Week 4: The Lord is Nigh

"Weight is a protection," my aunt told me today. "A protection from things that we fear."  Although I have lately been in a hopeful mindset, an experience last week resurfaced one of my deepest fears: that I will never be loved and married.  I am sure that my weight and that fear are quite connected; exactly how, I need to explore more.  I'm not comfortable putting the all details of what happened on a public blog, but as I walked home last Monday night, those fearful, buried thoughts resurrected.  "He broke my trust.  How can I ever open up to someone again?"  "If I had been skinnier, would things have turned out differently?"  "If he wouldn't love me, will anyone?" 

"Heavenly Father, please bless that I can receive some comfort from the lesson tonight," I prayed silently as we began FHE.  We were asked to open to Psalms 34 and read verses 14-19. Right from the start, the verses seemed to speak to me: "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open unto their cry. ... The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles" (vs. 15, 17).  Then listen to verse 18.  Could there have been a more fitting verse in all of scripture?

"The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart..."  

Seriously.  That's what it says.  Immediately, I felt exactly what I prayed to feel-- comfort-- and, again, faith and hope.  Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I have NO need to fear rejection.  He accepts me  (see Isaiah 53:3-5).  Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I have NO need to protect and hide myself in fatty layers of emotional eating.  His grace covers me and strengthens me.  Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I have NO need to feel alone.  He is near me, even (and perhaps especially) when my heart is broken.

Don't mistake me and think I am healed all at once.  Like my habits and goals for healthy living, reaching emotional health will be a process that also takes time.  I must expect opposition and failure and learn flexible strategies for dealing with those.  But I just feel better about approaching my future, knowing, again, that I don't have to do it by myself.