Don't Worship Your Cross

"Then he said to them all, 'If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.'" — Luke 9:23 (NLT)

🌾 When the Struggle Becomes the Shrine

For a long time, I would have told you my weight was simply a battle. Something I was disappointed about, upset about, working to change when I had the energy for it. That's how most of us describe it — a fight we're losing, a goal we haven't reached yet.

But somewhere along the way, mine stopped being a battle. It became something I gave my attention to, my energy to, my identity to — in a way that only belongs to the things we worship.

I know how that sounds. Worship is supposed to be reserved for the things we admire, the things that make us feel good. Nobody sets out to worship a struggle. But hidden sadness has a way of attaching itself to whatever is closest at hand, and for me, that was my body.

🌿 The Cross I Was Never Meant to Carry This Way

Jesus tells us to take up our cross daily and follow Him. That cross is real — it's the hard thing we carry as we walk with Him. But there's a difference between carrying a cross behind Jesus and building an altar around it.

Without meaning to, I did the second one. My weight struggle stopped being something I carried on the way to healing, and became the thing I stood still in front of. It took up the space that belonged to something else — the real wound underneath it.

🧠 The Body Remembers What the Mind Buries

Here's something I wish someone had told me years ago: the connection between childhood trauma and weight isn't just a feeling I made up to excuse myself. It's real, and researchers have been documenting it for decades.

One of the largest studies ever done on this, going back to the 1990s, followed people over years and found that the more adverse experiences someone survived as a child — abuse, neglect, chaos in the home — the more likely they were to struggle with obesity as an adult. Some studies have found the increased risk runs as high as 50 to 90 percent for people with several of these experiences, compared to those with none. And it wasn't just correlation sitting side by side — the more childhood trauma someone carried, the stronger the pattern held.

There are real mechanisms behind this, not just willpower failures. Trauma changes how our stress hormones function. It can affect the way our brains regulate reward and comfort. And it creates patterns — using food to self-soothe, to numb, to feel something manageable — that can take root in childhood and follow us for decades without our ever realizing where they came from.

I share that not to hand you a diagnosis or a label, but because I needed permission, once, to stop believing this was only ever about self-control. For me, it never was.

✨ Why the "Jolly Fat Girl" Felt Safer Than the Broken Girl

Here's the part that took me the longest to admit out loud: I would rather appear overweight than appear emotionally broken.

Being the "fat girl" only affected me. Nobody had to feel implicated. I could even offer a funny side — everyone laughs with the jolly, good-natured heavy friend. But nobody laughs with the girl who says, "I had a messed-up childhood." That kind of honesty points to people. It points to situations. It makes others uncomfortable in a way my weight never did.

So without ever deciding to, I picked the version of pain that only cost me something. Being unhealthy felt like a smaller, safer confession than being hurt.

🍽️ What It Means to Call Yourself an "Emotional Eater"

For years I wore the label "emotional eater" almost casually, the way you'd describe being a night owl or a coffee person. And there's real truth in it — turning to food for comfort instead of nutrition is exactly what I did.

But I've come to see that a label can do two very different things. It can be the beginning of honesty — a way of finally naming a pattern instead of pretending it isn't there. Or it can quietly become the end of the conversation. "I'm an emotional eater" can explain the eating without ever requiring me to ask the harder question underneath it: what emotion, from where, and why has food been the only place I know to put it?

I could say the label and feel like I'd been honest, without ever actually being honest. That's the danger of naming a pattern without naming its source.

🕯️ Why Food Is So Easy to Abuse

If I'm honest about why food became my particular struggle, part of the answer is simply that food is one of the easiest things in the world to misuse.

It's legal. It's everywhere. It doesn't require finding a dealer or hiding a bottle — it requires walking into a kitchen. We're expected to engage with it multiple times a day, every single day, for the rest of our lives, which means there's no version of "quitting" the way you can quit other things. Food shows up at celebrations, at funerals, at church potlucks and family holidays, wrapped in love and belonging, so the very thing that can become an escape is also the thing everyone around you is encouraging you to enjoy.

There's no single rock bottom moment with food, the way there might be with other struggles. It rarely announces itself. It just quietly becomes the place you go, meal after meal, until one day you look up and realize how long you've been going there.

🕊️ Feeling Pain Without Naming Truth

I still needed somewhere to put the pain — that part never went away. It's so important to actually feel what we carry, not bury it. But my weight gave me a way to feel pain without ever having to name the truth underneath it. I could be upset, frustrated, even ashamed, and never once have to say the real sentence: I was hurt as a child, and I never dealt with it.

Paul understood something about this. He asked God three times to remove a struggle he called his thorn in the flesh, and God's answer wasn't to erase it — it was, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NLT). God never asked Paul to build his identity around the thorn. He asked him to let grace, not the struggle itself, become the center.

🌊 What Changed: Freedom Found in the Word

People sometimes ask me what's different between the version of me that was carrying all that extra weight and the person I am now. What actually happened?

The honest answer is that I didn't start with the weight. I started with the Word. Scripture became the place I finally brought the real wound instead of the substitute I'd been offering it for years. And as I let God begin healing that — the sadness, the trauma, the years of hiding — I noticed something I didn't expect. The struggle with food started to loosen its grip. Not because I found a better diet. Because I stopped needing it to carry what it was never meant to carry.

I want to be honest that it isn't perfect. There are still days my thoughts try to drag me back to the old altar. But now, instead of staying there, I turn to Christ for comfort and for wisdom. And that's really why Scripture tells us to pray continually — not as a rule to follow, but because it's how we stay near enough to Him to be pulled back when the current starts taking us out.

I think of Peter, stepping out of the boat onto the water, and the moment the wind and waves became too much and he began to sink. Jesus didn't wait for him to swim back on his own — He reached out His hand right there in the storm and caught him (Matthew 14:31). That's the image I hold onto on my hard days. Christ isn't standing at a distance waiting for me to get to shore. He's already out there in the water with His arms extended.

If you've been sinking under something too — I promise you, if you let yourself look for Him, you will see Him standing right there.

🌸 Taking the Cross Down Off the Altar

Healing, for me, has meant something very specific: taking my weight struggle down off the altar I'd quietly built for it, and finally setting the real thing — the sadness, the trauma — in front of God instead.

That's a much scarier exchange. My weight was a story I could manage on my own. My childhood wasn't. But Paul also wrote, "My old self has been crucified with Christ... I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20, NLT). The cross that was ever meant to hold my identity was His — not the struggle I'd been protecting myself with.

I'm not finished with this. I don't think any of us fully are. But I'm learning to let my struggle be something I carry with Jesus, instead of something I hide behind from Him.

🙏 Prayer

Lord, You already know what I've been protecting myself from. Thank You for not asking me to fix myself before I come to You honestly. Show me where I've built a shrine out of a struggle instead of bringing You the real wound underneath it. Give me the courage to name what's actually there, and the trust to believe that Your grace is enough for it — more than enough. In Jesus' name, Amen.

💬 Let's Talk in the Comments

Is there something in your life — a struggle, a habit, even a role you play — that may have quietly become easier to manage than the real hurt underneath it? What would it look like to bring that real thing to God this week instead?

Pray with me: If you're carrying something you've never said out loud, I'd be honored to pray for you. Leave it in the comments, or simply write "praying" if you'd rather keep it between you and the Lord.

With care, Faitheful Pen

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This post reflects personal experience and general research on trauma and health. It is not medical, psychological, or clinical advice — if you're navigating trauma or its effects on your health, please also reach out to a qualified counselor or physician.

© 2025 His Words Give Life. All Rights Reserved. — Written with love by Faitheful Pen.