Recently, I've been struggling a lot with gluttony. I love food—making it and eating it—but there is very little healthy perspective on food in our culture or in my life. That's hard, because I've had to make my own healthy environment. I started focusing on eating health foods in January, and that has been great. I stopped eating dessert for the month of March, and that was so empowering. But every time I come back home, leaving school and the healthy environment I made for myself there, I return to my habits of gluttony.
I consider this struggle to be an eating disorder. One of my friends who's struggled with bulimia told me that she felt like she couldn't call her experiences an eating disorder because she had never been diagnosed. That was so flawed that it reminded me to call my experience what it is. I think it's important to do, because recognizing the weight of the issue by naming it what it is helps me deal with it.
I know that many people struggle with eating disorders of a kind different from mine, where they can't make themselves eat food. Because of the difference between these, I sometimes hesitate to call my issue an eating disorder—I don't want people to think that my struggle, because it's so different from theirs, is too different to fit under the same title. But I realized that it wasn't an issue of me eating too much, it was a mental battle that consumed my thoughts. And I saw that I was unable to make myself stop eating, in a similar way to the inability of some people to make themselves start eating. So even though my struggle is different, I have chosen to call it an eating disorder. Even though the manifestation is very different from anorexia or bulimia, the symptoms and struggle have been similar.
Another thing I need to offer in defense of calling this an eating disorder: I am well aware that many people indulge in gluttony and would not consider themselves to struggle with an eating disorder. I have varied thoughts about this, but I want to say two things: I don't think that everyone who indulges in gluttony has an eating disorder. Gluttony is not super mental for some people—dealing with it doesn't consume their thoughts all the time—so I don't want to speak on behalf of anyone besides myself and say they have an eating disorder. Gluttony is so widespread culturally that I don't think I can say any sweeping statement like that. The second thing I want to say is, however, a sweeping statement: I do think that everyone who indulges in gluttony is indulging in sin. Gluttony is not a sin that's regularly discussed by the church; I've found that it's routinely ignored. That's one thing that's made it harder to deal with, and potentially something that's brought it about in the first place. Despite the failure of the church, however, Scripture does not fail to treat the issue.
That brings me to mention the two most encouraging things in my struggle with gluttony. The first was a set of scripture verses that I compiled in an order that made sense to me: essentially, I made myself a chapter of Scripture that dealt exactly with the problem I was struggling with. I've shared that below. The second thing was telling Jane.
Jane is one friend who actually pursues me, which I can't say about very many friends that I've ever had. She asks me how I'm doing and listens well. In November, I was doing poorly in my struggle with gluttony, and one of the hardest things about it was that I was hiding it. I had spent enough time in Christian community to know the value of confession. I knew that Satan loses his power when we bring our sins into the light. And because of the type of friend Jane had been to me, I knew that, as much as I would be uncomfortable talking to anyone about it, I could tell her, and she would listen. So I told her that I needed to talk. We planned a coffee date, and she sat, listening, until I was ready to tell her about it. It was so freeing just to know that someone else knew, and it gave me a level of freedom in my eating disorder that I hadn't experienced until then.
I could talk about other experiences I've had dealing with this—fears, failures, hurt—but I think what I've said so far gets at the skeletal issues of my thoughts about gluttony and my experiences with it. I write this post because today was especially hard, so as I came to do my quiet time, I sat down and flipped back to my Scripture compilation. It spoke truth over my struggles, and I hope it does the same for you. If you're curious about references, you can google the verse.
In Him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Holy Spirit. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. If we have food, with this we will be content. Pray then like this: give us this day our daily bread. It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefitted those devoted to them. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The rules of the Lord are sweeter than honey. One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet. From all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And do not grow weary of doing good. Do not give up. Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. These desires are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
