I Am Beautiful

I Am Beautiful is something I was not able to say for most of my life. I didn’t see myself as beautiful, and it was very hard for me to see the beauty in others. Why? Because all I saw were flaws within myself. I didn’t see beauty, all I saw was chaos, and imperfection. Now years later I realize that our imperfections are the very things that actually make us beautiful.

My eating disorder began at the age of 11. I was in the 6th grade and I went on a diet to lose some weight. I believed that if I were to lose some weight, then I could be like the other girls at school. I could be accepted, liked by the boys and wear the fashionable cute clothes from Limited Too and Nordstrom. At the time I had a body of a woman and was 5 foot 9 inches tall. I had hit puberty at a young age, and had curves when everyone else still had adolescent frames. I started a diet that lead to anorexia. Cutting out all carbs, fats, and pretty much everything from my diet but meat, vegetables and most fruits. I was afraid to eat a lot of fruit because of the sugar. I believed I would get fat from the sugar, and if I got fat, then the girls at school would reject me and the boys at school wouldn’t like me.

I joined cross country in the 7th grade to lose weight. I wanted to be thin, and be like the other girls at school who wore Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch. They were skinny and all the boys liked them. They were like the girls in the magazines, that I saw as I walked through the grocery store with my mom. The skinny girls looked happy, and because of that, I believed that I could only be happy if I were skinny too. By the time I was in the 8th grade, I was starving from the inside out. I was starving for attention, acceptance, and for food. One day I learned that if I were to put my finger down my throat that my food would come up. So I tried that and it worked. I was able to eat anything I wanted as long as I just threw it up. There were many times over the next few years when I would almost pass out over the toilet. Throwing up made me so light headed and at times I did it between 7 to 9 times a day. Between the laxatives, diet pills, starving myself, and throwing up my food daily. My body was so messed up, and it lead me down a path that almost took my life at the age of 16.

At the age of 16 battling a life threatening eating disorder, I entered into Loma Linda hospital for 10 weeks. I learned about who I was as a person beyond my eating disorder, and was given tools to help cope and overcome my disorder. By the time I was almost 17 entering into my senior year of high school, I was still suffering with my eating disorder. I had exited treatment from Loma Linda and relapsed 10 times harder. I felt hopeless, and I didn’t know how I was going to make it through my senior year of high school or college.

After the first week of my senior year of high school I was ready to throw in the towel on life. I felt like I was a burden to so many people. I got down on my knees, ready to take my life. I told God that I had felt like I had failed so many people and I just wanted to end it all. To end the pain, suffering sadness, and heartache. That night the hand of God reached down and healed me of my eating disorders. He set me free from the mental prison I was in, and stripped my eating disorder from me. From that night forth I never threw up my food or starved myself again. That night I placed my broken heart into Gods hands and asked Him to piece back the broken pieces back together. Over that next year He began to do that, He healed the deepest parts of my heart with His love, and healed the lies in my mind with His truth.

I began to see myself as beautiful just as He saw me as beautiful. He showed me that my worth was found in His eyes, and not in the eyes of others. And even though others may not think that I am beautiful, He does, and He loves every part of me. He taught me that I was His masterpiece, treasured, loved, adored, and accepted by Him. He showed me that I didn’t need any part of who I was, because I was more than enough just as I was.

My mind has continually been renewed and heart healed over the last few years. The weeds surrounding my heart have been uprooted by God, so that the roses of beauty could sprout from the soil of my heart. God’s love has healed me from the depths of my heart and soul. He has renewed my mind through His word the Bible, and has forever set me free. Now at the age of 25, I can stand in front of mirror and say that I am beautiful.

Christina Boudreau
Founder of Beauty Has No Size
www.beautyhasnosize.com

Christina tells her story of battling and overcoming life threatening eating disorders. "I believe my anorexia was an outward reflection of my heart that was starving for love, acceptance and approval"- Christina

I Am Beautiful