I once lived in the mirror. No, there wasn’t a bedroom hidden in my bathroom mirror. But the mirror was where I found my worth, purpose, and identity. My body was the temple where I went to worship. Each and every day, my thoughts were consumed with calculating calories; my emotions were filled with anxiety over how much food I was going to eat; my plans revolved around getting in my precisely measured out meals and workouts; indeed, my entire life was wrapped up in what my body looked like on the outside.

I had constructed an image to worship, and that image was my body. I would check every mirror I walked by to make sure I hadn’t gained any fat in the last few hours. Every morning I would step up to the judgment seat of the scale to see if I would be found guilty or innocent that day. And when the scale did not move in the right direction, or when I saw or felt any hint of fat on my sides, I pronounced myself guilty.

And in order to worship my body image, I enslaved myself to the “food laws” police, and I was the chief officer. As chief officer, I made the laws, I gave out the rewards for obedience to the laws, and I laid down the penalty for breaking the laws. When I kept my food laws, I told myself, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and received the reward of feeling safe, secure, and in control. But when my food laws were threatened by friends or family wanting to go out to eat, my world would come crashing down. When I inevitably broke one of my laws by either eating too much or too little, too early or too late, all of the feelings of shame, anxiety, and guilt would come flooding back in. No grace, no forgiveness, no mercy was to be found. I was enslaved to the master of my body. I was enslaved to the master of food. I was imprisoned in the pit of food and body idolatry, with no way out. I was sick, and needed healing. I was hungry, and needed to be filled.

But God redeemed my life from the pit, and crowned me with steadfast love and mercy (Psalm 103:4). And what did that redemption from the pit look like?

God showed me what my eating disorder and body dysmorphia truly was: sin committed against a holy God. By making myself the lawgiver and judge, I had attempted to stand in the place of the True Lawgiver and Judge of my life. By living in obedience to my food laws, I cultivated my own self-righteousness. I was therefore willfully rejecting the only righteousness that could justify me before the True Lawgiver and Judge: the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I had exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature (my body, food laws) rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). I was guilty, but not for breaking my food laws. I was guilty because I had committed cosmic treason against my Creator, and I needed rescue.

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