“Do you want to be healed?” That question appears in a book I started reading last fall called “Grace, Food, and Everything in Between.” The question was prompted by Jesus in the story found in John 5:1-9. There was a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda where a great number of disabled people would lie. Jesus approached an invalid who had been there 38 years and asks him “Do you want to be healed?” The invalid replies that there is no one to help him into the pool when the water is stirred and, when he tries to get in, someone else goes down ahead of him. Jesus tells the man to get up, pick up his mat, and walk and the man was cured. As the author of the book points out, the man evades Jesus’ question and begins explaining the reasons why he can’t be healed. “He is so focused on the means of his healing, or what he believes is the only way to be healed, that he can’t see the truth – the healer is Jesus and He’s standing right in front of him.”
“Do you want to be healed?” is a question that has been bouncing around in my mind and heart for some time now. Probably from the day I first read this section last fall. Instead of being an invalid at a pool called Bethesda, I have spent 40 years of my life feeling shame and inadequacy as a fat girl.
Through elementary school I was a pretty normal kid. I ate what we had at the house. My family wasn’t one focused on nutrition and fitness. I played outside, however, and got dirty all the time. Middle school and puberty marked a turning point. My family had trauma in our midst, some was very obvious, and some formed a subtle undercurrent to everyday life. It was in those years that my brother’s drug use became known to our family. He was busted with marijuana on the school bus. That was the first day of what would become decades of family strife dealing with his drug abuse, treatment programs, violent outbursts, lying, stealing, etc. Anyone who has had a substance abuser in the family knows the toll it takes on the loved ones. At the tender age of 11 or 12, all the family energy shifted to my brother and the stress he brought to the family. The best way I can describe my reaction is probably withdrawal. My grades improved so there wasn’t disappointment or problems there. I didn’t want to further rock an already rocking boat. I also started sneaking food, secretly eating from the leftovers in pots and pans doing dishes, using allowance money for junk food at the corner 7-11, stealing money to get junk food at 7-11, buying junk food at school, etc. I buried my hurt and fear and anger and frustration in food. Even today secret eating is a fallback coping tool.
The subtle undercurrent of trauma was one I wouldn’t identify for many years. Puberty marks the beginning of a significant time for young people. Bodies undergo incredible change in those years. Boys and girls start noticing each other in different ways. I wanted that attention, but also, I subconsciously feared that attention. This was the unintentional lesson from my mom. I was intentionally raised to be independent; that I would provide for myself financially and be able to take care of whatever needed so I wouldn’t find myself fully dependent upon a man. Subconsciously I was also taught that men can’t be trusted and only want to hurt you. My mom had her share of unhealed trauma that influenced how she raised her daughter. She struggled with her weight her whole life. Her mother ran her family and her brother could do no wrong. Mom said she felt the only thing she could control was what she ate so she did what she liked. She said her mother told her “no one loves a fat girl” so Mom lost weight, but nothing changed. I was in my late 30’s or early 40’s when we all learned, my dad included, that she had been molested by a family member as a child and date raped in college. Tragically I think my mom died after nearly 46 years of marriage still not believing she was worthy of my dad’s love and devotion. As I matured, I believe I came to equate being an independent, sometimes know-in-all, fat girl meant safety, even if I didn’t understand it that way at the time. But it also put me at odds with a world view that I would use time and again to define my worth.
When I was 13 or 14, I can remember my brother, in front of his friends, calling me a bowling ball with legs. This image has stuck with me since. While it doesn’t sting like it used to, it was a humiliating and embarrassing experience. It was also heartbreaking because it was evidence that the big brother who once looked out for me and protected me didn’t have my back anymore. The drug-addicted brother was one I could no longer trust. Over the years I have strapped on numerous balls and chains to that image to add to my lack of self-worth, dragging them from place to place, year after year.
I am approaching my 53rd birthday and find myself reflective of the past 40 years of struggle. I have found old journal entries and notes and books and diaries where I lament my excess weight and pledge to change dating back years and years. There have been temporary successes over the years, but nothing long-lasting. Stubbornly I have failed to realize the change that needs to be made isn’t really the numbers on the scale, but where I find my true value. I am a child of God, but I haven’t accepted His view of me as truth.
This leads me again to the question “Do you want to be healed?” If Jesus stood in front of me today and asked me this question, what would I say? In honestly, for years I have been answering “Yes, but…” followed by examples of all my past failures and excuses and such as to why I can’t be healed. For 40 years I have let things or people other than God define my value. It is enough…
“Do I want to be healed?” Yes Jesus, yes I do.
Discovering Grace 