Every­one has skele­tons in their closet — secret shame from your past that you don’t want any­one to find out about. But this is a pic­ture of my skele­ton — except I didn’t keep mine in my closet. I had to look at mine in the mir­ror everyday.

It started out as an attempt to become more “healthy.” After watch­ing sev­eral older friends take on the “fresh­man 15” in col­lege, I was deter­mined it wouldn’t hap­pen to me. At 118 pounds, I decided to make some changes.

First, I decided I needed to increase my exer­cise. In high school, I worked at a health and fit­ness cen­ter, so I typ­i­cally worked out 4–5 times a week. When I would fin­ish a shift, I would head to the car­dio machines and leisurely jog on the tread­mill or go to a strength-training class.

That wasn’t enough for me now. I read that it was bet­ter to work out on an empty stom­ach, so I began get­ting up at 5 a.m. to get my work­out in before class. But that didn’t mean that I stopped my rou­tine at night after work. Dou­ble the exer­cise meant dou­ble the results.

I started get­ting atten­tion from the per­sonal train­ers and fit­ness man­agers. “Michelle, you’re in such great shape. You look amaz­ing. It’s such a waste hav­ing you at the front desk. Why don’t you get cer­ti­fied to teach classes?”

Did I just get offered to get paid to work­out? Some­body pinch me, because I am dream­ing. It was per­fect. I paid for the cer­ti­fi­ca­tions out of my sav­ings account, and before I knew it, I was no longer stand­ing behind a desk. I was up in front of the exer­cise classes, torch­ing calo­ries for hours a day. Yet, I couldn’t seem to shake the last few pounds that I wanted gone.

“Michelle, you know that work­ing out is only 20% of weight loss. 80% is nutri­tion,” one of the per­sonal train­ers informed me when I shared my frus­tra­tions. Enough said. Exer­cise more, check. Oper­a­tion: Eat Less would begin.

I began doing inten­sive research on the health­i­est foods, the low­est in calo­ries, and the low­est in fat grams. I devel­oped my “Safe Foods” and made sure they were always acces­si­ble. I knew as long as I stuck to my rou­tine, I knew exactly what was going into my body. There wouldn’t be a sin­gle calo­rie unac­counted for.

Oper­a­tion: Eat Less included old fash­ioned oats and ½ cup of egg whites for break­fast. I ate a turkey sand­wich on whole grain bread with let­tuce and mus­tard only. If I had already worked out that day, I could have an apple for dessert. For a snack, I would have non-fat yogurt and car­rot sticks. My din­ner con­sisted of a chicken breast, steamed broc­coli, and a sweet potato (if I hadn’t eaten the apple at lunch. Before I went to bed, I drank 8 oz. of skim milk. Oh, and I had 128 oz. of water each day. It always came out to less than 800 calo­ries a day. (I wrote it down in my food diary each day.) I burned twice as many calo­ries as I con­sumed most days. Some­times I burned even more.
The weight fell off of me. I’m not sure how quickly it hap­pened or when exactly it all came of. I still felt dis­gust­ingly fat each time I looked in the mir­ror. How was it pos­si­ble that I still looked heavy in the mir­ror when size 0 pants had to be taken in to fit me?

I no longer saw ben­e­fits from two-a-day work­outs. I wasn’t sure I could force myself to eat less. I was already starv­ing. I asked my man­ager for more classes. Pretty soon, I was teach­ing 15 classes a week.

By this point, the com­pli­ments had stopped. They were replaced with, “Michelle, you’re so thin. Maybe you should back off a few days. Are you sure you’re eat­ing enough?”

Instead of pay­ing atten­tion to their con­cerns, they only moti­vated me more. But the com­ments didn’t stop. I knew I was going to have to do some­thing to prove to every­one that I didn’t have a prob­lem – because I didn’t. I just wanted to be healthy.

I needed a mask, and I needed one fast. I entered a pageant. What per­son with an eat­ing dis­or­der or an unhealthy body image would pur­posely parade around on a stage in a swim­suit? It was perfect.

I was 19. I didn’t think I stood a chance. But at the end of the night, the crown went on my head – aver­age, good stu­dent, lit­tle church nerd ME! That’s when the mixed sig­nals started. At the same time I heard, “Michelle, I think you might be a lit­tle too skinny,” I heard, “But you look absolutely amaz­ing on camera.”

From there, I went from bad to worse. Now, I was going to have to com­pete against 50 of the most beau­ti­ful girls in my state. I knew I couldn’t beat them in age or expe­ri­ence. They had a few years of matu­rity on me in the tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion. But I could do every­thing in my power to rock the swim­suit com­pe­ti­tion. I just had to have the will power. If I couldn’t get rid of the weight while I was still eat­ing, I would just stop eat­ing altogether.

I cut out snacks first, then meals. Before long, I was skip­ping entire days of eat­ing. All while keep­ing up my exer­cise class teach­ing sched­ule. Plus, I decided I needed to train for a half-marathon.

It was empow­er­ing. I knew I had some­thing inside of me that was bet­ter than every­one else. Every­one I knew had to count on food to sur­vive. I was super-human, I could make it with­out it. Sure, I would have to break down and eat some­thing every once in a while. I just made sure it was a “neg­a­tive calo­rie food” – foods that actu­ally burn more calo­ries to digest that you do from eat­ing them. As if that wasn’t enough, I began tak­ing mul­ti­ple appetite sup­pres­sants and fat burners.

By the time the state pageant rolled around, I was at my small­est. Dur­ing the swim­suit com­pe­ti­tion, my dad, who was typ­i­cally my biggest fan, put the binoc­u­lars down. “I can’t look at her like that,” he told my sis­ter. He knew I had a prob­lem. They all did. But any­time they brought it up to me, I had an amaz­ing excuse. I still didn’t think it was a big deal.
Back­stage, the girls all fussed over how thin I was – how it was “unfair” to have to walk on stage after me. I looked in the mir­ror, glanc­ing at my trou­ble spots, wish­ing my tummy would be just a lit­tle smaller.

“I bet you don’t even weigh 90 pounds,” one of the other con­tes­tants challenged.

“Sure, I do,” I said. “I weigh 102,” I said, even though the last time I had stepped on a scale was nearly six months earlier.

“Prove it,” she dared, point­ing to a scale in the corner.

“I will,” I replied defi­antly, swal­low­ing hard. You would have thought I was walk­ing to the gal­lows to be hung the way I was dread­ing step­ping on that scale. What if I had gained weight? What if they actu­ally thought I was fat?

Tak­ing a deep breath, I stepped on the scale, clos­ing my eyes.

The other con­tes­tant shouted, “Ha ha! I was right! 89 pounds everyone!”

I don’t remem­ber if I said any­thing to her. I just know her words kept echo­ing in my brain. 89 pounds. Plus, my shoes and my ear­rings alone weighed at least five pounds. I know 89 pounds is skinny. Maybe even too skinny. So why do I still feel fat?

All of the sud­den, I knew I had a problem.

But I had got­ten myself into a mess I didn’t know how to get out of. I didn’t want to dis­ap­point my par­ents. I didn’t want to have to go through ther­apy. I didn’t want to have to leave my job or put col­lege on hold. More than that though – I didn’t want to eat. I couldn’t bear the thought of gain­ing weight.

I knew there was only one way to han­dle this. Quit fight­ing, and let food and the mir­ror win. Just accept that I was afraid of food, and do what­ever it took to cover my tracks. There were times I would go to bed hop­ing I wouldn’t wake up so it would be over. I had trou­ble sleep­ing. Many nights, I he
ard my par­ents and my older sis­ter come into my room to check to make sure I was breathing.

My fam­ily did every­thing they could. I left the house before they were awake most morn­ings. I would leave the pantry door par­tially open so they would think I had got­ten break­fast before I left. They would bring my din­ner at work. I would make up an excuse about hav­ing to train a client, but I was always appre­cia­tive. I shud­der to think about how much money they spent on food that I put in the trash can or gave away. I knew I was hurt­ing them. I heard my mom’s snif­fles. I saw the cir­cles under my dad’s eyes. I felt my sis­ter pulling away from me like she knew she had to dis­tance her­self since they were los­ing me.
A small detail I for­got to men­tion: I was still a leader in my church through­out all of this. I taught a bible study to the youth group girls. I sang in the praise team every Sun­day morn­ing and Sun­day night. Yet I had com­pletely aban­doned my per­sonal rela­tion­ship with Christ. I knew the Sun­day school answers. I knew the pub­lic prayers to pray. But I couldn’t force myself to be real with God because I couldn’t bring myself to think about how much I was hurt­ing Him.

But as God tends to do, He even­tu­ally got my atten­tion. On April 14, 2005, I took off to a park about 10 min­utes away from my parent’s house to com­plete my last long run before my upcom­ing marathon. 20 miles was on the train­ing plan, and it didn’t mat­ter that I hadn’t had a meal in 13 days. I was super human, remember?

I made sure to cover all of my bases before­hand. I knew my par­ents would call to find out where I was and beg me to come home, so I pur­posely left my cell phone in the kitchen so they would have no way to reach me.

I made it to mile 19. My vision began to get blurry as I rounded a cor­ner of the famil­iar park. This stretch of the trail was com­pletely hid­den from the road. Try­ing to clear my vision, I closed my eyes for a few paces. The next thing I knew, I tripped, and I was on the ground. All 84 pounds of me hit the pave­ment, and I lit­er­ally felt every brit­tle bone in my body crack.

Fran­ti­cally, I scanned for help, but I was all alone. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t have the energy. I couldn’t see any­more, so I tried to open my eyes. Oh my gosh. My eyes felt open, but I couldn’t see any­thing. What is going on? I knew I should panic. Wait a sec­ond. Michelle, why is breath­ing so hard? Michelle, GET UP! Can you hear me? Why aren’t you mov­ing? This is seri­ous! MICHELLE!

I don’t know how long I laid there and tried to move. I just knew I couldn’t get up. Wow, I thought. So this is it. It finally hap­pened. I am going to die right here on this track. Still try­ing to move, I attempted to gather my final thoughts. Michelle, how did you let it get this far? How could you be so self­ish? Mom will never recover. Dad will never for­give him­self. And your sis­ter is get­ting mar­ried in three months and her maid of honor won’t be there.

I knew that I should talk to God. I used to turn to Him for every­thing, and now, I didn’t know what to say. Still try­ing to move, I attempted to gather my final thoughts. Michelle, how did you let it get this far? How could you be so self­ish? Mom will never recover. Dad will never for­give him­self. And Melody’s get­ting mar­ried in three months. Her maid of honor won’t be there, thanks to you! What will they think when they find you like this? What if they don’t find you? What if it’s some child headed to the playground?

Bingo, I thought. Some­thing I can ask God for.

So, for the first time in over a year, I prayed – really prayed. Not a prayer out loud at church to make every­one think that I was the per­fect Chris­t­ian – I was the mas­ter of those — but I went before my Sav­ior with a gen­uine request.

God, I’m not ask­ing You to live. I don’t deserve to live. I know that. But if You could, can I just get up and walk to my car? That’s all I want, Jesus. Just let me walk to my car.

To this day, I don’t know if angels picked me up or if God sim­ply gave me the strength I needed to stand. But through His grace, I stood up. I don’t remem­ber much about the walk to my car, but I know I made it there. I sat in the driver’s seat and reached for the mid­dle con­sole where I usu­ally kept my cell phone. Of course, it wasn’t there. It was on the kitchen counter, where I had acci­den­tally left it on purpose.

Well, there goes your last hope, Michelle. The only thing you can do is sit here and wait to die. I drank some water that I had with me, and I felt it slosh around in my empty stomach.

See, Michelle. You’ve always heard that before you die, you think about what is really impor­tant to you. What did you think about? Your fam­ily and your faith. Did you think, “Gosh, I am going to look so fat in my cas­ket. I really shouldn’t have eaten that apple almost two weeks ago. You should have ran far­ther!” NO, YOU DIDN’T!

All of the sud­den, I wanted to live. Really live. Not count calo­ries or starve myself. I want to hug my dad and tell my mom I love her, I real­ized. I want to catch Melody’s bou­quet in June. I’m sorry, pre­cious fam­ily. God, I want to talk to you, but I don’t know what to say. I turned my car on. Maybe a car run­ning will attract more atten­tion than a parked car.

I don’t remem­ber hav­ing my radio on as I was dri­ving to the park. Even f I did, I cer­tainly didn’t have it on the con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian radio sta­tion. Lit­er­ally and fig­u­ra­tively, I had been run­ning from God for quite some time. Peo­ple who run from God don’t lis­ten to songs that remind them of their guilt.

Then, I heard it. God’s voice. That com­fort­ing voice that I hadn’t heard in so long. Michelle, I love you. In fact, I love you so much, that right now, when you don’t even have the words to say, I’m going to give them to you.

Then, the radio sta­tion played the song below:

“Restore Me”
– Anthony Evans

On the out­side
You think I’m alright
There’s a smile on my face
Everything’s okay
But on the inside there’s a dif­fer­ent story
I’ve stum­bled down this road
And I’ve got so for the go
I’m a bro­ken man
On my knees again
Long­ing for a touch from you
I need you hand to

Restore me
I need your mercy
Take me
To the place I used to be
Use all the pain and the hurt
To do a greater work and
Restore me

I wore my mask
Run­ning away from my past
Hid­ing all my scars
Think­ing I’d gone too far
But he knew my pain
And He loved me just the same
He promised I’d be free
If I fell on my knees and cried

Restore me
I need your mercy
Take me
To the place I used to be
Use all the pain and the hurt
To do a greater work and
Restore me

Restore unto me the joy of my sal­va­tion
So I’ll sing again the song you wrote for me
Give me a clean heart
I want a brand new start
Like the moment when I first believed

Restore me
I need your mercy
Take me
To the place I used to be
Use all the pain and the hurt
To do a greater work and
Restore me
Please, Jesus.
Give me another chance.
I want to be a new man.
Please, Jesus.

With huge tears in my eyes, I felt God’s love sur­round me. Does this mean you’re going to let me live, Jesus? Sud­denly, I had the strength to sit up. I put my car in reverse, and I drove home. Amazed at God’s grace, I came in the door of my house. I imme­di­ately saw my mom, and I hugged her.

“Mommy, I need help.”

She nod­ded, tears stream­ing down her face. “I know.”

I sat down at the kitchen table, and my dad fixed me some­thing to eat. I don’t remem­ber what I ate, but I know that I didn’t write it down. I didn’t check the nutri­tion labels before I put it in my mouth.

That doesn’t mean it was over. Recov­ery was frus­trat­ing, espe­cially at first. I remem­ber sit­ting at a table hav­ing to eat a nor­mal meal and cry­ing harder with every bite that I put in my mouth. Each calo­rie that went into my body was undo­ing my “hard work and dis­ci­pline.” I felt like a child again, rein­tro­duc­ing food to my body. My dad even had to give me the Heim­lich maneu­ver on three occa­sions because I had for­got­ten how to prop­erly chew and swal­low food. I clung to Jere­miah 30:17, “’But I will restore you to health, and heal your wounds,’ declares the Lord.”

For­giv­ing myself is still a chal­lenge. I can’t believe all of the time I wasted — the oppor­tu­ni­ties I missed to be an exam­ple for the Lord. I can’t believe the hurt my fam­ily went through because of my actions. Today, I still deal with the per­ma­nent dam­age I’ve done to my body – some­thing that not only affects me, but my hus­band as well.

It’s not over – it’s like any stum­bling block. Satan know my strug­gles. He tries to put those thoughts back in my head and to warp the mir­ror when I look in it. Most of the time, I am able to over­come the temp­ta­tion “through Christ who gives me strength” (Philip­pi­ans 4:13). On rare occa­sions, I slip, falling into old pat­terns of spend­ing too much time at the gym or eat­ing too few calories.

But “the Lord, the com­pas­sion­ate and gra­cious God, slow to anger, abound­ing in love and faith­ful­ness” is there every time I fall to pick me up (Exo­dus 34:6). He val­ues me, He loves me, and I can turn to Him.

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