Happy Easter!!!!!

This is a picture of the Disarro side of my family from Easter!  It is also the soon-to-be Riley side of our family, seeing as how Janet (my sweet mother-in-law) and Mark just got engaged last weekend...CONGRATULATIONS!  From the left is Jennifer (JK), Josh, Mark, Janet, James (Jimmy Tommy, Chrissy's bf), Chrissy, Caden, JD, Brooke, Nate, and then me!
Honestly, I do believe that this book is in fact the MOST spectacular book I have ever read next to Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.  There is no love like the kind of love that you get and give to an animal.  I'm not saying that it's necessarily better than, say, the love between man and wife, but I do believe that we are so flawed as humans that it makes it hard to love one another the way that a dog can love you.  I know for us, even though Bunker gets kind of rambunctious sometimes, he thinks we're the greatest humans in the entire world.  There's no doubt about it:  we screw up royally on pretty much a daily basis, and Bunker is always there, wagging his huge tail and kissing us and loving us as though we lead perfect lives.  

I feel like this week I have been particularly negative and boring and cranky, and I feel like it's time for me to confess.  I still definitely live with the all-consuming thoughts about my body image, and I am sick and tired of it.  I am so tired of living with the lies that the devil keeps feeding me and the reminders of my mistakes and the fact that he is rubbing it in my face and I keep on believing it.  For anyone who does not know, I have struggled with this vicious cycle for going on 13 years now.  And the sad part about it is that I have no idea how to stop it.  How do you keep yourself from thinking about the past and knowing that it was you who did all those horrible things, to yourself and to other people?  I heard a story in church this morning about a man who struggled with homosexuality for something like 15+ years, and since turning everything over to the Lord has overcome his issues, gotten married to a wonderful woman, and now has a baby girl names Hope.  

Although drastic, I can't help but be reminded of my own shortcomings and issues and rebellions.  I live in a constant up-down state of overeating, working out too hard, controlling caloric intake, and then blowing it on random food.  I look at myself in the mirror and see huge and bloated.  I gave away all of my nicer clothes because I didn't feel like I was thin enough or comfortable enough to actually look good in them.  So now, when I want to look nice or go somewhere nice, I have no clothes to wear.  It also gets in the way of my relationship with my wonderful husband, who loves me regardless.  He is a very social person, and I felt like I was too...when I was hardly eating anything and working out like a maniac.  But the second I stopped doing that, I felt like I "let myself go" and since have started again on this roller coaster of disordered eating again.  

For anyone who's reading this and is like "Wow, she needs some serious help" you're right.  I do need help.  I need the prayers and guidance and loving wisdom of Godly people who are in tune with my Maker's love and plan for my life.  So if nothing else, I just hope that you would throw up a quick prayer for me, that I would get over myself and become a woman who can fully, 100% devote herself to the Lord's will and quit thinking about myself.