Surprise!!

“Surprise!” I exclaimed as I hugged my best friend for the first time since May. It was her birthday, and I flew into Waco to celebrate. After she recovered from the initial shock, her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe you are here…in the flesh!”

The whole trip was really a surprise. I had no agenda, no schedule, no to-do list. I simply wanted to be with my Baylor friends. A year ago, this would not have been possible. If every minute was not planned, I would panic and break down. My detailed plans kept me productive; they proved that I was successful. The underlying truth was that my agenda prevented me from addressing my pain, discomfort, and brokenness. A side effect of that wall was not experiencing any joy from surprises.

On this journey of recovery, I am learning to embrace surprises. This trip, I was able to participate in an unexpected event: breakfast at midnight. In honor of Taylor Swift and feeling 22, we cooked up delicious breakfast food to share amongst our close friends. I was not going to miss out on this experience! In my eating disorder, I would have said I’m too tired and gone to bed to avoid eating crepes and bacon at midnight. But this weekend I was able to choose relationships over food. Crepes and bacon would not stop me from being present at my best friend’s breakfast at midnight party.

While most surprises from my time in Waco were amazing and wonderful, one hit me hard. Surprise! You are not recovered! This was the first time I had been back to school since May. I slept in the same bed, ate at the same table, and used the same bathroom as I did when I was in the depths of my eating disorder. I would be lying if I said that it was easy. Au contraire—it was freaking hard.

More than anything I would like to be recovered. I would like to live in Waco and finish my senior year with my best friends. I would like to have my eating disorder be a thing of the past. But that is not reality, and that is ok. It is ok that I struggled to finish my meals and that I cried as I thought about how much I ate out and how little activity I did this weekend. It is ok that I am not recovered just yet. Surprise! Recovery doesn’t happen over night!

From someone who has high expectations for herself, this surprise is hard to bear. It’s hard to know I am missing out on my senior year at Baylor, to see my eating disorder still effecting my friendships, to try to explain my struggle to my friends and know that they don’t fully understand.

But hard doesn’t mean I’ve failed—it means I’m still fighting. I am on this road of recovery, and I haven’t reached the end quite yet. I know there will come a time where I will be fully recovered, where my eating disorder will be behind me. However, I also know this: my eating disorder won’t be the only hard surprise I will face in life Surprise! Life is not perfect!

I don’t have to dread these future challenges because I know that my strength does not come within my broken self but through my omnipotent Savior. Life doesn’t have to be easy for me to be ok. I can be ok through God’s saving grace. These bumps in my life may come as a surprise to me, but they are no surprise to God. He is in control, which means I am free to experience wonderful surprises, and I can rely on God for strength to conquer the not so wonderful surprises too.