My life had become so small. I wasn’t married, had no children, and lived with my sister. After many years of living with depression and fibromyalgia, my life had been reduced to reading, sleeping, watching TV, and of course, eating—eating for every emotional reason available: good, bad, and indifferent. I was a slug. I was tired of being me…bored, boring, and fat,

I talked my sister into going to an FA meeting with me. I didn’t know anything about FA except that it was a Twelve-Step program that incorporated a “Higher Power.” My sister said it might be a no sugar and no flour program, but I was mostly concerned about the Higher Power part.  I have had a love-hate relationship with Christianity since my mother crammed my childhood full of fundamental church beliefs. But my sister and I were both looking for a change in our lackluster lifestyle, if you can call being a slug a lifestyle!

We were greeted warmly at our first meeting. There were women of all sizes, but what impressed me the most were the thin women who showed their former fat pictures. It was an amazing thing to see, and it gave me the desire to keep coming back. And I did. It has been seven months and I have lost 84 pounds.

But the biggest surprise has been my relationship with my Higher Power, God. I have found he is not the God of my childhood or my mother’s, thankfully. I have always struggled with shame about my relationship and lack of trust in God.

In FA at first I was scared to trust that God would help me to eat abstinently. He didn’t feel very close or available to me. Then a wise sponsor suggested that, for each day, I write five things to be grateful about. This changed everything for me. Instead of seeing things from my negative perspective, I had to look for things that I was grateful about. At first it was the basics: abstinent meals, a safe place to live, a sister who loves me, and so on. These are all things that I really am thankful for, but then I started to go deeper and it led to a closer and stronger relationship with God. I wrote about God’s grace of giving me a chance to change and grow, God’s acceptance of me at any size, the mercy God has shown me over my years of neglecting Him, and the desire I have, that can only have come from God, to put FA disciplines into my life.

I have never liked discipline or been a disciplined person. I like doing things when and how I like to do them. FA required three weighed and measured meals a day, and originally that was difficult. I had to plan, shop, cook, and clean for all those meals. I had to get out of bed! There were meetings to go to, calls to make, and a daily quiet time to include in the busy day. I hadn’t done that much activity in years, yet it changed my life.

When I gained discipline, I lost my desire to be a slug. My life is much fuller now and full of hope for the future, all because I opened the door to my Higher Power, God.