Feast Upon the Words of Christ

A Story of Faith Written by Amanda Sanchez

I Couldn’t Hear Him

It started in August 2019. I was a couple months postpartum with my second baby. Everything had gone well and I was feeling a lot of gratitude and joy - but I was also noticing some changes I wanted to make to better care for myself physically and mentally.

I wanted to eat better, and every day that I would set the intention to not eat certain things anymore and eat only things that are good for me, I couldn’t seem to make it through an entire day before I would give in to the foods that I said I wouldn’t eat.

A voice inside would tell me, “It’s not that big of a deal, just eat some.” And then as soon as I did, “You just blew it again. You’re never going to lose weight.”

It started to affect me because it wasn’t the only time I’d had this issue. I had struggled with this negative voice in my head since elementary school that told me that the answer to my happiness was in my appearance and the way to get there was through food. I always felt this need to control it and eat less of it so I could finally become who I wanted to be.

In fact, back in August 2012 I started a fashion blog called Little Miss Fearless where I paired my love for cute outfits with my desire to do something brave. At the time, “brave” felt like putting pictures of myself wearing cute outfits on the Internet for people to pin, share, like and regram.

It turned out to be a wild ride of discovering my true identity, but I still remember the night I heard that negative voice tell me it would all be worth it because I’d finally have the external motivation I needed to get skinnier and stay in shape. 

With this narrative in my mind, it’s no surprise I experienced shame during my pregnancies. I couldn’t control my appearance as my body changed, and that scared me because I felt like the world was watching. 

My mind became noisy with food chatter and I’d get into a moral debate about whether I should act on the impulse to indulge my sugary fantasies. The more I indulged, the more I wanted to isolate and hide… and consequently, the more I indulged.

A cycle of guilt and food abuse was forming and I often justified it as a pregnancy symptom. Yet when the baby was born and the cycle continued, I was out of excuses and frankly tired of being caught in the web of conflicting and competing expectations.

I knew how to eat well. I just wasn’t doing it.

Why?

I was capable of accomplishing so many great things in other areas of my life with my career and my blog, and now motherhood. 

Why could I not control this?

I felt stuck. Hopeless. Ridiculous.

Then, in His unmatched and unexpected way, the Lord stepped in to deliver me from bondage. 

I remembered a friend who had spoken of similar struggles with food and body image. I reached out to her immediately and she lovingly shared her experience in a 12-step program for food addiction recovery. My decision to join the program was influenced entirely by my trust in her. 

He Spoke to me

A month or so into these new habits of following a sugar and flour-free food plan and keeping my commitment to no longer turn to food for comfort, numbing or escape, I hit a wall.

It was that wall we all hit when we’ve planted something in faith and are starting to notice the fruits of it - we feel better, and it really is the thing that we needed to do, but we start to dig it up in doubt because suddenly the idea of nourishing this seed every day forever seems so daunting.

Is the harvest really going to be worth all this effort?  

Yet, we don’t want to go back because the vineyard we just came from produced a lot of rotten fruits.

In this moment of fear, the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me clearly, with words so simple I will never forget.

He said: “It’s not about the food; let me teach you.”

I felt a gentle quietness that my heart and mind had been craving for a very long time. 

I didn’t have all the answers, but the voice calmed me enough that I was able to take a deep breath, be still, and move forward in patience. As I did this, the Lord used my friend as an instrument in my life again. She shared with me some of the ways she draws close to Him every day, including reading the scriptures, and more specifically, The Book of Mormon, which members of my faith believe to be, in addition to the Bible, another testament of Jesus Christ.

I Began to Feast

A leader in my church, President Russell M Nelson, repeatedly promised members of my faith that “when we read the Book of Mormon every day, we will make better decisions every day.”

I really needed help making these better decisions.

So I started reading. 

I turned to scripture multiple times a day, often in moments when I was emotionally triggered to indulge in addictive foods. Instead of indulging, I would feast on the words of Christ. 

The scriptures - similar to the pure and simple foods that I was trying to eat more of; that I wanted to love - were the pure and simple truths from God. He was nourishing me and bringing harmony to my mind, body and spirit. The more that I turned to this knowledge and truth in scripture, the more I hungered for it. 

Soon these other habits I was so used to, that were part of who I thought I was, started to dissipate. They lost their appeal as my Savior became the focus.

I felt a change in my desires when I studied this Book of Mormon passage in Alma 37:36:

“Yea and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and withersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.

Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.”

Instead of waking up to my Instagram notifications, I started waking up more intentionally to the Lord each day.

I began to think about Him in every thought - more than I thought about what to eat,  what to wear, or what to post on social media. As I listened to His counsel, He encouraged me to let go of anything that was not in harmony with these new desires; anything that was no longer needful. 

I chose to let go of my career and not return from maternity leave.

I chose to let go of several little forms of bondage related to maintaining my appearance.

I chose to let go of my blog, my talent agency that helped me monetize it, and the social media audience I had been growing for almost eight years. 

I had a new identity in Christ.

I was in awe of how He led me to replace old things with new things, but not in a way that I felt resentful. It happened little by little so that I was ready to let go.

Because of these experiences, I have a testimony that Christ lives. He’s waiting for us to let go and let Him in. 

We don’t change habits by focusing on the habits. We change by focusing on the Savior and He takes care of the habits by fine-tuning our desires. 

I know He was with me on this journey and I’m so grateful for all the ways He has changed me. 

I used to live by bread alone, now I strive to feast on every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4, KJV; 2 Nephi 32:3, Book of Mormon).