About eight months ago, I came to the ranch. I left my home and family in Minnesota as a last resort to death. By this point I was so engulfed with my eating disorder, I wasn’t really eating. When I did eat, I was doing a lot of dieting and highly restrictive eating. In addition, I was consumed with exercising to the extent that exercise was governing my life. This left me unable to function, much less able to think for myself.

By the time I came to the ranch, I had been struggling in this destructive and painful lifestyle for four years (11 to 15 years). Out of love for me, my parents had already placed me in and out of hospitals over eight times, just trying to keep me from being a heart attack risk.

Doctors and therapist kept telling me that it was always someone else’s fault, or it was the environment, or a pill would fix everything. A pill? Obviously not! I took plenty of them and was there 8 different times!!

Finally, things hit rock bottom for me. Physically, I was at death’s door, but beyond that, I was going to be pulled from my family and placed into foster care if I did not find a residential program that would bring lasting change. TFR was just that place.

They were able to accept me when several other programs I called couldn't or wouldn't. Besides that, it was a more "home environment", not like a hospital at all. They had animals, a small, family-like environment, and most of all, they were Christians.

During my stay here I have become physically and spiritually healthy. Physically, I have gotten to and maintained a healthy weight that has left me feeling much more refreshed and having more energy. Ensure shakes were my best friend for a while there...how sad is that?

Spiritually, this has been a season of growth for me. I have learned that my life is not my own. As Romans 14:7, 8 says: “For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”

I must glorify God in all that I do. Glorifying God should be my main focus and not myself. Getting the focus off of me and putting it onto Christ and Him alone is so key. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31. I have also learned more biblical ways of dealing with life’s problems – using His Word, trusting in His truths, and replacing unbiblical thoughts with God’s truth.

As I look towards going home, I would appreciate prayer for several things - that I would continue to grow in my relationship with the Lord, that He would strengthen me in areas of weakness and temptation, that I would continue to be diligent in being in His word and memorizing it daily, and that I would glorify God with the choices I make when I go home.

Thank you all.

Abbigale F. Lindstrom, MN