I wanted to start out this blog with some writing fundamentals that help me.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and the amazing autobiography Floor Sample, writes about how she achieves her creative writing ventures; she put up a sign in her office that says, “I control the quantity; God controls the quality.” She writes a modest three pages a day, no exceptions (even when she feels inspired). She lets go of being attached to any result in her creative writing. There is no room for ego. And yet she is a prolific writer and absolute success. She says with God in control of the product she is able to let go and simply write with no expectation of the outcome. This allows her writing to relax and flow more freely. She even says her work hardly needs editing. It just pours out of her. She tells writers to act like they are overhearing their characters speak and not inventing dialogue. She says you are simply a channel of the divine creativity.

In the same way, I wish for my blog and journal to be a channel of the divine spark of the author of all creativity- inventor of the universe and all that is within it. What could be more inspiring? 

The same principle can apply to eating disorder recovery. Our lives are channels of the divine image, light, and spark. Our lives are stories written in the book of eternity. Every day we have the freedom and the option to ask, “God what is your will for me, not just today, but in this moment?” I find myself in eating disorder recovery living my life as if it were a living prayer. I don’t consider myself special or a saint or a mystic. I am a human being full of sin. I sin in what I do, what I neglect to do, what I say, what I neglect to say. But God puts a burning coal on my lips and cleanses my heart until I am pure. Just like Julia Cameron I ask, “What should I do now?” Usually, they are simple directives that I feel emanating from my heart. Spend time with your daughter, do the dishes, eat breakfast. 

God is not interested in ‘Grand Gestures’, He is interested in the smallest, most intimate and mundane moments. I struggle with an anxiety disorder where my mundane moments can be filled with suffering. It is hard to explain how deeply I suffer when I have a panic attack, but my pain always leads me back to the source of healing. And so as I lie there, I repeat a few simple words over and over again: ‘Perfect love casts out all fear'“, or “Can worrying add even one day to your life?”, or my favourite from Julian of Norwich, “Sin is inevitable but all is well, and all shall be well.” Is it true that regardless of my sin, my shortcomings, my struggles, my pain, my grief, my anxiety that God will take all my dust and create with it a masterpiece: redemption? From dust we came and to dust we will return. But in the vanity of life, the fleeting nature of it, we, through Him, will overcome. There is hope that in this moment you can choose to believe that “This is God. I will be handling all your problems today. I will not need your help, so enjoy your day!”