These Three No Longer Remain

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

For many years, I regularly shared my salvation testimony as a speaker for Stonecroft Ministries. As part of Stonecroft’s on-boarding process and graduating from CLASS speaker training, I was encouraged to craft certain elements of my faith journey into a story.

Details about painful experiences are often difficult to categorize, but the training encouraged me to think about the emotions from those times, and pull out the events that resonated most powerfully. Through the training and years of reflection, I realized that the emotion I felt the most as a child was fear. My fears spanned three major areas: fear about my sisters’ health, fears about money, and fears about my parents’ marriage.

My younger siblings are identical twins, and as children, they had poor immune systems. Allergies and asthma complicated their health, and by age five they have been hospitalized some fifteen times for illnesses ranging from flu-related dehydration to a terrifying unexplained seizure that nearly took the life of one sister at age two. As adolescents, they developed epilepsy.

Significant illnesses present financial challenges; our lower-middle class family routinely struggled to make ends meet. Chronic illness and financial challenges produce strain on any marriage; my parents’ marriage was no exception. In addition, mental illness and related conditions were present since my earliest days, complicating already challenging family dynamics. Though the financial and health fears were significant, the conflict in my parents’ marriage cast a gloomy shadow over every aspect of my childhood world.

When it came time for me to go away to college, I had been longing for and planning for that time for several years. Part of my longing was the great desire to escape daily family life. More than just the typical teenaged desire to leave home, I had come to view my parents’ conflicts as self-inflicted stubbornness. Since the age of 4, I had prayed regularly for their marriage, for God to make them love each other. The heavens reflected only silence.

Depression and Anorexia

Late in the college decision-making process, too late for me to make a backup plan, my parents informed me that they could not afford to send me away to college as a freshman. My inner self felt heavy as lead; the full weight of depression quickly took up residence. Within a few months my depression had bloomed into anorexia.

Shortly before community college began, I developed a relationship with a kind local young man. We enjoyed life together and I began to think that perhaps he was the reason why I was not going away to school. Then unexpectedly he announced he had enlisted in the Navy and was leaving in just a few days.

After he left, that fall was a blur of school, working at my job to partially support myself, and hidden tears. I barely ate anything, and soon had lost nearly thirty pounds off my already small frame.

My boyfriend invited me to his Navy boot camp graduation, the week before Thanksgiving. For a couple of weeks before leaving to see him, I worked diligently to be thin ‘for him.’ With a severely distressed view of myself, I was confident he wouldn’t want me if my body had an ounce of fat.

Two days before leaving on the trip, I stepped on the scale, and it barely tipped 100 pounds. I still remember my pulse pounding so hard that I could feel it in my ears. I knew anorexia and I were at a crossroads.

Three Truths

As I stepped off the scale that day, I felt the sensation of something snapping inside me. And I felt God tell me, “If you keep doing this, you will die.” I was terrified. I knew without a doubt I had heard the voice of God, and I knew without a doubt that the words He spoke were true. He spoke truth over my fear—this time, about my health.

The visit with my boyfriend was wonderful. I travelled with his family; they were very kind and welcoming. The last night of our visit, we went to a Chinese restaurant. At the end of our meal, I opened my fortune cookie, which read, “You will make money and hold onto it.” Once again, I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears. Through this little insignificant piece of paper, God told me that I would not have to struggle for all of my life financially. He spoke truth over my fear—this time, about money.

Two weeks after the trip, my father became seriously ill. For nearly two days doctors could not determine what was wrong with him, but it was obvious that he would die soon without a correct diagnosis. He was ultimately diagnosed with a dissecting aneurysm on his aorta, right beside his heart. God kept him alive long enough for doctors to operate and repair the weakened part of his aorta.

He came home from the hospital three weeks later, frail, emotional, and barely alive. There were several parts to this miracle, but for my whole life, the most special aspect was what happened to my parents’ marriage. For the first time in my life, I saw my parents hold hands, kiss on the lips, discuss difficult topics and plan together, instead of hurling accusations and insults.

Even then, I knew that was why I was at home, not away at college. God spoke to me in the healing of this trauma. He spoke truth over my fear about my parents’ relationship.

He let me know that He had heard all of my prayers, perhaps especially the tearful prayers of a four-year old child. Though my depression and eating disorder continued, those three truths uprooted my fears, and were important building blocks to move me into a deep relationship with Christ. 

Christmas 1981, a few days after my dad came home from the hospital. This was about 6 weeks after God spoke to me about my anorexia. In my young adult life, I always thought I looked good in this picture. But now, I see that my eyes show how very tired I was.

Summer 1982. I had gained about 10 pounds since the previous Thanksgiving, but was still anorexic and far too thin.