Topic Tuesday: Messages

“Refining” (By: Maci Hughlett)

There comes a day in each person’s life where they must come to terms with what they have professed to believe. Sometimes this comes in the form of allowing your actions to say, “I love you,” when your heart is breaking. Other times we may find ourselves in a situation at work or school where morals have become more of a gray area than previously thought. Beliefs define us and dictate the behaviors, thoughts, and heart-patterns of our daily life. Beliefs unite us, divide us, and invite us into fuller living.

What we believe will always be put to the test. Our black-and-whites will begin to resemble black-and-gray or black-and-blue. It is during this time of turmoil where the deepest desires of our hearts are revealed; the good, the bad, and the fear. Lies creep in, destroying what we knew to previously be true. While the moral may stand strong, wind will do everything in its might to skew the colors of your mind.

When battling with an eating disorder or seeking out recovery, the messages we have been told to believe are twisted and rewritten in resemblance of beliefs we cannot comprehend to be false. Our mantras can fail us. Our mirrors become the image bearers of a life detached of a firm grasp of reality. What we believe about ourselves becomes the Russian roulette of truly knowing what we believe about ourselves, about reality, and about the narratives we are living.

There is hope. Whenever we are tested, we have seen in times past – the trial ends. In the lives of others, we see grace sustained well-beyond recovery. In the treatment, we see love sacrificially given once we become the helpers. In the strength of the new dawn, we see hope for a blessing of a new day has been imparted; a new day to choose recovery over the blurred lines. The gray provides hope. For gray to exist, black and white must have been present at the start – and will reshape into a new beautiful color.