A Walk With God

Last night I had a dream that I went on a walk with God.

He was in the form of Gandalf, which I found to be really fitting and slightly amusing.
We were standing together in a forest. I have never felt peace and love like I did while I was with Him in this dream.
He talked with me like a loving Papa, He knew I was sad, and was comforting me. He took the loose strands of hair in my face and put them behind my ear as I looked down at the ground talking to Him. It was dark and cold and the dream was in blue hues.

When I was done talking, He asked if I would give Him my sadness and my worries.

So I handed Him a silver box that was filled with all of my burdens.

He took the box and smiled at me. He walked over to a stream and emptied the box into the water. 

Then we went for a walk along the stream, and I felt a million pounds lift off my shoulders. We laughed and talked together about silly things. The forest turned warm and light, in green and yellow tones.

Then I found myself laying in a bed of moss with dears and rabbits and little woodland creatures all around. 

Right before I fell asleep, God said to me, "Nothing can separate you from my love, my daughter." I fell asleep in such a peace that I've never felt before. 

God as Gandalf might seem goofy to you, but I believe God loves to use imagery and imagination to speak to us. It was overwhelmingly beautiful and gave me so much hope. I felt like a little girl dreaming with God, letting go of grown up ideas of what I think He is like.
Gods love for us is beyond comprehension. He knows everything about us. He's a good Father who wants His children to be free and at peace. And the best part to me? I don't have to do anything to earn His love. 
My hope is that after reading this, you will be inspired to give Him a box filled with your cares and worries, and see what He give you in exchange. May you be free to dream with God, just like a little child, cuz why not.  

xo D

Perfectionism, binge eating, & shame in depression::part 3

davaun tamar photography::model::megan miller

"Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally." Rumi

Compassion.

To me, true compassion can only be formed through experience.

It's something that's worth more than gold, because it's what I get to take away from the hard things I've experienced in life.

<insert relatable and inspirational scripture passage/> 

 "These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world." 1 Peter 1:7

Not only does my compassion grow towards people who have gone through similar hardships, but my faith grows because I get to see how God is going to turn this monstrosity into something beautiful.
Trusting the one who created me, the one who knows everything about me, becomes easy when I look at hardships through this perspective.

When I lose trust in God because of circumstances and forget who I am, that's when all of the ugly stuff surfaces and I stop looking like my Father. We all have the ugly stuff, but its easy to stay in denial sometimes and ignore the crap so we can live in our comfort (fear) zones with our pet demons.

It was November '14 that I finally got help, saw a councilor, and was able to look at perfectionism, depression, and binge eating for what it is. A lie. However, its been a process of changing my thinking. Some things just don't happen over night, and some things do. But what is important is to trust God, especially when we really don't want to.

Denial is a killer because it keeps us stuck. I can pretend to be happy and fine on the outside  but until I acknowledge what my problem is, how can I overcome it? 

Shedding light is good, it is healthy, and it is only for the fearless and the brave. I know I want to live my life fearlessly and free from shame and guilt. 

Depression can be all consuming. It causes me to keep my eyes on myself. It causes me to feel sorry for myself, and it stops me from fulfilling my life's purpose. Depression is a false reality.

These last few months I have been so consumed in it. It feels like I have been drowning. It took this last bout of depression for me to realize I have dealt with it far too much in my life, and thought it was "normal."

As a daughter with a huge inheritance, living as God made me to be, there is no depression. Joy becomes my normal, and freedom becomes my comfort zone.
I am choosing to clothe myself with compassion and dignity. 
No more shame, no more condemnation, no more secrets.

So my question to you is, are there hidden secrets of shame in your life that are keeping you from walking in your identity?
If you're consumed with comparison instead of compassion,

I want to pray for you,

God I thank you for everyone reading this blog, and I ask that blind eyes would be opened to areas of hidden bondage.
That the heavy weight of shame, addiction, depression, & confusion would finally be lifted and freedom would come instead.
I ask that we would walk in complete and total freedom, because that is your promise. I thank you for joy and compassion instead of depression and comparison. I ask that everyone reading this, would feel your love in a new way. That we would know who we are  as your sons and daughters. It is our inheritance here and now, and we choose to receive it. I ask for forgiveness for choosing lies. We turn our eyes to you, and we thank you for giving us divine nature. We say we can't do it in our own strength and we thank you that your grace is sufficient, your yoke is easy and your burden is light. 

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." Matthew 7:7-8

I love this quote of hope by one of my favorite seekers Sadhu Sundar Singh;
"Should pain and suffering, sorrow, and grief, rise up like clouds and overshadow for a time the Sun of Righteousness and hide Him from your view, do not be dismayed, for in the end this cloud of woe will descend in showers of blessing on your head, and the Sun of Righteousness rise upon you to set no more." 

Perfectionism, binge eating, & shame in depression::part 2

davaun tamar photography::model::joe nicoletti

"Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough." Brené Brown

Allow me to paint a picture for you. It's midnight and here I am standing, staring at the 7/11 brand pints of ice cream, in the most shady beachside 7/11 you can imagine, where only the most shady people hang around, and the most shady happenings are occurring around me. But I didn't care, I was on a mission. A mission most certainly not from God. 

All I could hear in my head was Radiohead's Creep "What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here." But I didn't care, really. I walked around the store for at least 20minutes, accessing my drug of choice for the night. I wasn't in a 7/11, I was at my drug dealers house. I walked up to the cashier who had a pentagram tattooed on his bald head, and 666 tattooed on his neck, he asked me,

"Where are you from? You sound like you have an accent, you're not from around here, are you?"

I just stared at him and said "What?" (I was still in too much shock from how much I just spent on a bag of shitty food)

"You're not from around here, are you?"

"Yea, I live up the street."

"...Oh."

Now leave me the frick alone so I can get out of here before I get jumped.

I thought to myself. Feeling guilty and wishing I was there to talk to him about how much Jesus loves him, but couldn't, because I was too wrapped up in shame.

I got on my bike, got into my room, and inhaled $30 worth of 7/11 brand crack cocaine.

Then the wave of guilt. Then the finger down my throat. I had to puke it up, at least try to.

You see, I'm allergic to: dairy, gluten, nightshades, & I am pre-diabetic. 

So I'm not wanting to throw this up because I don't want to get fat, I'm wanting to throw it up because I can feel how sick it's already making me, and I know the next morning how sick I will feel. My body actually aches anytime I eat gluten, dairy, or nightshades.

I remember saying to my therapist a couple months ago

"I feel like somebody is abusing me,….and its myself."

The picture I just painted, it is the epitome of shame for me. I don't believe in junk food.

I'm passionate about eating healthy, and taking care of our bodies. I love cooking and healthy food, and this person, binging on donuts and cake and taco bell? I don't know who this girl is.

It not only makes me feel like a hypocrite, but it makes me feel like I have zero control, and that scares me. I have dug through the trash to get a piece of cake, and I think to myself, what am I doing?! Children of the most high God do not dig through trash, I know my identity! I know who I am! What on earth am I doing!? What is wrong with me? Jesus died so I don't have to dig through trash! *enter the christian guilt trip*

I remember around twelve years old, being able to out eat everyone and anyone around me. It was a challenge I would gladly take you up on. 

But I remember thinking to myself "how come nobody else can eat as much food as I can?" My relationship with food has always been unhealthy and unbalanced.

It was used to self-medicate, not to nourish.

I believe I developed food allergies and got sick because of all of the shame and self-hate tied to binging. 

I can go long periods of time without binging, but when I do, its always a spiral of no self control for at a least a few months, and then I gain weight, so I have to get on a diet to put a stop to it. Its a vicious cycle.

This is why I love and admire the Paleo community. Its not about a diet, but about eating whole, healthy foods for a lifetime and empowering each other to realize this is normal, and people ate this way for all of time, before the agricultural revolution. 

But I digress. 

The other night I ate 4 donuts, 4 bagels and a tub of cream cheese all in 20 minutes flat.

If this disgusts you to know this about me, I really don't care anymore. I'm tired of allowing shame from food to control me.

The truth is? right now, me and food don't' have the best relationship, and I'm writing this down to be honest about it.

I know one day we will be best friends, and I will be able to say "Remember when we were enemies? I'm glad that is over, you beautiful meal you."

Maybe I'll never be healed from my food sensitivities or allergies, but I know that one day, I will be completely at peace with food, I am on my way and I am so thankful for the people in my life to help me do this. Who knows, maybe one day I will be a world renown chef, because life is funny that way. 

Part 3

More info on binge eating here:

 What is binge eating?

Perfectionism, binge eating, & shame in depression::part 1

(davaun tamar photography::model::brittany reinhard)

"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor." Aristotle  

When I was a kid, I saw an I Love Lucy episode that struck me, and stuck with me.
It was the episode where Ricky and the Mertzes wager that Lucy can't go a full day without telling a lie. Well, she ends up at a friends house to play cards, and becomes brutally honest with everyone because she can't lie. She realizes how freeing it is to be so honest, and ends up loving it.

I remember watching Brené Brown's TED Talk a few years ago, and that struck me as well.
I didn't quite understand what she meant, but I could actually feel the "power in her vulnerability."

I don't think its wise or healthy to dwell on negative things, and for me, its easy to obsess over anything that is wrong with myself, and to do everything in my power to make it right.
But that never gets me anywhere.
I believe in trusting God with our problems and acknowledging we are new creations because of Jesus, no longer stuck in sin but free to be who we were made to be through the renewing of our minds.
HOWEVER, I believe God has asked me to be vulnerable and open in areas that I've struggled with and still do struggle with, in this blog.

I've always been an honest person, and could rarely ever keep secrets or bottle up my feelings.
But I've never publicly talked about what I'm about to dive into.
I feel like it is something that needs to be talked about, especially in the church.
There is this unreal fantasy that christians are joyful 24/7, are never addicted to anything, except for reading the bible, and they don't ever struggle with anything ever. Which we all know isn't true, but we like to keep our secrets a little more locked up than the average heathen, to be sure we don't get stones blasted at us, from…each other.

What a freeing idea that authenticity and humility more often than not, will find you lots of open arms, ready to say, "I love you even more now", and "oh my god, me too".
This blog is therapeutic for myself, but if just one person can feel like they are not alone, and they are not a freak, that we are all human, and we all share the same kinds of pain in different packages, then to me? its worth it.
Shedding light on the grody stuff takes away it's power and transparency opens the door to freedom.
So lets just get real, shall we?

Part 2