The Secret to a Healthy Soul

When I started working on the project of me, I don’t think I even really knew what the project was, how the process worked, or what the end result was supposed to look like. When I started my blog, “The Project of Me,” I envisioned doing a lot of writing about how I was dealing with my husband working through his addiction and how I was learning to trust the Lord with all the crap my husband has handed me in life. But as I got started working on the true project of myself, it became a lot less about the crap my husband had done to me and much more about the crap I had done before God and the freedom he offered me from my sin. 

I went to my first Celebrate Recovery meeting on October 21, 2019 and the biggest turn off to me was that everyone there was considered “in recovery” for something- whether it was overeating, eating disorders, codependency, sexual sin, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc., etc., etc. That was fine for everyone there, but I didn’t like the idea of being “in recovery.” My husband was the one in recovery, not me. But I did end up going back to Celebrate Recovery. As I said to my dad before going that next time, “My biggest hang up about going is that I don’t like the idea of being in recovery… and that’s probably exactly why I need to go.” 

The thing is I knew I had crap in my life. I knew I’d been trying to walk the Christian life with chains around my ankles for a long time. I knew I had been struggling to walk away from these things on my own. I knew I was trying to serve two gods, God and then these gods of temporary comfort. I even knew that trying to serve two gods was keeping me from having the best possible relationship with God. I knew I’d been stuck in my spiritual walk for quite some time. But I didn’t know what the solution was.

Last spring, when everything in my life spun wildly out of control and I lost just about everything that meant something to me, it made me realize just how powerless over my life I really was. The events of one day had led to a chain of events that caused me to have to give up my home, my jobs, my cars, and my husband temporarily. Going through that crisis made me face the reality that I had no control over my life and forced me to get truly comfortable with relinquishing the illusion of control I’d been holding onto over to God. Losing everything forced me to cling to God. I started prioritizing reading my Bible again. I started praying. I began worshiping more passionately. And through all of that, my soul found the center it had been looking for. 

During this time, I was reading “Soul Keeping” by John Ortberg. Based on Dallas Willard’s teachings, he explains that the soul integrates all parts of you: mind, will, and body, into a whole person. He writes, “A soul is healthy- well-ordered- when there is harmony between these three entities and God’s intent for all creation. When you are connected with God and other people in life, you have a healthy soul.” He goes on to say however, that sin dis-integrates the soul and leads to a disordered life. The soul needs a center and while we may try to center our souls on counterfeit gods, the only center that can correctly align the soul is the one who created it, God. 

Later on in the book, Ortberg writes, “So if everything is working right, if you are as God created you to be, then your body will be the obedient, easy servant of your mind and your will, what you choose. Your mind also will think about and feel those things you direct it to.” At the time of reading that, I had recently realized I’d been about thirty days free from the sin that had had a hold on me for so long and I’d barely realized it. It was as if those chains just fell off one day. As I read that I realized that because my soul was now centered on God and I had a well-ordered soul, my body was now obedient to my mind and my will. I was no longer a slave to my temporary comfort gods. I had been tempted in those thirty days, but I was making the choice to say no to temptation with power like I had never experienced before. And just like that, thirty days had passed, then sixty, and now ninety days have passed and I am still living in the freedom that comes from a life centered on God.

I knew I had crap in my life before but I didn’t want to admit that overcoming it would take more than just trying to work it out between myself and God and maybe one other trusted friend. I didn’t want to admit that I needed the support and accountability of a recovery community to help me. I didn’t want to admit that I was one of those people that needed to be “in recovery.” I didn’t truly understand that I was powerless in my own strength to overcome my sin and I didn’t want to admit just how out of control of my life I really was until God allowed everything to crumble to show me just that. And I definitely didn’t want to admit that laziness in my spiritual life was causing my spiritual desert. 

My life is still a mess in many ways. I’m still a married, 27 year-old woman who lives in her parent’s basement, drives a borrowed car, and is up to her eyeballs in debt. My husband still has a lot of issues of his own that he needs to work through. But in much more ways, I’m healthier than I have ever been before. Because my soul is centered on God and my life is well-ordered, I am not a slave to desires of my body. I’m about 90 days free from a habitual sin that was once a secret burden I carried around. I’m about five months into having control over what I eat, making healthier choices, and I have lost 60 pounds. Instead of living life in isolation, I am working on building meaningful relationships with people and am building a network people to hold me accountable. I read my Bible and journal prayers regularly. None of those are in any way accomplishments of my own because they only happened by the power of the Holy Spirit.

A picture of me a year ago (February 2019) and a picture of me now (February 2020).

I have made the choice to trust God with my life and my future and have a sense of peace that surpasses my understanding even though I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I don’t know what will happen in future between my husband and me. I pray that God will do a radical work in him and restore our marriage in a mighty way. But ultimately, I know that whatever tomorrow holds, I’m going to be okay because my life is centered on the one who holds tomorrow.