Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So!

    "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so" - Psalm 107:2
I had the privilege to go to the Redemption Group celebration at my church last night which was literally a night of worship and people sharing their stories of what God has done and continues to do in their lives.  It was absolutely beautiful.
As I sit in the early morning at my local Starbucks eating breakfast and drinking a soy latte I feel led by the Lord to share my own redemption story.  Please read this story in a way which shows God's work in my life and on my heart and not anything that I have done on my own.  Praise God that I did not and could not do any of this on my own but rather ALL was done by Him.  I hope and pray that speaking truth and sharing my story will only bring you closer to Him.

I was born into a family which was pretty dysfunctional from the very beginning.  This is nothing new for me to know and if you asked anyone in my family they would say the same.  From a very early age I witnessed my dad treat my mom very poorly and as my sister and later I got older he began to treat us in the same way.  Verbal abuse was the norm and in order for our dad to like us, we had to be perfect by his standards.  We had to speak nicely to him even in the midst of his yelling at us and calling us names.  We had to let him do whatever he felt like doing and if we were hurt by anything, it was inappropriate and disrespectful to bring it to his attention.  My heavenly Father was present in my life but my earthly dad was much more important in my eyes.  He was much more important in his eyes as well. My dad never encouraged us in our relationship with Christ.  My mother took us to church but in her quiet nature did not speak biblical truth very often.  This began my quest for perfection.  From as early as I can remember I believed I was not beautiful and sadly, I equated beauty with perfection.  Because I was not perfect, I was not beautiful.  My quest for perfection came out in different ways and when I got into High School I believed that the easiest way to become beautiful was to become skinny.  I made a deliberate choice to stop eating.  I did not see it as a problem but rather something that every girl has to chose at some point in their life.  Not even understanding the sin in this my body and thoughts of food became an idol.  I became sad and angry at the people around me.  It just seemed as though they had it all together when I was putting up a daily fight to be that way.  How do people become so perfect?  Throughout high school I was continually being fed the lies of my father of who I was and who I could never be.  I came to the conclusion that I was not lovable the way I was and I had to continue to try harder.
Then God led me to a college which was a 13 hour drive away from home.  Coming out of such a difficult family environments does not go smoothly.  I came to the conclusion that not eating and being skinny was not what was going to get me love.  So I gave up and quickly realized that food was my friend.  And it became too close of a friend.  I began relying on food for my comfort, my joy, my peace, my healer, my strength and my motivation.  I found freedom in the fact that I could now eat without the burden of imperfection but I was in slavery at the other side of the pendulum.  I would eat to excess and quickly found myself in the bathroom in an attempt to throw up my shame of eating so much.  If anyone would have asked me if I had any sins in my life that were in my face everyday I would have said no and fully believed that I didn't.  A week before going back to Seattle for my second year of college I listened to a beautiful talk by one of the pastor's wives at my church on gluttony.  The Holy Spirit spoke straight to me as she read Philippians 3:19, "Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.  Their mind is on earthly things."  I was stunned and saddened at the fact that I was blatantly choosing food over the God of the universe.  Although I was convicted of my sin and did not know what to do.  I began searching high and low for things to do in order to stop what I was doing.  I began reading books searching for exactly how to repent of something that had been a part of my daily life for the past seven years.  I had doubts that it was truly possible to repent because I didn't remember a time when I honored God with the things I ate.  To be honest I believed that was something God didn't deal with.  The basic act of eating was way too basic.  That is something we need to fix ourselves.  My binge eating and throwing up continued on for another year and when I got to winter quarter of my junior year of college I joined a Redemption Group at my church.  This was surprisingly something that I thought was a good idea to go through but not completely necessary for me.  My bingeing and purging was definitely something that I knew needed to change and I was reading books on the subject in an effort to find the best method for healing.  I sadly still had the idea in my head that it was way too below God for Him to even consider the idea of healing me from that.  Throughout Redemption Group I think I talked about this once or twice.  It was not the center of my discussions at group.  The center of the subject talked about at group was who God was.  It was revealed to me(by the Holy Spirit) that God is my loving Father who delights in me just the way that I am.  Today, tomorrow and forever will He be joyful to call me His daughter.  After Redemption Group, God absolutely transformed my heart, soul and mind and directed all of my thoughts, passions and desires on Him and bringing glory to His name!  I have never experienced the peace, joy and healing as I have in the past three months.  I no longer turn to food the way I have in the past; taking it away to make me perfect or eating in excess to make me feel loved.  Those things I find in Jesus Christ.
I have had a few people ask me what I did to come to the place that I am at.  I had tried for a couple years to try behavior modifications to escape from this slavery.  Please hear my words when I say I did not do anything but rather God pursued me.  My sin was a huge brick wall that was getting in the way of Him using me to the fullest and praise be to Him that He broke it down.
I could not be more thankful to my God for the healing He has brought to me.  I can truly say, more than I ever have been able to before, that I want and by God's grace I will live my life here on this earth bringing glory to God's name.
And I hope that is what my story does.  Brings glory to God's name and the power that He is more than capable of doing.