Wow.
To say that it had been more than a while since I posted here is more than an understatement. In the space of my last post and now I have fallen in love, been heartbroken, learnt the liberating feeling of forgiveness, gained friends, lost some, cried lots, laughed lots too, and been saved in more ways than one.
After all of this, all the blackness of these writings, all the painful desires hidden behind line after line of misplaced aspirations and dreams, I am finally happy.
It didn't take some miracle goal weight, nor did it take me deciding enough was enough. It took something far more powerful, and far, far more precious.
God.
I know many of you will have flinched at that, turned off, stopped reading, felt tricked, cheated, angry, upset, but I'm not here to preach to you, to tell you that if you follow Jesus life will be happy and fulfilling and you'll be exactly where you want to be. I accept that some of you will be devout atheists, like I used to be, or follow another religion entirely. If it's one thing I learnt from being part of this internet sphere is that we are a community of people who support, with judgement the farthest thing from our minds, and I extend that same grace to each and every one of you.
What I am saying is that there is hope, wherever you find it, there is hope. Not the hope of reaching a goal weight, of finding success in a three day fast or completing successive detoxes.
Real hope.
So here is my story. Feel free to read it, rebuke it, hate it, love it, or a combination of the aforementioned.
I thought I was happy, and to some extent, I was. I was on the perfect road to being, well, perfect. Perfect grades, perfect body, perfect life. I fell in love and things escalated, now I really had to be perfect.
But what is perfect? Really? What does it take to be flawless? And what does it matter if you're perfect by your standards if they're not perfect by someone else's? Who is right and who is wrong? The lesson I had to learn was that some things are far bigger, and far more significant that perfect.
The man I fell in love with was Christian. This had little significance to start with. I went to church initially to pacify him, and liked to sing so went along with it. What I came to know as a result was something struck me as so deeply contrary to my beliefs that it almost hurt.
There is no such thing as perfect.
Well, nothing that you or I can produce, at least.
How many times had I heard the phrase 'no one's perfect', and how many times had I resolved to make it my goal regardless?
It doesn't work. And more importantly, none of us has to be.
At this point I still thought I could be perfect. I wasn't going to let some Bible story tell me what I could and couldn't be.
It took an act of utter brokenness, one which brought me to my knees, to convince me otherwise. I was subjected to an act of betrayal that broke me, all of me. My heart, my soul and my will. It was horrific, and love prevented me from sharing it with anyone. What I knew could ruin the lives of two people, both of which I instantly hated with all I had. I was upset, I was confused, I was ashamed, but most of all, I was angry.
So, incredibly angry.
People say that you never know how strong you are until you have to be, and to me, that was certainly true. Three day fast? No problem. Over twenty hours of ballet a week? Easy stuff. Keeping up a veneer of happiness when on the inside I was utterly broken? Slightly more difficult, but by now I was an expert at pretending everything was fine.
Forgiving, keeping silent and getting on with my life? That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Yet for the first time I didn't lean on my perfect ideals, I was far too broken to face the idea of clambering back up to my standards of perfection. Perfect became meaningless. I couldn't turn to my 'perfect', to anorexia, ana, EDNOS, friend, tool, a diet that lasted longer than you thought, your own personal MDMA, ecstasy, however you perceive it.
I was broken. Truly and utterly. Completely and all-consumingly. Why? So that I had a chance to heal. If I kept my perfect ideals, everything around me had to be perfect too. If that was the case, then I couldn't admit fault, and more importantly, I couldn't forgive. My inability to do so was all consuming. I couldn't, I just couldn't, and yet there was nothing I wanted to do more. Emblazoned all over my notebooks, walls and expressions was 'never forgotten, never forgiven.' This was bigger than what perfect could handle, bigger than what I could handle. I needed something to pull me up out of the darkness, but where was I to turn? I couldn't tell anyone, I couldn't bear to see the person I still somehow loved see the utter brokenness and incomprehensible pain they had caused. I had no one. No one, except God. A God that I didn't want to talk to. A God a was running from, and a God who I to this day, still find myself running from. Relinquishing control is scary, but keeping it is futile.
I didn't want to know about God, but he pulled me out of the darkness anyway. He melted the injury, the insult, the hurt, the shame and the anger, and after month upon month of agony, I was able to forgive. I forgave and for the first time, was able to forgive myself. I found freedom in imperfection. I was loved not because I was perfect, but because I was broken. Here was a God whose forgiveness I needed, and who allowed me to forgive myself.
For you, it might not be God that saves you, but forgiveness remains paramount regardless. You need to forgive yourself.
We all sit here behind these screens and type and type about how we're going to be perfect, flawless, admired, respected, queen. My question to each and every one of you is this: what are you running from?
Abuse, hurt, anger, anxiety, the sinking realisation that you can't make it to perfect, an inability to forgive, past relationships, fear, depression, that feeling of never being good enough. What is it that is driving you to punish yourself day after day for a definition of perfect that will differ to everyone else's?
You sincerely hate yourself? That hate isn't going to go away with the kilograms, despite how things appear. Wanting to be skinny is fine, but this is not the way to achieve it. We don't become who we are because we want to lose weight. That desire is always, invariably and without question, the manifestation of something far darker, and far scarier to face.
What is is that you're running from?
One day, you'll be confronted with something that you can't keep running from. Something that will hound you for eternity, something that you'll never be able to shake.
Unless you stop running. Unless you allow yourself the grace of imperfection, and the courage to deal with it.
I was completely broken, but only so that I could heal.
I have a long way to go, but I have finally stopped running.
This is the end of these writings, for the rare few of you who are still reading. If you want to ask me anything, at any time, I will listen and promise to respond.
forgivenlillie@live.com
I love each of you dearly, and wish you all the best.
All my love,
Lillie.
