Then, There Goes God…
As a 54-year-old woman, I have seen the changes in myself throughout my life. Whereas I used to obsess about my physical body, my behavior, and whether I was “ok” in my relationships, I do not worry about such things now. Rather, I focus my energies on how to best lead and by how I serve others. (And how to take care of my body so I don’t throw my back out when I sneeze.)
When I was younger, the unconscious goal was to “prove” my lovability and worth. Exercise, diet, calories, weight, was all the internal rage. “Did he look at me?” turned into “does he like me” and “am I good enough?” I was an anxious wreck. All the anxiety and obsessiveness were focused on… ME. I never would have imagined that I was “self-centered” because, well, I was focused on my flaws – both real and imagined. However, that is exactly what I was being!
Then, There Goes God…
Despite my fears and challenges, God used me. He used the 17-year-old who did a round robin of binging-purging-restricting while screaming “God, why do you hate me so much?!?” He used my fears, struggles, and need to be loved WHILE he was using me to build an amazing organization. He used my imperfections and internal doubts WHILE he was knocking down my original wounds and re-building me into a leader that developed an organization that is after His heart and is doing His work.
Manna Scholarship Fund, Inc, was created in 2006 by two women who only knew eating disorders from the inside-out. Manna is known in the bible as “bread from heaven,” “bread of life,” and is Jesus in the New Testament. While the Israelites were being led through the desert by God, they cried out, “feed us!” and that is just what God did. He gave them Manna each day (except the Sabbath). Manna literally means, “what is it?” because they had never seen anything like it on the desert floor.
However, six out of seven days each week, they slept and woke up to little frosted-flakeish, possibly mushroomy, edible pieces on the desert floor. I have no idea how they got the sand out of it, but that’s one of those questions that will have to wait until I’m resting in Heaven. So, the only rule was, “don’t take too much” because it would spoil. They literally had to trust God to get their daily bread, and he delivered. When they wanted meat, God gave them quail.
At Manna Fund, we hope our clients will trust us as they are going through their emotional and spiritual desert. We hope that they will take just enough food to get them through their day – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We support them in helping to understanding just what really hurts and how their eating disorder (or other behaviors) are hurting them too. Ultimately, we hope that they see a good God through a supportive, loving, and healing staff. We offer Manna as the environment to help them confront what hurts and how to break free from the pain.
There goes God… using hope for healing and helping. That’s why our motto is, “Supporting individuals from Surviving, to Thriving, to Leading”… because that’s just what happened to all of us at Manna.
