments; I possessed sole control of the remote. I had just finished dinner and was guiltlessly flipping, lingering on chick flicks, HGTV, and the Cosby Show. Then, involuntarily, I clicked channel 65.

And there she was.

That beaming Miss America smile. That sassy Italian flare when using words like ricotta and prosciutto. That inherent ability to cook decadent and stylish cuisine with ease.

I rolled my eyes at Giada De Laurentiis. The woman is just about everything I’d like to be – and it’s sickening! An Italian beauty. A flawless chef. And, just tell me, is it weird if I mention her perfectly perky curves?

Anywho, all this to say, I’ve been totally jealous of Giada, oftentimes masking my green monster by mocking the way she looks into the camera, pinches her fingers in front of her face, and brags that her Mascarpone Marsala sauce is “sooooo good.” (My response, a little childish, I know.)

So there I was, face to face with Giada and her “Chefography,” the story of how she came to be a Food Network celebrity. However, as I learned about her life, the paths she took, the hardships she endured, something unexpected happened. My heart broke a little.

I listened to her close friends and family share memories and snapshots of her life, and I smiled. I even got tears in my eyes a few times. Her story looked strangely familiar, a little like my own. By the end, I so related to her strengths, weaknesses, successes and hard knocks that I found myself feeling like we could very well be friends. Even sisters. (Of course, she would be the quintessential older sister with shiny hair, a year-round tan and a size C cup.)

Nevertheless, after the show ended, I muted the TV from the onslaught of obnoxious commercials and sat in silence on my couch. And my heart broke a little more, this time at my misplaced judgments, my uncalled-for pride, my bitter envy. But from the cracks, blooms of mercy and humility pushed their way through.

It’s profound, what happens when we learn someone’s story, when we take a minute to die to self, get a little humble, and listen – really listen – to the sweet and bitter strains of their lives. Assumptions deteriorate. Pride crumbles. Even our own defenses fall. And compassion, acceptance, even beauty replaces our insecurities, our need to be right, and all the things we thought were so true about someone.

Now if I could only get my hands on the biographies of Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and J. Lo…

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I spent this past weekend in Peoria, visiting with friends and family. While every trip for the past seven years has consisted solely of wedding planning, funeral planning, or holiday cheering, this visit found me stretching out a bit, released from such demands.

As a result of this freedom, it was one of my favorite trips to Peoria. I spent leisurely time reconnecting with two aunts, chatting with two uncles, sipping tea with a dear family friend, catching up with my old hairdresser, and carving out a few hours for a showing of To Kill a Mockingbird at Peoria’s oldest picture house. I even made it to the cemetery to stand in front of a speckled granite stone and remember Junebug and Arlie.

Later that night, my Auntie laid out some old pictures and we remembered some more. Black and white, tattered, crinkled, ruffle-edged pictures sprawled across the table. They were few (Grandma June didn’t save things, especially pictures), but I had never seen these before and I soaked up the new story each one told.

As I drove back to Nashville a couple days later, past lush plots of soybean and corn fields, one of those faded and colorless snapshots lingered in my mind, haunting me in a way.

Grandma stood on the right, bookending some old friend. Her arm linked with the friend in the middle. In her other hand she held a clutch purse, which I imagine was a navy shade of blue. Behind the three women, a pond rippled with tiny waves, and a Rambler and a Chevy Bel Air parked at the water’s perimeter.

The person taking the picture had obviously just said something funny because the women with Grandma were giggling. Still, they stood upright, vertical, proper and posed. But Grandma had transcended. I mean, the woman was utterly limp with laughter.

The arm linked with her friend’s hung loose. Her purse dangled from loose fingers and probably even dropped after the Kodak’s shutter snapped. Her legs buckled, weak and bent at the knees. Her shoulders hunched forward, shrugging up and down in this moment of hilarity.

But it’s her face that finishes the story, her face that opens a window to something in her spirit. With eyes closed, mouth open wide, head cocked back in a robust convulsion of laughter, she lost herself. She had completely forgotten pretense or propriety, surrendered to the side-splitting power of some kind of wit.

Laughter does that to us, I suppose. If we’ll let it. In an instant, a belly laugh can shatter our most carefully constructed walls, tear down our deeply entrenched defenses, unravel our most tightly wound knots, and even heal our still-bleeding wounds.

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Run, run, run, the law demands,
But gives us neither feet nor hands,
Far better news the Gospel brings:
It bids us fly and gives us wings.

– John Bunyan (1628-1688)
Pilgrims Progress

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No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
The dream that you wish
Will come true.

Cinderella

For the past several months, I’ve been telling people I’m working on a novel. I’ve said it with all the gusto, intentionality and hope in the world. And I have been working on a novel. And I am still working on a novel.

But now I realize that was a scary thing to do, telling people. Because what if I stop? What if, some God-forsaken, writing-blocked, rainy Tuesday afternoon I find myself sitting sallow and hunched in front of my iBook and decide I don’t want to work on a stupid novel anymore? What if I find out that I am not, in fact, cut out to be a novelist?

It’s scary letting people, and lots of them, in on your dreams, your ideas, the things you’re trying on as you seek out what you were uniquely made to do. It’s scary because what will they think of you if you quit this, too? Like the last “dream”? When are you ever going to get serious and just do something with your life?

They don’t say that though. You do. And they wouldn’t have to. Their knowing eyes and forced smiles say it all. Or is that you in the mirror, looking back with scorn and doubt and disbelief?

But back to all those people you’ve told: they mean well. You know that. You can’t get mad at them. They only want you to be happy. But to them – and you – it seems you are dead-set on being unhappy, stymied, discontent. But you’re not really.

You’ve just started having more bad days than good. More doubts than peace. And you know what this work, this life, this industry requires and you’re not sure you have what it takes to meet those demands in any number of ways. As things go, you’re not even sure you want to. Because then what?

Success?

And then what?

And it hits you like no 2 x 4 or Mack truck ever could: that’s what you’re afraid of, damn it anyway. Success. You’re afraid of success! What if I really do make it after all? What if I really am good enough, smart enough and people like me? What if the dream, the wish my heart makes, really does come true?

So, you’ve figured it out: you want to fail. It’s easier that way. It’s status quo. It’s comfortable. You are where you are and it’s not so bad. Maybe that dream come true stuff won’t feel as good as you thought it would. And it’s easier not knowing; not knowing the disappointment, the ache, the emptiness of arriving at your destination and finding it wanting, lacking.

“It’s not what you think it’s gonna be like,” you hear from all those disengaged winners seated on the heap of ambitions achieved. No sir, no ma’am, thank you very much: failure is the option for me, you decide. And you brainstorm the next “passion” you could move on to, what you’re pretty good at, what you sort of like.

Sky-rise window-washer?

Rocket scientist?

Snake-handler?

But then something breaks through. That yellow flower in the cracked pavement, so happy in its yellow-ness and optimism. You feel a fool as you reach down to pick it, even more a fool as you reach out and believe. But you remind yourself of the reasons; there’s something bigger here than success and failure and what people think, something greater than dreams, hopes, doubts and belief.

So you take a deep breath, throw your laptop in the back seat, and go to that spot – the one in the library at the far table facing the courtyard and walking trail. And you work on your novel, again. And you think one of your sentences today was kinda good.

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