Leading with Love

“For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”

─ 1 John 3:11

As Josh Cromer tuned his guitar for youth group worship, a friend handed him a photo taken at a retreat they’d attended together. He smiled, thanked her, and slid the photo into his guitar case. Alone in his room later, he examined the picture. He hated it. I look so hideous, Josh thought.

Josh, overweight for as long as he could remember, considered himself one of the biggest guys in his junior class. So, he decided to weigh less, he needed to eat less. Within weeks he was hardly eating anything. He was proud that he could eat less in a week than most people ate during a meal.

Josh’s parents and youth group leadership were concerned. So, to avoid their questions, he ate and then made himself throw up. It gave him a false sense of control.

He lost a lot of weight, fast – 70 lbs in nine months. When he stepped into the halls of his high school his senior year, he considered himself a new man. No longer “the fat kid,” he enjoyed the attention and compliments.

Then one evening Josh’s youth pastor removed him from the worship team, encouraging him to deal with his eating issues. And a few days later, his friend Sharon shared how she, too, had been anorexic and bulimic. She looked directly into Josh’s eyes and said, “I know it feels like you are in control, but it is controlling you.”

He drove home replaying Sharon’s words. Josh realized his secret determined everything in his life, and he hadn’t once talked to God about it. He sat in his driveway and prayed.

While everything seemed a little different the next day, Josh wasn’t instantly cured of anorexia and bulimia, but he began to focus more on God’s purpose for his life and less on his eating disorder. Josh said his attitude changed that night. He began to desire God’s purpose more than his own desires. He also had a new attitude about the people who really love him.

Today’s One Thing

Do you have a secret you need to share with God and those who love you? Break the hold your secret has on you by sharing it with those you trust today.

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