The darkness...
I haven't blogged in a few weeks because I have been trying to figure exactly which topic to blog about. I feel like the the past 2 weeks have been filled with so much that I just didn't know what to dive into first. As someone new to the blogging world, I'm guessing that this is a good problem to have. I will start with a big one...
Ever since we started the website, I find that I continually tell myself that I have to push myself out of my comfort zone. To quote my friend Adam, "You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable". He told me this a few years back and it is permanently etched in my brain forever. Whenever life situations push me into grey, uncomfortable, unknown, unexpected, vulnerable areas, I repeat that over and over in my head. I guess that you could say that it is a mantra, of sorts, that helps me to remember that life is going to be uncomfortable...and you can let it consume you...or you can embrace it, learn from it and be better for it. It is all part of our unique journeys.
One of my biggest struggles is vulnerability, specifically with BD. This was a sheltered part of my life for so many years and there was a superficial "peace" in the darkness of my secret. The older I have gotten the more I realized that that "peace" was not peace at all. It was a secret that grew darker, bigger and more damaging the more that I pushed it to the back of my mind...but it was MY secret, and I could CONTROL it.
That is what I thought for years and years. Through slowly and painfully opening myself up, being vulnerable and telling my story, (shedding some light into my darkness), I realized that it wasn't peace at all, it was control. And the crazy part is that I was blinded into believing that I was the one in control. In actuality...well, not so much. Actually, not at all. As a Christian, I believe in a true darkness (Satan) who feeds on our insecurities, who is a master manipulator and wants nothing more to eliminate the Light and to grow his darkness, at any cost. This darkness, this secret inside of me was in the driver's seat, not me. I didn't have control, this had control of me. The more I suppressed it, the more control it took over every part of my life. It made me a different person. A person who would lie to the faces of those who he loved, a person who would harm his body in hopes of achieving some unattainable "perfection", a person who gaged his worth by his reflection in the mirror, a person who was falling farther and farther away from the Light...from his only hope at finding true peace, love and self-acceptance.
It is only by the grace of God that I am still here. I look back on those dark chapters of my life and how I abused myself mentally, physically and emotionally. In many respects, I shouldn't be here because it could have killed me, but it is ONLY because of my faith that I am here. My darkness could have shallowed me whole, but it didn't. I often refer to my favorite bible verse, John 1:5 - "There is Light in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it". You see, even in the darkest of darkness, there is always a Light. On my darkest of days...the days when I was weak from starvation and could muster up only enough energy to obsessively workout and pop more diet pills...there was ALWAYS a Light. That Light is why I am still here.
We all have Light within us...every minute, every hour, every day. So here is a challenging question for you... "What have you done today to be a light for someone else?"
