Daughter, Arise!
Undoing the damage, becoming God’s daughters.
About the Book...
“Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder.”
Using her own personal experience, Sheryle Cruse, in this book, addresses eating disorders, food, weight and body issues impacting young girls and women. She focuses on the spiritual significance, while providing hope that, through faith and trust in God through Christ, young girls and women can indeed rise above the seemingly hopeless sentence of eating disorders and emerge as "God's Daughters," full of life and promising futures.
Endorsements and Reviews
Engaging and full of hope, May 11, 2006
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Reviewer: |
Linda J. Macdonald (Gig Harbor, WA United States) |
Dr. Gregory L. Jantz, Ph.D. Certified Eating Disorder Professional Founder and Director, The Center for Counseling and Health Resources, Inc.
"Renewing the mind with God’s Truth not only keeps you on the path of recovery, but will keep you walking strong towards victory… Sheryle Cruse does an excellent job in this book stepping you through the healing process.”
Don Nielson Treasurer and Co-Founder, National Eating Disorders Association
"Sheryle Cruse has written a wonderful book that takes a deep look inside the thinking of a sufferer of an eating disorder... She also reveals that recovery is dependent upon the availability of unconditional love. In Sheryle’s case, that came from God and from Jesus Christ…”
Pastor Lisa Bevere, Messenger International Ministries, Author of “Kissed the Girls and Made them Cry” and “Be Angry But Don’t Blow It”
"Sheryle Cruse knows of what she speaks. She has written a way of escape from the dark abyss of eating disorders into the shelter of the Most High... It is a brave raw book for every daughter, mother or sister who has encountered this shadowy existence.”
Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder
by Sheryle Cruse
“...Each comment, lost pound, and lost inch gave me more of an incentive. As I lost weight, I found myself always in need of a new goal...
...Ah, at long last, control over something in my life... I could control this! I could control my body! And soon this control did turn into something I’d hungered for, craved my entire life: power, power in the beauty, the newfound thin beauty I was discovering...
... That’s all that mattered. And besides, I wouldn’t go too far. I’d stop when I was satisfied. Yeah, when I was at my “right” weight, then I’d stop. After all, I was in control…”
“...I really started obsessing the two weeks prior to the wedding. Looking back on my
diary entries, I wrote a repetitive string of comments like, ‘I’m not going to eat today or tomorrow,’ and ‘I can’t blow it now. I’m so close.’ ...
...At 82 pounds, I tried on the dress and discovered that’s all it was—just a dress. Yes, it was hanging on me, but it didn’t really mean anything anymore. I was too exhausted for it to mean anything to me. I had to pin the sides of the dress with safety pins. It was hanging off from my 20-inch waist (18 inches, if I held in my breath)...
...People stammered things like, ‘Sheryle, you look, pretty’ and ‘My, you’re thin. I didn’t recognize you.’ They obviously felt uncomfortable saying it. A guy cousin of mine said something like, ‘Man, you’re thin,’ (two beats of awkward silence), ‘but—you—you look—good.’ He said it to me like I was in danger of dying right there.
It was a long day. I focused most of my concentration on just staying vertical and not fainting. I had accomplished my goal; I was skinny for this wedding. I was just too exhausted and hollow to enjoy it… And this time, I definitely had no control over what was happening.”
Excerpt taken from Chapter Two, “Famine”