The Doorway

A dear friend of mine told me this week, “You are standing in a doorway not a tunnel, just a few more steps and you will be there.”

Where is there you ask?



There is the stuff of my dreams. A land with fewer headaches, muscle aches, and heart aches. A land:

1. where truth is heard louder than lies,
2. free fear of abandonment and filled with trust reborn
3. saturated with God’s presence and love

There is the true land of plenty… where I am no longer hungry, alone, and afraid.

Fear has told me time and again that there does not exist. “There is a fairytale. Here is all that exists.” one day she whispers and then the next, “why would God allow a girl like you to ever go there?”

I am ashamed to admit that for the past years I have been buying her lies once again. Since middle school she has been a relentless tormentor of my soul. She makes her voice sound so much like my own that I am fooled into believing her lies are my own thoughts and desires. Even when I can recognize the constant deceit dripping from her tongue-

I can’t silence its ping. ping. ping. ping. ping…

I am four years in recovery and Fear still tells me I am:

• a shallow girl,
• only decorative—empty on the inside,
• socially discardable,
• undeserving of nourishment,
• always going to be hungry,
• too weak to win this.

I got so tired of fighting these lies that I gave up, ran to the corner, and covered my ears--- “you’re right. I will never be wholly free. The thoughts in my head are too twisted, my body too conditioned to fear gaining weight, to completely kick this thing.”

This week my friend’s words reached me here in my corner-of-doubting-the-Father’s-love. She challenged me that it is really not so many steps from here to there. The journey to here has been difficult. Four years ago Jesus met me in the clutches of a disorder that fragmented my emotions, disfigured my body, and was slowly driving my mind towards madness. People may think this melodramatic, but I know He stood in the way of death. He held out his hand to me—a throw away girl, a basket-case in the middle of her final breakdown, and pulled me of the mire of self-hate Fear had sucked me into.

You’d think after getting in so deep with an eating disorder that I needed divine intervention to save my life I would make a speedy exodus from my task-master once out of the pit.

But at the top of the pit was a pitch black room and though I could not see them I knew from the yowling, the whispers, the crying; that surrounded me in all directions that Jesus had lifted me into my own Valley of the Shadow of death. His voice, his message has been constant: “follow me. follow me into all the things that most terrify you about yourself.”

It is my voice that has wavered. One day the dark will not be so scary and I will confidently follow the voice that leads in darkness. I will begin to believe that we are finally gaining ground. Then the next day Fear will hit me hard again and again--- forcing me to retreat. So like the children of Israel wandering around the desert I have wandered--- only four years so far, but it may as well be forty.

I got free enough to keep people [besides my husband] off my back. I have continued to control Fear to the point of maintaining weight—not health. I survive in a perpetual state of headaches, confusion, and fatigue, but here’s the real rub my heart is broken in this struggle. Fear has never ever relaxed her grip on my heart. I’ve just learned to cling to a faith that allows me to limp towards another day.

As I have talked with friends over the last couple of weeks I have realized (1) that I am truly not at a healthy point in my thinking, and (2) this poisoned thinking is not my heart.

No matter how hard the lies batter my soul they simply are not true. I don’t want control. I don’t want to live my life fearfully protecting my needs or guarding my wounds. I know anorexia is empty and I hate it. I do believe that the name of Jesus is exalted above the lies of this culture. I know I am a daughter of God. He has given me a beauty that captivates his eye and a purpose that both transcends this life and is lived in the nitty-gritty details of serving the disabled and loving my family. These are not empty words, but truth that nourishes my starving soul and hope that gives me strength enough to walk through the door.

As I work the courage to try again in this area I keep thinking about something I read in the Message:

God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word. We can't get away from it—no matter what.

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let's not let it slip through our fingers. We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let's walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

Reading these words now I remember that Jesus wasn’t the one abandoning me in the dark. Though I haven’t always been able to see what He is up to, I have heard his voice calling out, “this is the way,” and “don’t be afraid Sarah, I will never leave you.”

And He hasn’t.

So this time I am going to muster enough courage to follow His call. This time it’s going to be different. God helping me this time I will break all ties with Fear. I will step through the door-way into freedom---and keep my eyes on Jesus knowing that He loves to give me the grace and help in my time of need.

Lessons without words,

Ask anyone what the key to a successful relationship is and they’ll tell you: trust & communication.

And up until February trust and communication were skills I felt I had mastered. After all, I am a lover of words. I enjoy talking with people [in fact as a child people even accused me of being superfluously verbal.]

Polite language has scripted and choreographed my relationships until now. I have shared honestly and I have listened and I thought that was enough to make me a great communicator. Then I started working as a disability support person and began to re-learn everything I thought I knew regarding the relational realm.

I met people who are unable to say what they long to share and I realized how I had been isolating members of my community by limiting my communication to language. Consider for a moment the slow progression of verbal communication:

1. There are polite one-line reflections [normally on the weather] we can say to strangers.
2. Socially acceptable topics we draw on when in conversation with acquaintances.
3. Anecdotes we laugh over with friends and family.
4. Deep wounds we tearfully uncover with our trusted few.
5. And secrets so hidden within our hearts that we only share them with our most intimate love--- pains so private they can only be safely revealed behind closed doors, with the lights turned out, by husband and wife lying close enough to feel each others’ heartbeat, under the covers, in their most hushed whispers.

When I began to care for nonverbal clients, I made efforts to decode the significance of a blink, the emotion reflected in sounds of different pitches, the meaning of each expression, the real implication of every oft-repeated phrase, and the message of the tears.

Within a month I had realized two things. (1) For people without words life is a battle to be heard, and (2) they don’t beat around the bush. On one level I always knew these two points. These “realizations” are easily assumed by outsiders to the disabled community, but in near proximity to lives deeply affected by an inability to communicate [in the most culturally recognized manner] the truth of the situation is heavier.

I began to view verbal communication as only effective when demanding honesty. I was disappointed with how many of the words I say are really at the core dishonest, wasted in a cultural dance—exhausted trying to make everyone else join. Conversely the more practice I got using non-verbal communication the more it felt like a return to honesty, to prayer.

I became thoughtful about what I shared. Often I spend an entire evening trying to communicate one message—“I am glad to be a part of your day. You are a terrific person. No matter how hard it has been today, I am here for you and I am listening.”

I learned that showing people you are there for them is harder than saying it, but it is more real. Nonverbal communication is honest. I can say many things, but action shows it to be true.

The work required in action is the real foundation of communication and trust. Nonverbal communication is requires action on both sides, and a relationship of trust must be built to scaffold the difficult effort of communicating.

It’s been beautiful and rewarding, and yet

I cannot be all rosy about these lessons in communication. The depth of semi-effective nonverbal communication is no balm for the ache of watching someone suffer and not be able to express their pain.

There are evenings when I leave work with a burdened heart because I know something is not right and I have no idea what it could be. It hurts even more when I think of how this “feeling of disconnection” in my relationship with non-verbal clients must be similar to the way they feel in every relationship.

I recently I read a description of the way autism can feel by an amazing young woman, Carly Fleischmann.

After 11 years of being silenced by autism, Carly found her voice—she went to a computer and painstakingly spelled out H-U-R-T, H-E-L-P, and then ran behind her coach and threw up. Since that breakthrough Carly has begun typing to communicate what she’s feeling. Her portrayal of autism gives a glimpse into the world which has been so hidden,

You don’t what it feels like
When you can’t sit still because your legs feel like they are on fire
Or it feels like a hundred ants are crawling up your arms…

It is so hard to be me
And you would not even under stand
I wish I could put you in my body just for one day so you can feel what it’s like…

What do I want?
I want not to feel what’s happening in my body
I want to stay at home and not go to the farm
I want to be like every other kid
But I can’t
Because I am Carly

I looked up Carly’s blog and poured over everything she has posted. She is so normal and so extraordinary at the same time. She is 14 in all its glory. So many of the things she writes about are exactly the feelings I had fourteen. She is sassy. She is articulate. She knows what she wants...

But the video footage I found of her revealed a young woman fighting to live in a body that betrays her and it is the unmistakably painful struggle that makes her words so poignant. She has been described as an autism angel because when Carly’s story was broadcast on Larry King and ABC news her voice became a voice for those whose speech is still silenced. Finally we do begin to understand how overwhelming input is that takes away their words.



It is painful to recognize that the women I work with are like me—hurting, frightened, overjoyed, and hoping--- but with no words to express the emotions building in them, but Carly reminds me how true it is.

And without words people do become blunt in their non-verbal communication, using whatever form of communication they are able to—smiles, laughter, tears, tantrums, even aggression to tell the people in their world what they need, what they like, or how they are frustrated and hurting.

The lengths I have observed people with limited ability to communicate go through to make themselves understood is further proof of that the need to be heard, understood, and validated is intrinsic the human soul. The desire for a deeper connection is strong enough to push through the static of autism and make another effort to be heard.

Still for the women I serve often all I can do is sit with them as they hurt.

Even sitting with the hurt is a lesson to me—a girl who has been given the gift of words and language. Words were given to me to give away, but they must be weighed and backed by action or my words will become as meaningless as a TV script. When I am careful with my words I know sometimes sitting with someone in silence is all I can offer.

Sitting quietly is my admission that I have no idea what to do…
I can only listen. I can only love.
And honestly this is most often the truth of me.

Fear that's not frightening

I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass, that you forget the LORD your Maker who stretched out the heavens and laid foundations of the earth(Isaiah51:12, 13a.)

As the death bell tolled renowned poet, John Donne, wrote furtively.

He too had been diagnosed with a death sentence, bubonic plague. With the tens of thousands in his community who lay dying Donne grappled with the haunting absence of goodness in great tragedy, “Where is God in suffering?” Donne composed his Devotions to sort through his own questions of Sovereignty and Compassion.

In the end he came to bottom—God gave no answer for the question “Why me?”’s of his heart, but Donne realized there were only two options--- he choose either to trust God or to abandon his faith.

It was at his faith’s watershed the poet prayed that God would teach his heart to fear Him,

"O most mighty God, and merciful God, God of all true sorrow and true joy too , of all fear and all hope too, as Thou hast given me a repentance, not to be repented of, so give me, O Lord, a fear, of which I may not be afraid.”

This kind of fear--- that is the fear of the Lord--- has been the theme of my week.

When the Holy Spirit is stretching my understanding of some truth, it seems like everything I read and hear is theme-related. Since Saturday I have been chewing on this topic. When I discovered Donne’s story in the book Reaching For the Invisible God, my reading selection this Monday, my heart instantly connected the poet’s recognition of his own hearts need to be enlarged to Saturday’s sermon.

The pastor taught from Mark 10:17-27, the story of The Rich Man, a biblical narrative I’ve always disliked until hearing this sermon

The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. The rich ruler explains that he’s kept all the rules. He has loved and followed the law all his life.

Jesus looks at him. Loves him. And raises the stakes.

“Sell everything and follow me.”

And the rich young ruler leaves brokenhearted because he simply can’t bring himself to part with his wealth.

It seems unfair.

Jesus own disciples took up for the rich man, “He was trying, doing a better job than us, if he isn’t good enough to be save; who can be?”

I have echoed this sentiment. If I were there with the disciples I too would take the rich young man’s side. He had tried all his life to be good enough for God, and it wasn’t enough.

The plight of the ruler whose face fell when he discovered that Jesus would demand everything struck a chord in my heart. I too had tried all my life to be good enough for my dad and it wasn’t enough. “Doesn’t effort count for anything?” my spirit would question, “God are you like my dad? Can me trying to follow be enough for you?”

I know as an American I am rich. So often I feel like I am not doing enough. I sponsor a 3 yr old little girl in Haiti. Is it enough? I give to missions. Is it enough? I give to the Church. Is it enough? I spend my life serving women with disabilities. Is it enough? I love my husband as much as I know how. Is it enough?

Am I enough?

And the answer is “No” I know I don’t belong wholly to God. Anorexic has hooked claws of anxiety in to places in my heart even I cannot touch. Daily my best efforts at holiness fall dismally short. Time and again I am too-afraid to love; too-afraid to even make eye contact.

Facing the truth about my efforts to be fabulous always leaves a bad taste in my mouth—like a crushed Tylenol mixed with applesauce.

Because of the “yucky” feelings created by my interpretation of how Jesus interacts with this seeker, year after year when I came to this story in my Bible reading plan I would rush through it and check it off my list. It was to me medicine that tastes so bad you stick the spoon way back in your mouth and try to bypass the tongue as you swallow it quickly. I had never lingered in the story to taste the flavors.

But on Saturday the pastor drew attention to a verse I had always glossed over: “ Jesus looked at him and loved him- Mark 10:21a”


The pastor paused here, and grudgingly I paused with him. He started to explain how Jesus really felt compassion for this man, how Jesus wanted to show him the way to know God. The pastors voice faded farther and farther away as the truth of my condition before Jesus weighed heavy again on my heart. I abandoned my body to the pew and went into the pictures flooding my mind. I found myself imagining me as the young ruler before Jesus. Making my case before the Incarnate Creator,

“Jesus I know I still haven’t sold out. I am just so duplicitous. A part of me loves you and a part of me loves the pursuit of perfection. I feel like I will never beat the dark Sarah who tries to fill the needs of her heart by being thin. She believes that by keeping all the rules someday she will be good enough. She hangs onto a beauty that is causing her heart so much anxiety because she needs people to like her for her body. She is addicted to approval. I have tried explaining to her that I don’t want this thinness anymore, but she will not surrender her territory. Can’t you see how hard I am trying? Can’t my trying be enough?”

And for the first time I saw the Lord watch my anxious entreaty and his eyes were full of love.

“He loves me?” I thought, “He loves me still.”

I had never realized how passionately God longed for this man to know him. This is the way Jesus loves. It is hard medicine for a perfectionist to be loved as she is, but if she will allow love to dissolve on her tongue it is actually sweet to taste. It is scary territory for a girl-not-good enough to be asked to leave the land of shallow-acceptance by culture, but it is the way to freedom. The only way.

Realizing my not-enoughness again, I wanted this time to be different. I didn’t want to leave the Presence of Jesus face fallen, feeling sad. I thought about how fear holds me captive to fragments of an eating disorder and social isolation. I thought about how even as I look into the eyes of Christ I could feel the pull of fear—telling me that if I sell-out and follow Christ my heart would not be able to handle all that gaining weight represents to me [surrendering control, facing rejection, experiencing abandonment.] I fear abandonment more than I fear the Lord, and some days I fear that this fear-wound in me will end up being the very reason He abandons me.

This is what connect my fearful heart Donne’s prayer--- my lips whisper the prayer, my spirit echoes:
“Give me also, O Lord, a fear, of which I may not be afraid.”

Me too. I need a fear of which I need not be afraid. This is what I’m praying towards. I am memorizing lines from the admonition the Lord spoke to his people through the prophet Isaiah—and repeating there truths to myself when I find anxiety is near my heart:

I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mortal men, the sons of men, who are but grass, that you forget the LORD your Maker who stretched out the heavens and laid foundations of the earth(Isaiah51:12, 13a.)

I don’t know what else to do. I keep praying the Josiah-prayer: “God we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you."Somehow I hope if I learn to fix my gaze towards Him—the anxieties which today distract and enslave my mind will slowly fade and disappear. Please pray for me on this one.