When Emptiness Sang Its Beautiful Melody

Photo credit to Ruth MacDonald

I take a seat on a sofa in one of the large group rooms at the Renfrew Center of Radnor. I am next to an intimidating teenage girl with a septum piercing. My parents are here, and her mother as well, but neither of us dare sit near them for they, in our misguided minds, are the reason we are here and we are jaded. An extremely giddy therapist-slash-clinical-director is sitting at the front of the room, going through the motions of patient orientation, as she works with these kinds of girls every day: dying, angry, skinny-bitchy, desperate.

She hands us each an orientation checklist going over the principles and rules of the program. "Weigh-ins completed on Monday and Thursday. All weights are blind." Gulp. I knew it. I hate blind weights. With a burning passion. "Bathrooms are only to be used prior to group starting, during break and at the very end of the evening." You mean you expect me, the volatile human with no identity other than sick, not to purge these colossal meals you dare place in front of me? "Meal time is timed for 30 minutes." It takes me about that long to take two bites, which is the maximum I'll ever take if I'm held from the restroom anyway. "You must finish the meals, if not you will be asked to supplement. If you refuse to supplement you will need to sign a contract." Meals, schmeals, supplement, schmupplement, contract, schmontract. I'm much too ethereal to give in to those human demandings.

I am not new to this. This is not my first time entering an eating disorder clinic, and the rules are far from atypical to places like this. But no matter how many times I go through this process of being asked to obey such laws, something inside me always screams, No. How dare anybody try to take away my only means of coping in this corrupt world. I refuse to lay down my identity and destiny for the sake of submission -- No. I figure they'll get rid of me somehow eventually - this form of treatment is simply not fit for me, the Expert Bulimic.

"Who wants to check in first?" the therapist offers at the beginning of the first group. I strain hard to try to recall, from the impressive amount of time since I've been within a treatment center's walls, what that psychobabbly term is supposed to mean. I'm sure I've heard it and even used it in therapeutic conversation before, but I confess, in these years of growth and regression I've distracted myself with everyday, normal people things. Now when I hear the term "check in" I think of hotel stays, airport trips, and the foursquare app. But now I'm in group therapy with around six or seven scarred and broken girls, and I can't fit any of those into this situation.

I'm too checked OUT and half-dead to give any input to the words of my fellow patients. "I can't do this anymore." (Wow, you're just realizing that now? I don't remember the last time I COULD do this, whatever "this" is.) "I purged on Tuesday, oh my GAWSH." (It is Thursday and I've purged probably seven times since the last time you purged, so I don't really know what the big deal is.) "Today's my last day - I'm a new woman!" (You've been here six weeks. How could you change so much in that amount of time? I don't get it.)

I don't remember how I got here. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and yet the dreading of it may as well have been decades. After a melodramatic trip to the hospital for dehydration, my parents and the shrinks had me kicked out of the first place I ever felt at home - my art school - and sent me where else but... here. Before I could even say, "But wait! I was just kidding..."

I don't want this.

But whatever, I'll suck it up and get this over with. I'll humor these people, and then I'll continue on unchanged, maybe decide to start heading back towards reality around when I want to get my life started - get married, have kids. That is, if any guy wants my grandmother-looking, rotting-teeth-bearing, scalp-showing, sickly and frail twenty-five year-old self and if my reproductive system isn't shot by then.

This is all just to bridge the gap between the good life and the better life, anyway. It'll get old in ten years - don't worry.

Eight weeks, thousands of tears, at least ten panic attacks and two hospitalizations later, I'm nearly gone, and so is everything I ever knew. I don't know who I am anymore, but I know I'm not the Liz I once was. What I thought would give me control and a purpose did just the opposite - I'm out of control, and have absolutely nothing worthwhile to live for. Everything has been stripped away, and I have nothing holding me, nothing maintaining my sanity, nothing keeping me safe, alive, contained.

Except for God.

You know, the God of the universe who created the moon and the galaxies, knows each star by name, and still delights in having created me and having a relationship with me. The Jesus who chose to take on my human frame - the very same human frame that I have been destroying and abusing all these years - and to be beaten and mocked to death in order to restore me to righteousness and live with me forever. Despite all my brokenness, flaws, and ugly sins against Him. The Spirit who lives INSIDE of me to convict me, comfort me, remind me of His truths when I forget them (which seems to be quite often), and guide me where to go. Yeah, that One - the One who is holy, infinite, uncontainable, amazing, omnipotent, untamable, and indescribable. The King of kings and Lord of lords, with no means of measure and limitless love. Immortally graceful, impartially merciful, the Greatest Phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world. The highway of holiness. Incomprehensible, invincible, irresistible. Faultless. The grave couldn't hold Him. That's my King.

And what am I doing? Annihilating His masterpiece, giving myself up as a slave to the very sin that nailed Him to the cross, and serving His very enemy - the father of lies who seeks to destroy me.

I do not run into His arms and give Him a big ol' bear hug now. In fact, I don't move at all, frozen in fear. Instead, He reaches down and picks me up as a father grabs his wayward child the second before she knocks over and shatters the expensive lamp. He gives me gentle discipline, and holds me in His arms, just as I am. I've been running around outside all day, and I'm too exhausted to fight Him.

The work begins, and it gets old.

Photo and model credit to Grace Picard

It got old a few months ago now, but I often forget that. I forget what a loss it is compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, and I fall down sometimes. But now I am walking on this bridge between the good life and the better life, which is much better than racing past it on a bicycle when the sign in front clearly says "Only Pedestrians Allowed." This bridge is long, and it is wobbly and wooden. But I am strolling slowly by my Father's side, sometimes trembling, sometimes clinging for dear life, sometimes letting pride get in the way and straying slightly in front of Him.

Of all the masters I have known, Jesus is the kindest. Of all the masters I have known, Jesus is the only One who is making me free. In view of His mercy, I am laying down my life. In view of His mercy, I am compelled.

I am an empty vessel, but I have my Master, and when emptiness sang its beautiful melody to me, He showed me that He is truly all I need.