Trees.

Those two black, wicked trees had been uprooted by God. The new tree was a good tree, waiting to bear good fruit. I crawled out of bed and opened my drawer to pick up a gift given to me by a friend a few months before, a comic of a lush tree grown from a withered, barren one, a metaphorical illustration of our growth in God. (Isaiah 44:1-4)

The tree stump would grow to be just like that, I thought, with good fruit too. In time.

I asked God for faith and fruitfulness. And He is teaching them to me, but faith and fruitfulness of a different kind. I went to see the Professional People today, the people who are supposed to understand, supposed to know how to help me.

” We have a lot of work to do, ” Miss B said it to me at least three times with the same emphasis in her sentence, looking me in the eye. “There have been a lot of deep hurts and we have a lot of work to do. We’re going to take away everything you put your validation in and it’s going to be very scary. It’s going to be very, very scary.”

Seeing the Professional People means I have to be completely honest with them, and not to try and be strong. We talked about a number of things, laying lots of ground rules down- that this would be hard work, that it wasn’t going to be easy, and that I ought to be prepared. We talked about why I was in that room, about Leonardo’s past work with me, about where we needed to go from here. We talked about how understanding the past can only give you an awareness of your present situation, but cannot help you heal. That was what Leonardo was good at, examing the past and helping me understand why- and that was why his work with me had to be over- he couldn’t do anything more. He had helped me to understand the past, helped me to forgive and release certain deep hurts which I never knew existed, but the healing didn’t last, because staying in a Big Brick House day in, day out, can wear down your resolve like grated cheese.

Barely 5 minutes into the conversation the tears came. This was hard.

We talked about control, in all the wrong places. About how a little child had absorbed every possible message of feeling unloved and insecure and about how that grew big. Grew like a big, black, barren and wicked tree, I thought.

We no longer use the term Anorexia. We are past being underweight, so Miss B uses the term Ed. Ed, like a boy’s name- it stands for eating disorder. “We’re not here to talk about vanity or much about food. Ed is nothing about that. We’re going to look at the deep hurts and issues that underlie Ed.”

Okay.

She said it was great I had made much progress on my own, but still there was still “a lot of work to do”, and it was the right thing to be in that room. I was in that room, not because Rainbow didn’t happen, but because of underlying black, black roots which made it and many other Tiny incidents such Traumatic ordeals.

We talked about how Ed is like an abusive boyfriend, incandescently charming but ruins your life once it turns abusive. It destroys you in every way, but you return to it, time and again, because of its charm, because of the false ideals it promises you. We talked about insecurity, of feeling unloved in the Big Brick House, and of how everyone needs to feel loved in spite of any circumstance, in spite of whether the right people were loving right, in spite of being unable to change that, in spite of deep, deep hurts.

It was a long session.

This is not easy for me to do. Tomorrow they will decide if medication is necessary. Wednesday. I am afraid the doctor will decide on it, and afraid if she doesn’t. I am afraid of taking it if she does give it, and afraid of not taking it. What do the pills mean, and do they make me a different person. They say no, it doesn’t. It takes away the illness so I can have more of me back. That’s what they say. And then a little voice behind my head whispers to me and suggests- perhaps you really are this way.

I don’t believe it, because This is not me. This intermittent intense fear and sadness which punctuates the day, every day, this waking up-waking up-waking up through the night and being unable to go back to sleep, this having to prep and armour myself even to meet people at church… This isn’t me.

And then the voice asks: What if this sadness has a purpose? What if the meds take it away, and nothing is solved? You need this pain, you need it to get better, get stronger. You’re taking the easy way out, no?

I am tempted to believe this one. Tempted, because many great men of the bible were put through great depression for great purposes. Tempted, because I believe in the glory and strength birthed from suffering and affliction. Tempted, because I tried it once when I was twelve, and it did nothing right. It made crying harder, and I felt stuffed in, and not myself.

I tell myself it is different this time. It is different because This is debilitating me, this crying, and it is affecting the people around me who love me, and whom I love and perhaps it is the responsible thing to do. It is different because we are not using it to run away or solve the problem- Miss B will take care of that- what the meds do is to treat the illness so one can think, respond better to deal with this very, very stressful process and other demands of life. It is different because of what I have on my plate, medical school, and perhaps it is the responsible thing to do so that I can function and cope well enough to be competent. It is different, because perhaps one ought to see medication and treatment as a means of how God heals.

Yes?

I hate the idea. I hate it to its core. But I must write this and resolve to take them if the doctor decides or else I will weasle myself out of it. It is the responsible thing to do. I am exhausted. I can no longer cope with this crying. I usually do so alone, but when I crumbled at school last week, albeit hidden in the arms of a friend, I knew something had gone terribly wrong. I can no longer cope with not sleeping for more than 4 hours straight, no longer cope with This and preparing for the onslaught of 5 exam papers. I hear the little voice say it’s taking the easy way out, that I’m too soft for this extent of suffering. This time, I take a knife to its throat and I tell it to shut up because the little voice is not the one having loved ones see it suffer, not the one having to be a medical doctor, not the one who is losing oneself. I use my angry voice and tell it to shut up.

I’m writing this so I’ll stick to my word. That if they give medication, I will have to take it. I hate it but I will take it, in spite of the little voice, and work through whatever that needs to be worked on.

I asked God for faith and fruitfulness. And He is teaching them to me, but faith and fruitfulness of a different kind. I always talked about faith in terms of projects, the faith to see God see them through. I always talked about fruition in terms of them too, fruition in terms of money raised, people saved.

Now, I am learning faith and fruitfulness of a different kind. Faith, to see myself healed and Fruit, being the fruit of the Spirit, of love, patience and faith, fruits produced from trials. It is one of my greatest challenges, to see myself fully recovered, in spite of all the negative messages absorbed through the years. But this is true faith- to believe in something the eye cannot see.

I live in a Big Brick House that holds all the memories and hurts birthed from a big, black tree. There is not a single day that goes by without the plagueing doubt that I may never be normal, may never be totally restored, may never have a normal, healthy relationship or a whole, healthy, happy family of my own. My big, black family tree stares at me right in the face, and everything points back to the same big, black roots from which the withered trees grew.

And this is the measure of faith God is challenging me with now- the faith to see myself well, whole, free, and happy.

It was a beautiful dream, wasn’t it?

I watched the two black trees being carried away by the little black men, the two big, black, barren and wicked trees completely uprooted by God, with nothing remaining. I wondered what they stood for. For unforgiveness, for black love, for something perhaps known as an ancestral curse?

I watched the giant tree stump planted in place, deep into the crater. There was no rain, no sunshine, no leaves nor fruit yet- just a giant tree stump, glistening, glowing, breathing, rooted deep in that spot, waiting to bear fruit.

It was the vision I could not bring myself to believe.

A beautiful dream-

– about Faith.

It was a good tree.

Drawings by Ty

Isaish 44:1-4

Romans 11:16