Unashamed

"Be still and know that I am God." Ps 46: 10.  I repeated this simple verse countless times in my head. God has been so amazing to me, He stood by me and has protected me through some very turbulent times. When I wanted to give up and be free of the struggles that I faced, He did not allow that happen. I had more than one situation where I said I can't take anymore but by the grace of God I survived. I am now learning that all of my experiences have been building to a place where I can help other people. I want my story to be told. I am twenty seven and finally getting to a place in my life where I feel confident about the future. I am bipolar and I struggle with an eating disorder. I am learning how to manage both of those things. I make a lot of mistakes but I am doing the best I can and that is what matters. I am learning that it is ok to reach out for help and I have some pretty awesome people in my life to keep in check. Before I thought that I had to have everything under control and be kind of perfect before I could start to help other people. Which is ridiculous. I want my journey through recovery to inspire others. I want to let people know that yeah, things can be bad but they will get better. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I may not be there yet but Jesus has walked with me through every dark, twisty ally and I want to start helping people get through their journey. 

This blog might be all over the place at first. I am not really sure how I am going to do this. My goal is to bring awareness to people what it is like to have an eating disorder and to be bipolar. I know I can recover from my eating disorder and I will learn to manage being bipolar. Both of these are things that society looks at and puts labels and judgments on. I think any mental health issue is so misunderstood and the way people deal with it can make a person feel ashamed about themselves. I know I struggled with that a lot. For so long I was so worried about how other people would react if they knew what was going on in my life. I had all of these harsh judgments about myself so it made it really hard to let other people in.    

Thankfully God has helped me to allow myself some grace. I am slowly learning to be nice to myself and even allow myself to be proud of what I have accomplished. This is like brand new to me. Which probably seems silly to most people, but for me it's a really good step. 

So I am going to live my life unafraid of what other people might think of me. I might be a little weird and not everyone is going to like me, but I'm going to have fun and stand up for what I believe in. I want to help as many people as I can. I feel like I am starting a new chapter of my life, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds.