For several years, I have enjoyed reading the words that flowed from Jennifer Lee’s keyboard. At her blog, Jennifer Dukes Lee: Dispatches from a Good News Girl, her words seem to flow effortlessly from her heart into mine. I like to think that if we lived closer to one another (she’s in Iowa, I’m in Georgia), we would be BFFs.
A couple of months ago when Jennifer asked for volunteers who would be willing to read her upcoming book and write a review, I waved my hand wildly in the air and said, “Yes, pick me, pick me!” She did.
Released last week, Love Idol speaks into my heart in astounding ways. The subtitle to the book is ‘Letting go of your need for approval—and seeing yourself through God’s eyes’. Well, all-righty then. That’s got my name written all over it. Yours, too?
So much about this book has blessed and challenged me, but one chapter and concept, in particular, ushered me into a few hours of soul-searching.
If you have been around my blog for long, you know I struggled with anorexia in my late teens and early twenties. After much counseling, the starving of myself is long behind me. However, the body image issues still exist. (For more of my journey with anorexia, please scroll down to where you see ‘Categories’ on my sidebar. Click the down arrow and find the line that says ‘eating disorder anorexia’. Click that link and you will be taken to the series of posts where I talk about my battle.)
Chapter 7 of Love Idol is entitled ‘Do You Want to Get Well?’ Here, Jennifer references the story from John 5 of the crippled man who lay beside the pool of Bethesda for 38 years, waiting to be the first to descend into the rippling waters and be healed. For 38 years others got to the water ahead of him, denying him of the healing he desired.
On a day that seemed like all the others, Jerusalem was abuzz because a man named Jesus had entered the city….through the Sheep Gate, no less. The Sheep Gate was the gate where the animals that would be slaughtered for the sacrifices would enter the Temple compound. Wow! That was certainly not a random choice of entryways.
Jesus’ walk has brought Him right into the pool area. The crippled man is stunned when Jesus stops at his pool-side spot. Jesus bends down, looks into the man’s eyes, and utters words that seem absurd, at first.
“Do you want to get well?” Turns out, he did.
Jennifer’s re-telling of this biblical story caused me to ask myself, “What kind of question is that? Who wouldn’t want to get well?’
From deep within my heart the Holy Spirit chimes in, “Uh, that would be you, Leah.”
“Whaaaat? Me?”
As I pondered Jennifer’s words, and those of the Holy Spirit, it occurred to me that I had lived with body image issues for forty-four years. In the spirit of total transparency, I do not remember a day where I didn’t think about my weight and how I look.
“How would it feel to not think about my weight and the way I look multiple times every day?
“What if I get fat?”
“What if I get out of shape?”
Suddenly, I realized that, indeed, I was not sure I could even answer ‘yes’ to the question, “do you want to get well?” I have lived with my own personal LOVE IDOL, body image and weight issues, for so long that I cannot imagine not having that focus.
As I talked to the Lord about the whole sordid affair, I realized that smashing my love idol would require a heaping helping of Holy Spirit empowered heart change.
Do I want to get well? Do I want to smash that love idol of body image and weight focus?
As a matter of fact, I do. Lead on, Lord Jesus. I want to smash this love idol and be free.
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