I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

I went on a job interview today. I am so broke. It's not even funny. My boyfriend has been paying for everything since we moved here. He has a good job, but the money doesn't go very far without me contributing at all. And frankly, though I appreciate him so much, I hate depending on other people. I like taking care of myself.

That's a very new concept for me--independence and self-sufficiency. For most of my life, especially when my eating disorder was at its worst, I wanted someone to sweep in and take care of me in every way, not just financially. I wanted someone to force me into treatment. I wanted someone to make me get better. I didn't know I had the strength to do it on my own.

But maybe I didn't do it completely on my own.

I've already said how much my boyfriend helped me during the recovery process. But I think my religion played a major role. Before I was anorexic I didn't really go to church. I believed in God then, I always had. I went to church a couple times a year since I was a kid. Sometimes it was only once a year. But I never had a problem believing.

I started going to church regularly with my mother the summer before my eating disorder began. It was a very surreal experience. I felt something powerful and peaceful there that's hard for me to explain. It was something I had never experienced at church before. I came back the next Sunday and the next. I listened to the sermons. I was moved by the hymns. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was a sinner and needed to be saved.

As my eating disorder began, the people in the church were the first to show genuine concern. They watched me shrinking and knew something was wrong. They knew that I was broken. And I know they prayed for me honestly and earnestly. Oddly enough, my eating disorder brought me closer to God. Not because I was anorexic and needed something new to cling to. I just feel like maybe he stretched out his hand to me when no one else would. He understood me like no one else could.

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone. I know religion is a sticky subject for almost everyone. Whether you believe in God or not, I think many stories from the Bible apply to recovery. Becoming saved is a rebirth. It's a stripping of the flesh and a celebration of the spirit. It gives the chance at a new life-- a free life. A life where the sins from your past don't matter.

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12 (NIV)

I feel like God gave me the strength and appreciation for life to want to recover. I feel like he makes a path for us and gives us our own free will to choose right from wrong. I think I chose right.