Mending Your Broken Pieces, Part II

Psalm 147:3

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

What has you broken?  This isn't always easy to answer.  However, if you want to be mended, you've got to determine and admit what has you broken.  I'm not certain why God has chosen me to share my brokenness with you, but I'm going to walk in obedience.  If I'm honest, I didn't want to do this particular piece.  I was fine with Mending Your Broken Pieces, Part I.  Part I was general.  Part I was basic.  Part I applied to anyone.  Part I was an "insert your name here" blog.  Mending Your Broken Pieces, Part II is personal though.  Part II is MY story.  Part II is me allowing someone to see me and be blessed.  Part II also leaves the door open for me to be judged, to be ridiculed, to be embarrassed, and to be vulnerable.  The good part about it though...it allows God to mend me a little bit more.  What has you broken?  There are two things that I've never been able to get quite right:  my weight and my relationships with men.  Both have led to handicaps and dysfunctions in my life.

My Weight

If I could use one word to describe my weight, it would be roller-coaster.  I've been overweight, really obese, most of my life.  I am an emotional eater.  Big spikes in my weight have normally been triggered by something happening in my life:  death of a loved one, break-up with a boyfriend, stress.  Likewise, big dips in my weight have normally been triggered by something happening in my life:  fear of being sick or fear of dying young.  I've been uncomfortable in the skin I'm in for as long as I can remember. So, adding weight to it wasn't really a big deal.  

I've never felt like your typical "pretty girl".  I've seen some very awkward phases of life, and my weight has been right there through the awkwardness.  Growing up "fat" didn't equate to cute.  You had a select few "pretty plus" girls that were considered popular and cute, but I didn't quite make that list.  In fact, I wasn't "cute for a fat girl" until I got to college.  By the time I made it to college, my self-esteem wasn't all that great, so you can imagine that it was pretty cool having guys want to talk to me after going years in junior high and high school as the nerdy, chubby girl in thick glasses.  Now, let's be clear, I had friends and my friends and family told me I was pretty, but that's what friends and family are supposed to say, duh.

Food for me has been a source of comfort.  It's been like a friend almost.  When I'm stressed, I reach for food.  When I'm sad, I reach for food.  When I'm heartbroken, I reach for food.  I really never took the time to think about the issues that I had with food until 2012.  In 2012, I was close to 450 pounds. Now, that wasn't the first time that I lost a considerable amount of weight; it was just the first time that I actually dealt with why I was heavy.  It was the first time that I took the time to admit that I was heavy because I'd made food a friend and a comforter.  I was filling my empty emotional spaces with food. Food was my prescription for loneliness.  Food was my prescription for a broken heart.  Food was my prescription for stress.  Food was my prescription for despair.  Food was my prescription for inadequacy.  Food was my prescription for ineptness.  Yet the side effect of that prescription, obesity, was a factor that contributed to all those empty emotional spaces.  

This place is still broken, unfortunately.  While I'm not 450 pounds anymore, I'm not exactly the 315 pounds that I got down to in 2013 either; nor am I the 230 pounds that I wanted to be by 2014.  I struggle with this weight thing constantly.  It's an every day battle.  Admitting it is the first step to being mended though.  Journaling has helped me a lot with it.  I'm learning to seek God instead of food.  

My Relationships with Men

So, I've already painted a picture of how I viewed myself as a little girl.  Certainly, that's a recipe for disaster with men.  When I was younger, boys didn't like me.  I was awkward.  I looked older than most girls my age because of my body development and size.  I kind of grew into fat because my body was for lack of a better word, stacked.  I had a body at 10; I just had acne and thick glasses to go along with it.  Again, as a young girl, I never really felt pretty.  Sometimes as a grown woman I don't feel pretty, but that's what my brokenness has done for me.  

When guys finally did start to like me in junior high and high school, it's as if they were ashamed of it.  I had tons of "phone boyfriends".  Your phone boyfriend is the boyfriend that you talk to on the phone all the time, but no one knows you all talk, and you barely even speak in public.  We'd talk all the time over the phone, but I wasn't the girl that guys openly admitted to liking in public.  That's dysfunctional for a teenager, and even more so for an adult.  

I didn't get my first real boyfriend that people knew about until I went to college.  Every boyfriend that I've had (or every guy I've had a relationship or "situationship" with) has either cheated on me or cheated with me.  I've never had a romantic relationship with a man that was solely mine.  Never.  Not once in 38 years of life have I had a romantic relationship where the only people in the relationship were me and that person for the duration of the relationship.  Never.  There was always another woman whether it was at the beginning, in the middle, at the end or throughout.  Always.  Every man that I've ever had a romantic relationship with has lied to me or has lied to someone else to be with me.  All of them.  

There came a time that I had to put on my big girl panties and evaluate all of these relationships and determine what they had in common:  ME.  I was the common denominator.  So, what is it about me that attracts these kind of relationships?  The answer is simple:  my brokenness.  I want to be accepted.  I want to be liked.  I want to be loved.  I want to be found attractive.  These relationships helped to cover the sting that rejection leaves.  These relationships helped to fill the void that loneliness brings.  I took the time to make a list of the dysfunctions that the fear of being rejected or the fear of being lonely have added to my life.  

Rejection and loneliness have caused me to:

Be envious

Emotionally eat

Make poor decisions in an effort to be accepted or desired

Be broken

Feel disconnected from God and loved ones

Feel unwanted

Feel undesirable and unattractive

Distrust men

Be careless and reckless

Feel inadequate

Surround myself with clutter and things

Be unclean literally and figuratively

Overspend

Overwork

Overextend myself

Overly commit to tasks or projects

Moving Beyond My Brokenness

Sharing this has not been easy.  I'm a private and proud person.  Writing this almost makes me feel naked before people.  At the same time, though, it also makes me feel free.  As I walk in transparency and truth, my wounds are being bound.  My broken places are being mended.  A part of my mending is helping to mend others.  A part of my mending is sharing my inadequacies and insecurities in hopes that someone else might be compelled to acknowledge their own.  This openness is me letting God shine through me.  My life is shifting and changing in ways I never imagined.  God is making me actively participate in the blessings He's preparing for me.  I've got my eyes set on a promise; this is a part of the process.  There is always a PROCESS leading to the PROMISE.  What promises are you missing because you're not willing to go through the process to get them?  What blessings are you foregoing because you haven't taken the time to deal with your broken pieces?