It's Supernatural

Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah and she almost became a statistic. Her name is Laura Schultz and Laura found herself binge eating and purging. And she was involved as so many people today in trying to keep up and look like the models on television, or the woman that they see in the magazines and the newspapers and she wanted to look normal, and be normal. And if you look better on the outside and you say “Oh, she isn’t fat, she has a 4.0 grade average in college, she teaches Sunday School, she’s working a part time job; she’s really got her life together, but Laura tell me what was really going on inside of Laura at that time.

Laura: Well at that time it was just misery, I hated myself, I hated who I was. I was trapped in this cycle of binging and purging and depression. You know none of the doctors could provide any answers and it was just this cycle of just destruction was what I was in.

Sid: Tell me about when you were in college they found you on the floor in the bathroom, tell me about that.

Laura: Well I had gone away to school and you know I was binging and purging and abusing laxatives and got up one morning to take a shower and I guess blacked out; came to 10 or 15 minutes later on the bathroom floor. And at that point realized I knew I had a problem but it was obviously starting to really affect my health at that point.

Sid: Well they took care of you according to my notes, you were on 15 different medications. It was suggested you have shock therapy, and you were diagnosed by the state as mentally ill. Did you actually have the shock therapy?

Laura: I did it was a last ditch effort, I was in the hospital and tried to kill myself and my insurance was going to run out and the doctors just didn’t know what to do with me. And so they went ahead and did the shock therapy and then sent me home. They were just kind of at a loss not knowing how to help.

Sid:   Well they’re at a loss, you’re at a loss. Obviously your parents at a loss, what does someone in that position do?

Laura:   Well thankfully, you know at that point I heard about Mercy Ministries I mean God just did an amazing work in my life.

Sid: What were you like when you walked right into that place for the first time? If someone were to describe you what would they have seen?

Laura: Well I was a mess. I mean I couldn’t make eye contact, just looked… you could just see the depression on me. Didn’t want to speak to people, just had really lost all hope. Walked into the doors thinking either this works and God’s going to show up or I’m going to die. Those were my choices and that’s how I walked into that place.

Sid: And how old were you at the time?

Laura: I was 21 at the time.

Sid: My goodness, everything to live for but as far as you were concerned nothing to live for. What was the first gleam of hope that you had in this program because you had been going for 6 years with this eating disorder and no hope. No hope from Over Eaters Anonymous, no hope from psychiatrists, no hope from your parents, no hope from dietitians. You prayed had no answers from God, what was the first glimmer of hope that you got?

Laura: Well I was reading through from some scriptures. My counselor had given me a whole big list of scriptures to read through. And I hit 1 Corinthians 1:9 and it says “God can be trusted.” And in the Amplified it makes it even more beautiful. You know “God is faithful, reliable, trustworthy, ever true to His promise and can be depended upon.” And something just clicked in me and I knew that God has saved me and I had trusted Him for that salvation and yet I had never trusted Him with anything else. I was trying to do this all on my own and something, I mean just made revelation to me that day and I realized I could trust God and I’m going to get through this. His promises are real and that was a huge turning point for me.

Sid: So in other words, you had believed a lie.

Laura: Hm, hm. I believed a lot of lies. (Laughing)

Sid: Tell me some other lies you believed.

Laura: I believed that God had made me broken, that there was something wrong with me. And you know that I was not fixable, that I would be this way forever. That I was a horrible person, that no one loved me, that no one accepted me, that I had to perform to be accepted. I mean there was just a whole slew of lies that I was living.

Sid: One of the biggies was shame, tell me about that.

Laura: You know I just never felt good enough, I never felt that anybody would want me around. You know I just felt I mean it’s just a horrible feeling. Thankfully God is so faithful and when you bring Him that brokenness you know He replaced that with just joy and peace and comfort. But that was something that I had to be willing to give to Him and go to Him with. You know He’s not going to just snatch it from you.

Sid: In your story you talk about you had to learn what the triggers were that made you want to binge and to purge. In your case if I’m not being too personal tell me one trigger.

Laura: Well I mean the first one that comes in my head is that stress, that feeling like I’m never going to measure up and I need to do something to measure up. And so any time something would come at me I didn’t feel I had done it absolutely perfect I would binge or purge to calm myself down to deal those uncomfortable feelings. Really any uncomfortable feeling that would come my way I had learned to binge and purge to deal with that.

Sid: And so when you get an uncomfortable feeling today that comes your way what do you do?

Laura: Well now I have tools, now I know that I’m not controlled by my feelings. I know that I can go to the Lord I can pour my heart out to Him like David did in the Psalms. And that He is faithful to be there and sometimes it’s going through those feelings. But other times, I know my joy does not change, because I know that joy, that joy is more than a feeling. Joy is a gift from God and I know that even in the craziest of circumstances have that joy, have that peace that’s my bedrock. And so I just know this okay this uncomfortable feeling is here. I can pray through this, I can give this to God, I can sing a worship song. I’m going to get through this I don’t have to do some destructive behavior to deal with that feeling.

Sid: How many years later is this now?

Laura: It has been almost 6 years.

Sid: Okay according to my notes you went on to complete and get a Master’s Degree.

Laura: I did.

Sid: And you are currently working for the ministry that helped set you free, Mercy Ministry as Director of Education. What’s the real burden of your heart right now?    

Laura: I am just passionate about telling people especially girls that there’s freedom. So many people in my life, doctors. You know that they were well meaning, they just didn’t know the truth. But you know a doctor told me “You’ll never finish college, this is going to be your life, eating disorders are not curable, you’re going to struggle for the rest of your life. No one ever told me there was freedom. So I am passionate about telling these girls. Don’t let the world tell you you can’t be something, or don’t let the world put limits on you, because in Christ there’s complete freedom. There’s new beginnings, He’s a miracle working God and nothings too hard for Him. So don’t let the world tell you any differently. And that’s my passion is to convey to them “What God did for me He can do for you too.”

Sid: Okay, there is a 15 year old binge eater who then purges. Fifteen? She’s listening to us right now and she knows she’s a mess but she can’t help herself. She can’t go to that school that you have there because actually you’ve got more people waiting to get in. What advice would you give her right now because she’s in a life critical situation?

Laura: Well if people don’t know she needs to surround herself with some Christian people who can uphold her in prayer.

Sid: What kind of feedback are you getting on her book?

Laura:   We had a girl that email us and she had just randomly found this book on a book shelf at a Christian bookstore and read it. And she told us that she had read all kinds of books on eating disorders I’ve been struggling for so long and none of them gave hope. They all just gave this dismal outlook and you know some of them even made it worse because they would trigger. And she said “This was the first book that helped me get free.”

Sid: Laura quick question, how’s your weight?

Laura: Oh, it’s great… I look real good, I’m very happy.

Sid: How about your eating?

Laura: Oh, I eat what I want, I stop when I’m full. You know I just have balance now.