Even though I was raised in a Christian home, I believed the lie that a person’s worth was tied to their productivity. Our culture is competitive and the world conditions us to believe that our value lies in our accomplishments. In 2011, two significant events would reveal the truth about human dignity. First, my two-year-old son Seth was diagnosed with Autism. Second, I made the decision to become Catholic.
The summer before my senior year, I was a mess. I just had a difficult exit as the president of our Newman group on campus and my faith was very much on the rocks. An overachiever at heart, I had used my work as a facade for faith.
Read MoreGrowing up, I was afraid to fail. I was completely afraid to admit when I was wrong, to lose a game of backyard baseball, a family game of monopoly, the list goes on. At times my fear of failure would actually stop me from experiencing new opportunities.
Read MoreI still felt clueless about successfully coping with anxiety but I was steadily on the road to recovery. I was still depressed and still suicidal but, as I held my nephew, I realized the many successes of choosing life again and again that had brought me to this moment of meeting him. So I whispered a soft “Thank you” to him because deep down I knew I wanted to live for God and I’d been searching for a meaningful way of doing so.
Read MoreSome days after the conversation with Sr. Hope, though, sitting before Jesus in the Adoration chapel and still mulling over the job offer, I asked a different question: “Lord, what would bring You joy? How do You want me to serve?”
He didn’t answer by saying ,”You’ll bring me joy when you have a Ph.D.”; or, “You’ll delight me when you become a professor.” Instead, He whispered, ever so gently, “You bring me joy when you use the gifts I have given you, right here and now. You delight me already.”
Read MoreAs I cried in my bathroom, I told God how sick I am of fighting against my body. I told Him how exhausted I am of trying to love myself only to fail. I told Him how I didn’t understand how I was good even in my overweightness. I told Him how frustrated I was that I didn’t feel comfortable dressing in the clothes I wanted to.
I got out of the shower and stared at myself in the mirror once more. Suddenly, God said:
“You are so, so much more than the clothes you wear. There is so much more to you than that.”
(Photo by Jennifer Burk) My eating disorder took hold of my life. I was so drained and numb, like a walking zombie. I was just trying to get by, and I only prayed when I was laying in bed with no energy to move. I had been to a few on-campus counselors while I was in college, who tried to tell me to “just eat” or just believe that my body was a temple of the Holy Spirit. That was the last thing I could believe.
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