Real test of strength

It used to be that if you asked me for an unusual fact about myself, I would proudly state that I once gave up chocolate for a whole year. In my eyes, this wasn’t simply about chocolate. Rather, it was a demonstration of my personal strength.

I figured that if I was able to pass a test that great (if you know my love for chocolate you’d understand), then I could do anything I set my mind to.

But, no test of this strength was ever enough…

There was also the summer I worked out every single day. Or the period when I cut my calories down to lower and lower levels. Or the time I refused to eat anything with white flour or table sugar in it.

What I didn’t realize at then was that these were not measurements of strength. These were tests of just how ignorant I could be — and I don’t care to test that any more. Instead, my life has become so much better since I stopped testing my strength and started testing my faith.

To me, faith is confidence in God. However, I think that faith can take on different meanings for different people. The key is just believing that, even though things can be beyond our control, everything will work out in the end.

One of the biggest, truest tests of this was having the faith to overcome my eating disorder. At the time, I knew that it was unhealthy to continue down the path I was on. But, I didn’t know what exactly was down the alternate path — and that scared me. It was only when I accepted that, yes, it was scary, but, yes, it would all be ok that I was able to recover.

In other words, having faith took more strength than anything else.

I still let this concept lead me in life — and it doesn’t let me down. However, that’s not to say having faith is easy when the unknown rests ahead.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, because I am more than a little anxious about graduation. On the surface, this situation is much different from battling anorexia. However, it is similar in that I am fearful. For the first time in my life, I have no clearly determined path in front of me and I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do.

But, as challenging as it is, the best thing for me to do is to have faith. And, although I still don’t know how things will play out, I do know that they will work out.