Testimony of Healing August 13, 2001 Issue

Eating disorder conquered

Translated from Portuguese

Rosana de Castro

When I was 14, I started to worry too much about my body—what I could and couldn't eat, and how much I should exercise. I weighed 110 pounds, but I thought I was too fat. I don't even know how this all started, but I know it kept getting more and more serious. I ate less and less, and thought this was good for me.

I didn't realize what was happening. I started losing my friends and stopped going to the gym where I used to practice capoeira, (traditional African Brazilian rhythmic gymnastics, originally a martial art used for self-defense.) Everybody started to notice that something was wrong. My parents tried to help me, but I didn't seem to care. They talked, but it was as if I couldn't hear them. I lived like this for five months, and my weight went down to 79 pounds.

My parents were praying for me. They shared ideas with me about God, although I wasn't listening. I had never heard of anorexia nervosa, but my dad noticed how much it was talked about on television and in magazines, and he began to pray specifically about this. He says he kept remembering that no disease could be a part of God's creation, no matter how much was said about it; he also held to the truth that God fills all space, so there could be no place left for disease.

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