a new kind of mourning.

the first post i ever published on this blog explained the blog's name in terms of Psalm 30:5, which says, "weeping may last for the night but joy comes in the morning!"

i explained in both retrospect and anticipation that the mourning that comes with the decision to recover from any sort of addiction is eventually replaced by a bright morning that is worth far more in joy than any moment of mourning was worth in pain.

i described the nature of the mo(u)rn through which i was walking like this, " it is perseverance through mourning- mourning the loss of our disorder, of our ideals, of unhealthy mental framework, of our comforts, of what we thought was our sanity, that pulls the morning sun up into the tops of the trees."

as is apparent above, i remember starting this blog in a full-blown state of mourning the loss of my disorder. "normal people" may wonder why someone would mourn a self-starvation-inflicting mental illness, but in the midst of an addiction, the numbness that comes with addictive behaviors is more than worth the resulting self-destruction.

as crazy as it sounds, losing this disorder felt for the longest time like losing a best friend. although i stand firmly beside the validity of those feelings, i've realized i've left the feelings themselves behind. the other day, as i was driving to babysit, i realized that although i'm still in a state of mourning, it is no longer the loss of my disorder that pains me, what hurts me now, is the fact that it existed in the first place.

a couple of years ago, a dear friend asked me if i wished that my eating disorder had never happened. i remember saying something about how i regretted having an idol in my life, but that i couldn't exactly regret my disorder because without it i would never have gotten skinny.

if that friend asked me the same question today i think my answer would sound something like this:

"i absolutely wish that my eating disorder would never have happened. i wish that i could go back and right the wrongs and invest in the people i wished i'd had the energy to invest in and do things with a whole heart and a whole mind. i wish i wouldn't have been scared to love other people and my body just like they were and even more than that, i wish i could've learned to find contentment and security in Jesus instead of myself. i wish all of that, but i can't go back and so all i can hope for is that God will somehow redeem these losses i'm mourning and bring beauty from the ashes."

Although i'm completely confident that God will one day reverse the waste i inflicted upon a hearty piece of my young life, that confidence is hard to rest on.

it's hard when i look into faces i love, but realize i could know so much better. it's hard when i laugh with my whole body and i realize how long i could have been laughing that way. it's hard when i'm sitting in class, enjoying how much i understand and consider how much my parents paid for months worth of empty-headedness.

Mourning the loss of my disorder was daily excruciation, but it made way for the abundance of life i now experience- abundance i would suffer all over again to keep. Although this new mourning hurts just as much in a different way, i know that one day i will look upon the Lord's work with these painful seeds, and i will see a harvest so breathtakingly beautiful, i'll find it worth all the pain.

until then, there is life right now.

love,

EA