I am so thankful that God pulled me out of that terrible addiction that took two years of my life. But as I mentioned in yesterday’s post here, I still really didn’t have the relationship with God that I know He was calling me towards.
Throughout the next year, I began going to a Baptist church with my boyfriend. Week by week I learned a little more about God and craved that Sunday time with Him. The beginning of my senior year in college, my roommate, whom I had never met in person and found through Facebook, invited me to attend church with her. James River Assembly was a wonderful church and one morning, after visiting numerous times, I gave my life to the Lord. I walked up front during the alter call and began reading the Bible and joined a small group with other college students.
My walk with God continues to grow each and every day and I’m so thankful that He lined up everything in my life to reach that point at James River where I surrendered and was baptized. I was 21 years old when I was baptized and have spent the last 4 ½ years growing in my relationship with Him and learning something new each day.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder why God would let that entire situation even happen to me. But now I know that it was a mixture of my own sin and His calling me closer to Him in the process. A few Bible verses stand out to me:
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. -1 Corinthians 6:19-20
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” – Matthew 6:25-26
I know that what I was doing to my body was a sin against God. He entrusts us with this one body, a true temple, and I was dishonoring Him by hurting myself. After finding God, I still struggled with (and sometimes do to this day) with my body image and worrying about gaining weight. I know that this is not how God wants me to treat my body. I am truly blessed to be healthy, have the ability to choose healthy foods, exercise and even walk! Who am I to be negative about this body that He has given me?
It’s a constant sin struggle that I deal with. Even though the world may view certain sins, such as a negative body image, as normal, it is a big deal in God’s eyes. All sins are equal in His view, regardless of what the world thinks. What are you struggling with today? How is God showing you that He is enough and you don’t need to struggle anymore?