This past year, I got a new pair of glasses.

Not the kind that rest on my face, but ones that revealed cultural rules I’d been living under most of my life. Rules that kept me stepping on a scale every morning to determine whether I was okay.

But let me back up.

My struggle with food began in childhood, eventually developing into disordered eating that followed me into my mid-twenties. I was a deeply feeling person growing up in a time when we weren’t taught what to do with our feelings. Food became solace for the “too much” and “not enough” moments of life.

I was also swimming in messages telling me my body needed to look a certain way and stay under an “acceptable” weight.

And so the cycle began.

When emotions overwhelmed me, food became refuge. Weight gain led to shame, then another diet to get back under that “acceptable” threshold. When it “worked,” pride set in. But the pride never lasted. Eventually, I’d rebel against the restriction or just stop caring.

No one knew about the silent merry-go-round I was riding. They may have noticed my changing size or another diet, but they couldn’t see how heavy those 10 or 20 pounds of silent suffering really were.

The Long Way Around

As a Christian, I prayed for relief but kept turning to counterfeit saviors—either excess food to soothe me or the latest diet and workout plan to fix me. My thoughts around food and my body consumed me. Always counting, analyzing, weighing, judging, getting lost in the carton of ice cream.

My recovery has been slow and steady for more than 30 years. And strangely enough, that is where much of my gratitude lies.

For years, I wanted the quick fix. God knew better than to give it to me. Had there been a magic pill, I would have taken it and perhaps never discovered who He created me to be.

God wired me to feel deeply, love deep conversations, ponder things, and connect the physical with the spiritual. I believed the lie that those characteristics weren’t valuable and buried them under food. Had my struggle simply disappeared, I might have continued living someone else’s life.

Instead, my desperation led me to seek out safe people who helped me process my feelings rather than eat them. Journaling became one of the ways I learned to bring those feelings to God, and my relationship with Him began moving beyond head knowledge. I found He was happy to weigh in on my emotions—giving me His perspective, which made so much more sense than the stories I’d been telling myself.

A Life-Giving Shift in Focus

For the past decade or more, I had been eating far fewer of my emotions, and my weight was stable. But every morning, I still stepped on the scale. Instead of listening to my body, I let a number tell me how many bites I could have.

I was still bound to the “scale god.”

As I felt called to help other women, God invited me to look at what was still binding me. As I began questioning long-held beliefs about food and bodies alongside what I was learning in Scripture, I saw just how much authority I had given a number.

I had been asking it a question it could never answer:

Am I okay?

With new lenses, God showed me rules I’d carried most of my life. He reminded me that He gave me a body I could learn to listen to and steward—not an enemy I needed to control.

Seeing Differently, Making Room

The more content I’ve become with who God created me to be, the more authentically I show up. There’s less hiding, comparing, and trying to be who I think I should be—and more room for genuine, Christlike connection.

I know how much suffering can hide behind a “normal-looking” life. A “snacking problem,” another diet, or being unhappy with their body may point to something much deeper underneath.

My younger self only wanted God to take the struggle away. Instead, He has patiently unburdened me, layer by layer, returning me to the person He created me to be.

Others once made room for my story. Now I get to sit beside others, holding space for their stories, as they begin to see differently, too.

For the long road that brought me here, I am grateful. 

Meet Lisa Crowder

Where to find her . . .

• Welcome page
• Substack
• Coaching
• Instagram

Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.

If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.