Facing the Distance

I have always loved pictures like this one. Facing the sunlight. Stepping up to what must be addressed or into a blessing. Embracing what lies ahead. Resting in the peace and joy that surrounds.

I have a confession. I am a little obsessed with Pinterest. I was a kiddo that loved cutting pictures out of magazines and saving them in a book that I could look at over and over. I started calling them Look Books, because that is what I did with them and I'm pretty sure that I heard it in a movie once? Pinterest became my virtual magazines but even better because I could find just about anything I wanted, and I could make different boards for different topics. As of today, I maybe (I totally do) have over 28.5 thousand pins saved on Pinterest (yeah wow, I know, that's nuts). I have an entire board of photos like this one called "Facing the Distance".

When I look at an image like this, I feel inspired and hopeful. I feel ready to face the battle. I am a very visual person, so images and art mean a great deal to me. I love vision boards and being able to look at an image that ignites emotion in me. This photo represents where I am at. While it is hopeful, I also have a long way to go, and I'm chasing the light.

I have struggled with my weight off and on since I was a child. I have been at a "healthy" weight for periods of time, even if the measures taken to achieve these weights were not healthy for me. I have also carried lots of extra weight on my body at different times in my life. It's been a bit of a roller coaster with just about every technique I could apply to maintain or pursue my desired body shape, size, or weight. Most of it was abusive to my mind, heart and body. All of it was focused on myself discipline. All of it depended on my effort. All of it pushed God aside. I didn't know where He was supposed to be when I was trying to conquer this struggle.

I have had some success over the years. I have learned through trial and error how my body typically responds to my efforts. What works and what doesn't. When I got married in 2009, I was fit and in the best shape I had ever been as an adult. A few months after I got married, it all changed. Everything I thought I knew about my body turned on its head. My body was gaining weight out of control despite my greatest effort. I'm talking being in the gym for hours and eating very clean. Sleeping enough and drinking water. I incorporated everything I knew to try and get control over my body and I still gained 60 pounds in less than a year. I panicked. Not having control over my body was causing anxiety that crippled me. I was newly married, and my body image was so important to me. I was in the doctors every month getting tested and trying to find answers and my blood work always came back normal. I kept going back explaining that it wasn't just the weight gain, I had many other symptoms that were new and troubling me.

After a year of tests and scans I finally had answers. I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), Hypothyroid, and I have a tumor on my pituitary gland. It was a storm that caused my hormones to go absolute bananas. While there was relief in having answers, it would be years of research, trial and error, and experimentation towards regaining "control" over my body with very little progress. Let's get real, I had no control, and I have obsessed over this lack of control. This process stirred a deep-rooted disturbance in me that would take over a decade to figure out. We will get into this more later.

So where was God in all of this? I was raised in church and had believed in Him since I was very young. He was there with me the whole time, but I was not engaging with Him at all. I was partly ashamed of myself. "What had I done to myself?" I was also very stubborn. I wanted to do this on my own. I didn't understand how God could or would carry this mess I created. I was now well over 100 pounds overweight, and I was solely relying on myself and "self-help" resources that became my new Bible. In my mind this issue with my body, my relationship with food, and the state of my health were entirely separate from God. It was an isolating, dark, and difficult time full of angst.

Looking back on this time, I wish I had just looked up. I will never understand why things unfold as they do, but I see God has been working on my heart slowly and gently. How amazing He is. It's been very humbling in the last few years to realize how monumentally stubborn I am and how incredibly God loves me in spite of this.

I have spent many many aimless years looking for answers, trying new things, healing, pursuing, pushing. While this maybe left me in a better place than where I started, I was simultaneously just as lost and just as empty. I love answers and I am a truth seeker. Argh! How could it be that I just couldn't figure this out? Where are the answers that I am missing? I didn't understand. I had given everything I had. Poured out every bit of my heart to be free of this torment. I felt so desperate.

In 2020, I was having a crisis. Who wasn't in 2020? Mine was not particularly from the Covid Pandemic, although that didn't help. My collapse was more of an identity crisis that coincidentally happened during the pandemic. Regardless, here I was, completely lost and desperate. Everything I knew, everything I had chased, left me empty. I had done everything I was aware of to try to heal and restore. What was left of me?

My fall to my knee's moment was in my kitchen. I was having a beyond terrible day. I felt like everything in my life had crumbled to pieces. Not just my food issues and health, my job, relationships. Everything felt lost and broken. So, I broke. I was sobbing in the middle of my little kitchen, and I fell to my knees. Which I remember really hurting because of my knees hitting the tile floor. I had been raised to turn to God my whole life and despite my stubborn and proud efforts to do things on my own, I was coming back home to Him. I knew I needed to surrender and allow God to carry my struggle and burden. This had always been a challenge to me because in my mind I had more control (seeing a theme about control?) over outcomes if I did it myself and this felt safer to me, but I knew it wasn't right. I needed to surrender, but how? I began to pray, on my knees. I was telling God that I can't do it anymore on my own, it feels impossible. That I don't know what to do. Help!

Suddenly everything clicked. All of these parts of my life that I felt so desperate about had become my identity. This is why when they crumbled, I was lost. My identity was meant to be a daughter of the King who had power to work good out in my life, but I had made it all these other earthly things. Now I was starting to understand the work that was ahead of me to get myself under my proper identity. I had broken and I needed to rebuild, but I wanted to do it in a way that lasted. I knew this meant building my identity and foundation on God. I was overwhelmed feeling like I was at the beginning. I had no clue where to start but I was eager to get to work.

I started seeing a Christian Therapist. I had seen several therapists over the years during my pilgrimage towards healing, but this was the first Christian therapist, and it was a game changer. Having someone help me with my anxiety and negative thought patterns but also understand the value in pointing me away from relying on myself and pointing me to God, was life altering. My therapy world that I was so familiar with was now colliding with developing my spiritual character. I realized that I had made food an idol that provided comfort, security, and joy. The discoveries being revealed to me were blowing my mind. I have been building, learning, falling, rising with Jesus leading the way since 2020.

I shared this whole process with my parents, who are my dearest friends. We share everything. I wish I could say that everything clicked, and all the fireworks went off and I sailed into the sunset as a new person. It did for my parents. My dad, as you are learning about in his book and our podcast, was able to apply these concepts quickly and invite Jesus to guide his healing. I, however, have struggled. I invite Jesus and then I panic and close the door. I have to surrender over and over. I have to dedicate time because otherwise I get lost in distractions. I try to do all the right things and then I stumble and stay down for a while. I keep getting up. I keep seeking, I will do this for as long as it takes. I at least know I'm headed in the right direction now. "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the days of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6. I trust my Father in Heaven.

So, this is where I am right now. I am at my most unhealthy. My highest weight. I have been working on my soul and mind, and I am ready to start working on my body and find health. Not in the abusive and cruel ways of my past, but with my heart mind and soul seeking God first. I know I will stumble and not do things perfect, and I will admit that sharing my story from this place is a vulnerable way to meet you, but I'm glad you're here with me. I pray that God can use my story and what He has been teaching me to help another. This is my goal. I have no clue what to expect in this journey and what is ahead, but I plan to check in with you on my progress regularly. I commit to honesty, vulnerability, and authenticity with you about my process. I don't get to have the pleasure of meeting you in person and sitting down to talk about these topics over coffee (which I would totally love to do). I don't know what has brought you here, but I want you to know that I am praying for you. Dad and I pray for every person that will encounter the Phoenix Chronicles. We pray that God be glorified and that everything we do points to Him. We pray that whoever you are, wherever you are, that you feel closer to God today.

Blessings, Jes

Step into the light.