A Heavenly End to Addiction (At the Mercy of the Mirror Part 4)

With any addiction, stronghold, or habitual sin, something other than Jesus takes top priority. Consumes you. Defines you. Establishes your worth. Determines your sense of happiness and well-being. Rules your emotions. And everything is affected. The way you see yourself. The decisions you make about how others perceive and feel about you. Your marriage. Family. Your children, and how they see themselves. How they define themselves. How they cope with the world around them. Your sense or need for control. Your job, friendships, and other commitments.

Fear drives you. Fear of what will happen if you stop or if you don’t. Fear of what will happen if people figure it out. Fear of being exposed. Fear of what you’ll lose. Fear of not having control. Essentially, fear of man – which snares or lures us away from God’s best for us – trumps trusting God, where we are safe (Proverbs 29:25) and satisfied from above.

And here we arrive at the most recent defining moment in my battle with bulimia as I explain in this excerpt from my book, Holy His: Hope for a Life and a Nation Wholly His:

As I studied the fear of the Lord, He gave me a powerful revelation through Proverbs 19:23: “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; he will not be visited with evil.”

Each one of us is driven by the need to be satisfied. It is the very core of what we seek in life, and the Lord showed me that this central need for satisfaction that can only be met by the Lord Jesus Christ is what drives one to addiction. Either we will fear the Lord and find contentment in Jesus, or we will seek pleasure and fulfillment from the things of this world and remain empty, disappointed, and disgruntled.

The longer we continue to turn to anything or anyone but Jesus for the satisfaction only He can bring, the more likely we are to fall into the bondage of addiction. If we are walking in the ways of the Lord, fearing Him, and obeying Him, we will abide in His perfect satisfaction.

Proverbs 27:7 explains, “A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb, but to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” When the satisfaction of our soul is met through Jesus, we will be repulsed by even the best this world has to offer. We will not be driven to seek satisfaction from anyone or anything else, and we will not be visited with evil.

But if our soul is empty, anything the world offers, including that which brings destruction and death, will appear attractive. If we are Christians, and we are not abiding in satisfaction from above, we need to look at ourselves and see if we have lost the fear of the Lord and are looking to the world for fulfillment.

It’s more than just stopping or getting rid of sin in our lives. Yes, we must “put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” (Ephesians 4:22). But we must also “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (verse 23) and “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness” (verse 24).

The Greek meaning conveys a picture of one sinking into freshly made, brand new, unworn clothes. Disrobed of the old rags, in the fear of the Lord, we must clothe our minds and therefore our actions in new digs made of righteousness and holiness. 

If we don’t “put on the new man,” we are in danger of what Jesus describes in Matthew 12:43-45:

When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

In referencing this passage, I am not taking a theological stand on demon possession, and most especially of Christians. I’ll leave that for those much more scholarly than I. I am simple saying a life swept clean but left empty of Jesus is prime real estate for a devil’s playground.

To be satisfied from heaven is to fill the house with Jesus – Him as Lord, His word as the truth by which we live, breath, and have our being. Satisfied to the point where nothing else holds any attraction, not even the honeycomb, or the best this world has to offer.

Today, I am free. Really, really free. God’s word has proven true: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and the truth has set me free.

“So if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Need freedom? Seek Jesus. Put your faith in Him and Him alone. Nothing else will do.

Lord, open blind eyes. Soften hardened hearts. Give us wisdom and understanding. Teach us to fear You, and satisfy us from heaven as we become more wholly Yours today.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Crumpled Grave Clothes Litter My Heart

Resurrection Sunday. It is early. I am still. Lord, what do I say? We celebrate Easter with bunnies, baskets, hidden eggs, and squeals of delight, while an empty tomb beckons. One day a dead body. The next, only burial clothes. One day a fortified cell. Defeat. The next, a symbol of hope. One day the finality of man’s worst punishment. The next, the finality of God’s eternal deliverance.

What is here for me at the mouth of the empty tomb? The resurrected life. Alive in Christ, having died in Him. God shows me: Selfishness cannot live in the face of sacrifice. The dying to self of the crucified life is absolutely necessary for the glory of a resurrected life.

What may appear to be a checklist of good works (see “Crucified Like Him”) is but the natural result of a crucified self. But there is nothing natural about it. Not when God sums up the condition of man’s heart as “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Job 17:9). We can honestly say we were born that way. For that, Jesus died. Brutally. Innocently. Without sin. For what we deserve. To pay the eternal penalty we owe for our sin. The penalty owed by every one of us. No exceptions.

Jesus’ shed blood is the only verdict that will stand in the heavenly court of law when we stand before a holy God. To put our faith in Jesus as the only source of our salvation, to be saved by grace through faith and nothing else, is to die to self and be raised in new life in Christ. Just like He was. Resurrected from death to eternal life. Yes, eternal life in heaven when we are saved. Guaranteed. Because of one man’s sacrifice. The Son of God.

How do we not see? How do we not fall on our faces in joy and sorrow? How do we not rejoice? How do we not receive the free gift He offers? How do we not respond with the one simple requirement: faith. In Him, and Him alone. How do we not love Him because of His great love for us?

The empty tomb awaits. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Where once our tomb was a place of hopelessness, uncertainty, death, and bondage, in Christ, it is now empty of those things and filled with the Spirit of the living God.

Do you see it? When we place our faith in the resurrected Christ, all things are made new. Where there was once sin and destruction, there is now an empty tomb. A place of hope. We are raised to new life in Christ.

Where alcoholism once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Where sexual immorality once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Only grave clothes. Our old self is no longer there. Where anger and strife once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Where ambition once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Jealousy, envy, and discontentment? Only grave clothes. Eating disorder? Only grave clothes. Hurt, brokenness, unforgiveness, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, broken marriage, broken home, drugs, stealing, murder, homosexuality, hatred, judgment, gossip, unkindness, selfishness, self-seeking, pornography, impure thoughts, vulgar language, coarse jesting? Yes, grave clothes!

In the emptiness of the tomb we find the sobering uselessness of all our pursuits for a substitute. The uselessness of the counterfeits Satan offers to distract us from true salvation. True deliverance. True joy. True security. We find that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And as He continues in that verse, “No man comes to the Father but through me.”

Will you come to Jesus? To find forgiveness, peace and hope. To find the crumpled up burial clothes of a life once eternally condemned. To find an empty tomb because you’ve been raised up in Christ to a new life where all things are made new.

Are there sins you need to confess? Bondage from which you need to be set free? When you go to the empty tomb, do you find yourself wearing your burial clothes again? Jesus died for it all. He secured victory, once and for all. The sins we’ve committed, are committing, and will commit. It is all on Him. It is only on us to come. And to return.

Romans 8:1 assures us, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” We must take responsibility, but condemnation is not ours. Not in Christ.

Stand at the mouth of Jesus’ empty tomb and rejoice. Death is defeated. Eternal life a guarantee for those who put their trust in Jesus.

Lord, may we find grave clothes crumpled in the tombs of our hearts every day as we become more wholly Yours.

Happy Easter!

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Idols and Contaminants (At the Mercy of the Mirror Part 3)

Lies exposed, the Lord continued to peel me like an onion, revealing deeper needs for His grace in my life and battle with bulimia. I don’t remember what was going on at the time of my third defining moment. I don’t know if I heard someone speak or read a book or if God spoke directly to my heart again. But somehow, God showed me that the very core of my disorder was idolatry.

I had “…exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Romans 1:25). My body, how I felt about myself in it, and how I desired others to admire and accept me because of it, had become my god.

I didn’t have a skin problem. I had a sin problem. I could not worship both my body and Jesus, and I knew He was my only hope to ever be fully healed and totally free.

So when a tailspin threatened, I began to declare OUT LOUD: “My body is not my god, You are, Lord, and I will praise and worship You.” I spoke this truth for all to hear. Sometimes minute by minute, other times day by day. Then weeks would pass without incident. Months. And now years.

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17), so when we speak God’s truth out loud, we are building our faith – “the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1, NLT).

Even Jesus didn’t just think about how the devil was defeated; He spoke defeat directly to him: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve’” (Matthew 4:10).

No idols.

And no contaminants.

As the Lord deepened my understanding of His word, He convicted me of a greater responsibility to purify my thoughts and actions, as 2 Corinthians 7:1 sets forth: “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (NIV). 

This was my fourth defining moment. As I share in my book, Holy His: Hope for a Life and a Nation Wholly His:

Previously, I thought only the Lord alone could purify me, but this verse makes it clear that I have a part in purifying myself through the choices I make. The word contaminate stood out and really convicted me. To contaminate is to defile, pollute, or stain something. We are not to allow anything into our thoughts, bodies, or spirits that would defile, pollute, stain, or make them filthy before the Lord. That is our part in cleansing or purifying ourselves.

When there is anything I know to be a trigger, I cannot allow it to contaminate my body and spirit. If straying from habits that keep me close to the Lord, stress, other sin in my life, certain foods, certain circumstances, or certain activities cause me to stumble back into this battle, it is my responsibility to purify myself of those things. As the Holy Spirit reveals and convicts us of the things that contaminate us, we become holy as God is holy when we purify ourselves of those things – when we deliberately choose to no longer allow them in our lives – out of reverence for God. The word reverence in this verse refers to the fear of God. The original Greek meaning of this use of fear is terror or dread. God is a holy God. He cannot tolerate sin. We will be motivated to perfect holiness in our lives when we are terrified of God’s holy wrath. If we don’t fear Him, what motive do we have?

It’s like the Israelites when they crossed the Jordan to take possession of the Promised Land: Their victory depended on their obedience and purity, a lesson they learned the hard way after their first victory Jericho. They were to destroy everyone and everything, except for the gold, silver, bronze, and iron, which were to be consecrated to the Lord. Specifically, Joshua warned the Israelites against taking the accursed things, or the things devoted to destruction.

When they attacked their second target, Ai, a smaller city spies determined would only require two to three thousand warriors to overtake, thirty-six men were struck down as the people of Ai chased the mighty Israelites away.

“The hearts of the people melted and became like water” (Joshua 7:5), and Joshua fell on his face before the Lord, baffled and broken. Turns out, Achan was hiding stolen goods from Jericho, and the Lord declared to Joshua: “You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you” (Joshua 7:13).

The same is true for us. With accursed things in our lives, we have no hope for victory. They were unable to take possession of any more land until they got rid of the banned items. In order to take possession of God’s promises to us, we must purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit.

No idols.

No contaminants.

Lord, help us to love You and You alone with all our heart, mind, strength, and soul, putting no idols before You and purifying ourselves as we become more wholly Yours.

Part 1

Part 2

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Disabled by Deceit (At the Mercy of the Mirror Part 2)

More than a decade passed between finding myself wrapped in the shower liner, facing the likely end of my battle with bulimia, and my next defining moment. During that time, I was forced to confront other sins that had spiraled out of control. I spent time in therapy and twelve-step programs in an attempt to set myself free. Things got better some of the time, but true freedom, healing, love, and worth eluded me.

As the Lord turned my heart to Jesus as my only source and healer, I learned what it meant to have a personal relationship with a tangibly real Savior who loved me unconditionally, to love Him back through reading and obeying scripture. Yet, the way I saw myself based on how I felt about my body ruled my relationship with James and affected how I treated my children. I was confronted daily with the detrimental effects of my continuing struggle.

One day, out on a compulsive six-mile run to burn off steam and calories, the Lord spoke to my heart: “When you die, do you think your children are going to stand at your funeral and say how thankful they are that their mother was a size four all their lives?” My heart  broke for them, because that’s what ruled me: staying little. It took priority. And it was destroying the very people I loved the most.

For a second time, I was forced to confront what lay at the end of my path: death. No longer physical death, but spiritual death. Relational death. Death to what my husband and children deserved from me. Needed from me. And the harmful consequences to them if they didn’t get it.

The Lord opened my eyes of understanding to see I was ready to be free, whatever it took. My answer to the Lord that day was this: “Lord, if I have to be a size twelve in order to be truly free, in order to have joy, then let it be.” Not that there’s anything wrong with a size twelve, but for someone who is terrified that life will literally fall apart with the addition of a single pound, to add even one size was unthinkable.

In that place of total surrender and readiness, the Lord began to expose the root of my stronghold: lies.

 “And you shall know the truth,

and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

I don’t remember anything remarkable about this particular day or what was happening in my life, but I was standing in front of the mirror, sinking emotionally and spiritually because I saw myself as fat, and the Lord spoke to my heart once again: “Shauna, it’s impossible to be a size four and be fat.”

It was a simple truth with tremendous power to transform my thinking. God’s truth – His word – sanctifies us (John 17:17), purifying us and renewing our souls. I am not declaring God’s words to me that day as scripture. I am simply saying God revealed truth to me that day, and that truth changed things deep inside me as only God’s truth can do.

On the flip side, in order to divert us from the power of the gospel, “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16), Satan lures us onto his path of death and destruction with falsities. He “was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

The devil’s MO has not changed from the beginning of time, when Eve declared: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3:13).

If he can deceive us, he can disable us.

I believed the lie the devil whispered to me constantly, telling me how fat and unlovable I was. But as Jesus promised in John 16:13, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, “will guide you into all truth.” The truth God exposed set me free from my self-destructive thinking and enabled me to retrain my thoughts according to His truth.

It took some time, but when I felt myself leaning toward the lies again, when my reflection in the mirror threatened to send me into a tailspin, I would repeat the truth: It is impossible to be a size four and be fat. I would declare Psalm 139:14: “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”

Beth Moore, in her Bible study, Breaking Free, talks about rewriting what’s on the wall of our minds. In identifying the lies we’ve been told throughout the years, we can then replace them with God’s truth, which is the only truth. As we believe God’s word, as we live by it, He sets us free.

Alternatively, deceived hearts turn us aside from God (Isaiah 44:20) to “serve other gods and worship them (Deuteronomy 11:16). The result of exchanging the truth of God for a lie is idolatry, the root exposed in my third defining moment.

Will you join me again Thursday?

Lord, sanctify us with Your truth today, setting our feet firmly on the path that leads to life as we become more wholly Yours.

Part 1

Part 3

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

At the Mercy of the Mirror

“You really need to write about this, Shauna,” a dear friend and fellow blogging mother gently insisted as we chatted amidst the chaos of a dozen daughters learning to make strawberry jam. The topic of our conversation? How God delivered me from my battle with bulimia. It was the answer to my prayer for direction about what to blog next. “People really need to hear your story,” she stressed.

So here it is, the story of how the Lord faithfully freed me from the deepest, most desperate stronghold of idolatry in my life. It has been a long road, traveled over twenty-five years. In many ways, His work in me was gradual, like growth. Most days, I could see no measurable change. Other times, it seemed as if I grew a foot in a day. Those marked defining moments when God confronted me with truth that required doing something radically different, and all of a sudden, I was taller. Freer.

Our experiences and habitual sins may be unique, but God’s truth, His answer for hurting humans, is universal. In that respect, what I have to share isn’t only for those who struggle with an eating disorder or addiction or know someone who does. It’s for us all.

In case you aren’t familiar with this part of my story, I’ll start with a little history.

Food became a comfort early in life. It was always there for me to fill a void. It’s how my “foster” grandparents, whose home became a childhood haven, expressed love and made everything better. It is what my mother micro-controlled in her life and ours. I can’t remember a time when I did not love food!

Consequently, in my pre-teen years, I was pudgy and awkward and saw myself as inadequate. My nickname in seventh grade was “happy, happy, hippo.” I desperately wanted to be one of the “in crowd,” but never was. Decisions I made as a freshman in high school piled shame onto my feelings of worthlessness. By the time I was a sophomore and had persuaded my parents to let me switch from private Christian school to public, I was convinced that the key to popularity, which I equated with love and acceptance, was being thin and beautiful.

Continuing in foolish behaviors, my skin increasingly felt like a prison. I ate to make myself feel better, but the minute a binge ended, the self-hatred and shame returned even stronger. That’s when my disorder manifested. I HAD to get rid of everything I consumed. I compulsively exercised. I binged and purged and lost weight. I made the drill team at my new school, and people noticed me, most especially the guys. Food was my drug. I had to have it, but when intense panic would grip me at the thought of gaining an ounce, I had to get rid of it any way I could. To gain weight was to lose my lovability.

My size and the perceived love and acceptance of others became my god. They defined me and my place in the world.

When I moved to Houston with my parents after graduating from high school, I thought it was my saving grace. A fresh start. I could be a new person. But everywhere I went, everything I did, there I was. When I left home to attend a university in Texas, my addiction followed me. I saw myself as worthless. The more my life spiraled out of control, the more dire my addiction and desperation became.

The End of Sin Is Death

“For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23).

By my third year in college, the compulsivity of my binging and purging reached the point that I no longer could wait for certain opportune times to hide my problem. My roommates were suspicious. Rather than stop or risk confrontation, I switched from vomiting to laxatives. Handfuls at a time. Home alone one morning before class, I fainted while in the shower because I had taken so many laxatives the night before. When I awoke, I was tangled in the plastic liner with the water pouring down on me. I was terrified. I came face-to-face with what lay at the end of my path: death.

I knew in that first defining moment that I could not continue without irreversible consequences. It scared me enough to stop physically, but the mental, spiritual, and emotional bondage remained. I still micromanaged everything I ate, exercised compulsively, and defined myself and my world according to how I felt in my body at any given time. My well-being and relationships were still at the mercy of the mirror.

But God is faithful. He continued to pursue me. He made me whole, as Jesus did for many (and still does), saying, “Your faith has made you well.” Whole. In the Greek, it is “to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction; to save a suffering one; to preserve one who is in danger of destruction” (Strong’s G4982, www.blueletterbible.org).

That’s what He did for me. It wasn’t enough that He would save me from physical destruction; He preserved me in order to save me from spiritual and emotional destruction, too.

Join me for more of His rescue Thursday?

Lord, thank You for the many ways you preserve us to save us from destruction as we become more wholly Yours.

Part 2

Part 3

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

Christianity Cocktail or Jesus on the Rocks?

My sweet friend,

It was good to see you the other day. I enjoy our chats, as occasional as they may be. It’s always fun to swap stories and ideas about parenting, life, and God. There was more I wanted to say and didn’t. Sometimes I don’t articulate my beliefs very well on the spot. If I’m completely honest, I’m a little chicken. If I don’t feel like I can express myself clearly with answers to every possible challenge, I won’t say anything at all. I don’t want to offend or look foolish. I don’t want to be rejected, and I don’t want to take a stand I can’t support with scripture. The words come later, and I seem to be so much better with writing articulately than verbally expressing myself spontaneously.

So I’m writing you this letter. I keep thinking about the frustration you experience when you read scripture but don’t understand what it means. To pray for understanding before you start only to remain baffled can be a disappointing experience. I hear your determination when life continues to deliver disappointing blows, and the bad year becomes years. I’m so encouraged you aren’t giving up! I see your genuine desire to have a life-changing relationship with the Lord! I truly love that about you. I think the clog in the drain is the Christianity Cocktail you’ve mixed with different philosophies and practices that promise to make you the best person, wife, and mom you can be on your own might and independent of Jesus Christ, and Him alone.

I found a scripture that may explain what’s happening. In Mark chapter seven, the Pharisees and scribes are challenging Jesus on various traditions they hold sacred as sanctifying while ignoring the condition of their hearts. Calling them hypocrites, Jesus says to them in verses six and seven, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” He goes on to say in verse nine, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” The result then, in verse thirteen, is that the word of God is of no effect due to the traditions they practice.

Everything we seek from the world or the traditions of man that only God can give through Christ makes the word of God of no effect. These ways – yoga, secular counseling, spiritualism, meditation, self-actualization, self-help/self-improvement books and seminars, marriage boot camps, New Age methods, eastern religions, and the like – all set you up as the answer to your own destiny and salvation. Even if you only take bits and pieces of each one, they can create tremendous spiritual confusion because they omit or directly oppose the word of God – His truth, which is the only truth that sets us free. For good.

We can’t have both the world’s way and all God has for us. He asks us to do hard things, and instead, we experiment with other things that promise results in our power with more immediate benefit. Who wouldn’t be tempted by that? But if Jesus is the only answer to our broken condition (which is what we’re searching to fix in the first place, right?), then nothing else the devil dangles as a distraction will work.

Anyone or anything that promises what only Jesus can deliver without leading you straight to Jesus Himself is a counterfeit. The devil is the pro when it comes to mimicking the things of God because that’s the easiest way to get us off track. But when it comes to delivering the goods, only Jesus can.

Second Corinthians 6:16-18 explains, “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty.’”

Ask God to show you what is convoluting your Christianity. Jesus on the rocks – Jesus with nothing else mixed in – is the only cocktail you need. We can’t blend our own concoction and expect Christianity “to work.” We can’t just hear what Jesus teaches; we must do what He says and NOT DO what He says not to do.

“Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock” (Luke 6:46-48).

I don’t know about you, but I’ll take Jesus on the rocks.

Until our next chat,

Shauna Wallace

Holy His