Recovery came softly

A vision of grace amid an eating disorder.

From Mockingbird

Mockingbird is an organization devoted to “connecting the Christian faith with the realities of everyday life."

Under a tree, backlit by a sun set, two people sit in chairs outside and talk.

Harli Marten on Unsplash.

This article, by Lindsay Holifield, first appeared in Mockingbird. Published by kind permission.

I turned sixteen years old in a lavender-walled bedroom on the eating disorder unit at Texas Children’s Hospital. Surrounded by eagle-eyed nurses watching my every move and whirring machines keeping me alive, I quietly transitioned to Sweet Sixteen. The unit’s charge nurse was a gruff woman named Lupe, and despite her job, she did not particularly like children. But it was my birthday, and in an uncharacteristic act of kindness, Lupe offered me a slice of cake. She must have briefly forgotten her surroundings, because I was not a normal teenager. I was a patient on a pediatric eating disorder unit, and I broke down sobbing at the mere thought of such a high-calorie food entering my body.

This was my first birthday in a clinical treatment facility for anorexia, but it would not be the last. After receiving the initial diagnosis of anorexia nervosa as a teenager, the doctor’s pronouncement sounding like a death-knell at the time, I would admit to twenty treatment facilities on separate occasions across a period of fourteen years.

The treatment staff began to greet me knowingly when I would re-admit after only a few months out, as though I was an old friend returning from vacation. “Welcome back, Lindsay,” they would say, as they took my luggage and inserted yet another nasogastric feeding tube. Over time, I began to be labeled “chronic,” and I internalized a belief that I was one of the sufferers who was fated to live the rest of my life under the oppressive weight of this struggle.

I would have to try harder. I would have to pull myself up by my bootstraps and willpower my way into recovery. After each attempt under this approach, I would fall flat on my face.

It seemed that no matter how much motivation I mustered up, this internal drive to self-destruct would not leave me alone. I desperately wanted to wake up each day without having to submit afresh to the hellish existence of self-starvation and running till my lungs felt on the verge of collapse. But I felt chained to this destructive cycle deep into my bones, despite my best intentions.

I was often berated by various treatment providers for not having enough motivation. I didn’t necessarily want to die, but I could not find the strength within me to fight off the voice in my brain that demanded self-destruction. Doctors and mental health clinicians made it clear that if I really wanted to get better, I would have to try harder. I would have to pull myself up by my bootstraps and willpower my way into recovery. After each attempt under this approach, I would fall flat on my face. The despair of my situation began to swallow me whole: there was no way out, because I could not yell at myself enough to make myself well.

Because of the lavish softness I was shown, I began to approach myself with greater softness.

I was twenty-six years old, and I was sitting in a green folding chair in the summer on a farm in Nashville, Tennessee. The woman in the folding chair across from me is decidedly in support of my recovery, but she isn’t yelling at me or giving me a stern lecture. Instead, she is explaining with great care and tenderness how much sense my struggles make in light of my previous life experiences. “Perhaps,” she says gently, “your brain was trying to survive great pain. Perhaps you were simply trying to make the ache go away the best way you knew how.” Her compassionate words break something open within me, and I start weep like a small child. No one has ever approached me with compassion like this; they are all afraid being too soft will simply enable me to further harm my body. But they are wrong. It is precisely this compassion and sense of being witnessed that softens my armored heart.

Recovery did not come overnight, but I can unhesitatingly say that the compassion of a woman on that farm in Nashville is what radically changed the trajectory of my life. Because of the lavish softness I was shown, I began to approach myself with greater softness. The voice of condemnation quieted, and I slowly turned from self-destruction to life.

Do you not hear the gospel ringing out here? My story of recovery is simply a zoomed in image of the grander story, the beautiful truth that makes up the fabric of our existence. Admitting powerlessness to destructive forces of sin and death is important, but the condemnation of the law will not save us. It is the extravagant, one-way grace of God that resurrects the dead.

I have heard similar fears in faith communities that I continually hear in my recovery communities: if we are too extravagant with compassion, we are enabling sin and destructive behaviors. But I am a living testament that compassion is what softens hearts of stone, armored up by self-protection and attempting to earn love through behavioral perfection. I would have died many times over save for the compassion that chased me down and embraced me, and being held in such tender kindness was the only thing that could have changed my fate. I believe this for mental health, yes, but more importantly, I believe this for the rescue of all of humanity. The grace of God is the sole agent of resurrection and change.

To the surprise of those who cling tightly to rigid, white-knuckling versions of recovery, my behavioral change occurred only after I was met with a grace without strings attached. This should not be surprising to Christians, however. Here again, the gospel glaring back at us, that repentance is a response to the kindness of God. This is the God who loved us while we were dead in our sins, while we were powerless to the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Against our behavior-driven moral sensibilities, God offers us grace that is a free gift, compassion in its fullest expression, and it is the only thing that will bring renewal and healing to the inhabitants of this desperately aching world: minds, hearts, and bodies included.

The toy blocks building trust, love and understanding

There’s a beautiful kind of hospitality, and this is it.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A baby plays with wooden toys on a carpert.

Photo by Troy T on Unsplash.

The leftovers were being gathered up, chairs being put back in their place, and happy looking people were dispersing. The last child there, his mum helping to wrap things up in the kitchen, was clinging onto a toy that I, in my imagination, like to think he makes a B-line for every time he spots it. It was an ordinary scene, but there was something undeniably extraordinary underpinning it.

Although it’s hard to articulate with words (which is admittedly not ideal when the objective of the visit was to write about it), it was immediately clear to me, I had walked right into the aftermath of something truly special. I sat down with Joey and Sarah, two of the Growbaby team, to figure out what it was.

Growbaby is an international children’s supply charity, providing clothing, equipment and everyday essentials for children up to five years old. Launched in 2003 and rooted in a local Vineyard church in Kingston Upon Thames, there are now multiple Growbaby hubs, one of which just happens to be at the end of my road in Cardiff. What started as a cupboard crammed with donated supplies is now a source of wholistic support for over one hundred families.

As requests flow into Growbaby HQ, packages are lovingly compiled and then freely given. These packages are put together on a case-by-case basis and can include anything from nappies to pushchairs, clothes to cots, formula to toys. Such support doesn’t tend to be offered from a distance, on the contrary, every Friday morning families (mothers and little ones, primarily) are welcomed to ‘stay and play’, and to subsequently receive the kind of support that can’t be handed over via a package. The aftermath of one of these events was the context for my short but ever so sweet visit.

The ways in which Joey and Sarah find themselves serving these families is constantly bursting the banks of their expectations.

The depth of relationship that has naturally built through their time together, with every Friday morning acting as a building block of trust, has meant that the ways in which Joey and Sarah find themselves serving these families is constantly bursting the banks of their expectations. The team have assisted in getting families set up with child credits and social services support, frequently acted as translators, ferried families to A&E, thrown baby showers, booked GP appointments, been birth partners, and even sought out affordable kitchen flooring on Facebook Marketplace.

Working for the well-being of these families has also involved appealing to the Red Cross to try and re-unite a Sudanese mother with her twelve-year-old son who has been unable to get out of the war-torn country. With families from Syria, Sudan, Iran, Iraq and Somalia (to name but a few), many of whom have found themselves in Cardiff as refugees, Growbaby is far more than a resource centre, it is a beautifully diverse community, the most understanding of support networks, a means of building a home away from home.

When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, the Growbaby team’s minds immediately went to the Russian women within their community, those who had brought their families to the UK in search of political asylum. These women had built a home for themselves and their children here, and yet, the news of the Russian offensive was likely to make them feel as vulnerable as the day they arrived. So, the team gave each of these women a card; a small but mighty gesture that let these women know that they were seen, safe, understood and loved in the place that they now called home.

The team here are also hosting these families’ trauma and their fears, they’re holding space for their joys and their victories.

I was struck by the fact that whole lives have been enhanced in this room; friendships have been forged, babies have been celebrated, all kinds of needs have been provided for, and women who came to Growbaby for help are now the volunteers who offer it. And these stories are a mere scratching of a powerful surface, the beaming smiles on both Joey and Sarah’s faces tell a thousand more. The impact that these women have had could never be adequately squeezed into an article (again, not ideal when an article is the objective).

Stepping foot into the room that Friday morning was stepping foot into the most tangible sense hospitality one could imagine. Of course, there are the obvious, and utterly essential ways, that these families are being hosted – through resources, supplies and practical support. But the team here are also hosting these families’ trauma and their fears, they’re holding space for their joys and their victories. Each person that walks through the door of Cardiff’s Growbaby are finding a community who will welcome and host the whole of them, who will weep with them when they’re weeping, and celebrate with them when they’re celebrating.

It’s a beautiful thing.

We could be forgiven for thinking that this kind of no-strings-attached hospitality is a myth. If it ever did exist, it’s bygone, and therefore dwells only in the realms of nostalgia. So, counter-cultural is it, that we’d be suspicious if ever we were to stumble upon rumours of it.

Well, no suspicion necessary here. It truly does exist; you can take my word for it. And I can’t imagine people more in need of it than parents, the guardians and nurturers of little lives.

If you are in need of the kind of support that Growbaby can offer, you can see if there’s a Grow Baby near you by using its directory .