The Summer I Turned Skinny
For most of my life, appearing “skinny” was a full blown obsession. 20 years of chasing thinness through extreme diets, restriction, and disordered cycles that promised happiness but left me figuratively and literally empty. Growing up online, where I found anorexic community, I’d search “supermodel diet” and try whatever came up — the military diet, water fasts, even eating cotton balls. Anything but real life-giving nourishment.
Like so many others in my unstable teens and early twenties, harsh control over food became my refuge. My worth tangled itself in numbers on a scale, in the flatness of my stomach, in endless Instagram comparisons that only deepened my depression. The truth is, I was as obsessed with appearing skinny as I was with hiding my gluttony — self-abuse on a spin cycle.
But my body was never meant to be worshiped. It was made to worship.
And that realization became the turning point.
From Striving to Surrender
This summer, everything shifted. Not because I found the perfect meal plan or exercise routine, but because I finally invited God into the way I nourish myself. Prayer became my appetizer before every meal. Gratitude became my seasoning. Intentionality, my portion control.
Instead of punishing my body, I began respecting it as “a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Suddenly, eating wasn’t about shrinking myself—it was about strengthening the sanctuary God dwells in.
Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6 that life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. For someone with a history of disordered eating, those words felt like living water. My body is not a mannequin or a project. It’s a vessel for love, service, worship, and joy.
The Best Shape of My Life
The summer I “turned skinny” has nothing to do with the outside. It’s about laying down obsession and picking up reverence. It’s about finally feeling at home in my own skin because God is at home in me.
Because I’m home and comfortable at home in HIM, my clean and orderly home where I invite Jesus in daily, I’m in the best shape, form, state of my life— I’m smaller because HE is bigger and sets me free. Free to savor food that HE has gifted to me, free to nourish my body with love. By releasing negative ways of thinking about sustenance, I’ve received the gift of an able body I now love to protect, care for, and honor.
This summer, I didn’t just turn skinny— I stripped down so much toxicity out of my life and I turned grateful. For the first time, food is no longer an enemy or an idol, but a daily reminder of God’s goodness. These plates aren’t just food photos; they’re snapshots of grace, joy, and the beauty of a body FINALLY at peace.
