Love, your sister-in-Christ

In 2013, I remember sitting in my grandmas dining room with my aunt and cousins. We were just talking when my aunt pointed out a lump in the front of my throat.

It was a small lump, nothing too noticeable but it was concerning. She then told my mom to take me in. I went in a few days later feeling sluggish and shaky. The doctors

asked me a bunch of questions and took some blood tests. Getting my blood drawn was the scariest thing I had ever done. I am no good with needles so you can imagine how I felt when they

told me that I would need to get blood taken out. I almost fainted right there when they told me. Anyways, they took about 5-6 tubes of blood. It was not very fun. Soon after, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

 It’s an autoimmune disease in which your white blood cells attack your body. For many it causes them to gain weight. But for very few it causes them to lose the weight. I happened to fall in that category.

My doctor would tell me that my body was working over-time and fast because of the attacks it was getting from within. I became depressed because of how much weight I had lost. I went from 110 to

almost 70 pounds. I was always tired, my hands were always shaking, and my appetite gone. I started getting bullied in school because of how bony and scrawny I looked. I

also lost friends because they didn’t understand. When I was first diagnosed my family was supportive. They wanted to know what they could do to help. But I never knew what to tell them because it was all new to me.

So I would just keep it to myself, which was a bad idea. I ended up losing sight of God in those moments and started hating everything about me. To cope with all of it, I began to take it out on

myself (self-harming) because of how unhappy I was. A battle for my soul and my life had taken place. It took alone time with God and encouragement from family and loved

ones to make me feel whole again. It wasn’t until two years later that I was able to gain some weight back that I realized how merciful God was. Despite how I looked he still

loved me. I was still beautiful in his eyes. I was beautifully and wonderfully made and nothing (not even some sickness) could ever change that. All though if there was one thing that I could have changed, it would have been to depend more on God and not on my own understanding.

The bible is very clear on that. Being in that dark place, God was able to reach out to me and pull me back out thanks to the constant prayers of family. At that time, it was not easy for me to have gone through that what I went through. Gaining weight was and can still be frustrating for me. I know that there will be some ladies reading this thinking “this is every woman’s dream to not gain weight” but is it really worth losing weight while having complications your whole life? But yes, I know that my God is a healer and will take care of me through it all. So, for whoever needed to read this, don’t forget that you are loved and that this body of yours is a temple. So please don’t take advantage of it.