The fashionista in me appreciated any excuse to break out the black and grey Burberry riding-rain boots. The weather was damp, but the drive was colorfully uplifting on a crisp autumn morning. When I pulled up to the horse farm, carefully situated on the backside of a hill, I saw a little piece of God’s country. It was serene, silent, and sovereign. A couple of heads peered through the fence as I meandered down the hill to the main barn to meet with the horse trainer and psychologist.

When I initiated equine therapy, I wasn’t sure what, if anything, would come of it. I worked with large animals throughout my entire childhood, as a 4-Her who raised and showed livestock, so I was surprised that my gut reaction was one of fear when the trainer turned me loose in the field. There stood three stately, beautifully groomed four-legged creatures. They were far enough away to keep me at ease, but as they gradually approached I could feel my face get warm and I started to back away. An assertive smaller-sized brown horse kept moving in my direction until we were face to face, then he started pacing around me in circles. Lord knows what he was sensing. I assumed he was mirroring the anxiety that was beginning to set in.

Winston eventually made his way into the barn, hung out there the remainder of the session, and continued to watch me. A beautiful off-white mare gently approached in a calmer manner. She didn’t intimidate me. We locked eyes for a moment, I stroked her mane, and she meandered toward the barn. As the therapist, trainer, and I were talking, the water drinker started making a strange noise. Water was filling up fast to replenish what Star was guzzling down. She drank like she had been in the Sahara for days. In between large gulps, she’d flail her head up, then turn and look right at me before dipping back down to fill up. I could feel my eyes well up with tears when the psychologist asked me if Star’s behavior resonated. God showed me right away what the horse was mirroring. As vulnerable as I felt in that moment, I knew I had to step out of the proverbial boat, and Star was God’s cue that it was time.

The therapist and trainer were perplexed, but their faces were blank because they came to expect a myriad of reactions from the horses. They were accustomed to people bringing all kinds of “stuff” into that barn—trauma, childhood wounds, broken hearts, grief, addiction, illness, fear, and the list goes on. They gave me grace and space until I was ready to approach Star. I walked up to the drinker, put my hand on her shoulder, and she stopped drinking. We felt calm in that moment. I enjoyed stroking her mane, and she let out a sigh of relief with a soft neigh. She walked out to the field while I went over to the ladies to start my therapy session.

“I feel hungry all of the time,” I admitted. “I don’t know how to manage it, so I’ve always felt like I needed some help.” They nodded with compassion, like they understood. The body image battle is one of the hardest areas for me to receive healing, as I’ve always been a perfectionist and extremely self-critical. Star showed me that this hang-up was holding me back, and the Lord wanted to use her to help me fix it.

While I never abused diet pills or supplements, and always took the recommended dosage (normally less because I’m sensitive to everything I ingest), I still felt like I had to take something on a regular basis to keep my appetite under control. Whether it was guarana, ephedra, garcinia cambogia, shakes, the latest craze, you name it. I struggled with anorexia and bulimia for a year during high school, so the struggle with food and body image began early in life. With God’s grace, I was able to kick them relatively fast without much professional help. Starvation didn’t help my mental health, and it didn’t take long to realize that bulimia was a waste of time—I’d feel hungry shortly after purging and I didn’t want to ruin the enamel on my teeth.

Thanks to Star’s prompting, I was able to confront the reliance I developed for a mental health medication. A few years earlier, a psychiatrist put me on a popular med for ADHD (even though I did not have attention deficit) that gave me energy and helped with depression. It was a mild stimulant, and while I took the smallest dose for the handful of years I was on it, I liked its mild appetite-suppressing effect. It helped to quell cravings for junk food. However, long-term use of stimulants can cause a host of unwanted side-effects. I was starting to feel anxious, irritable, and sadder than usual.

I can’t describe how or why, but acknowledging my problem to Star and the ladies was incredibly freeing. I felt the dirt wash off me that day by the water drinker— with His living water. I said goodbye to guilt and shame. I also worked with Christian counselors (one has been my mentor for several years) who guided me through deliverance ministry, which has also worked miracles in my life. Walking out the healing in the months that followed wasn’t always easy, but coming off the stimulant wasn’t as hard as I expected. God showed me ways to fill up my hunger with Him, through prayer, and by eating healthier. While I still struggle with my body image on some level, I am no longer obsessed with what I eat. I try to stay health-conscious, as we are expected to care for our temples, but I splurge, too.

Looking back, I realize that God wanted me off that stimulant so that I could eventually become pregnant with my daughter, one of the biggest blessings He has given me. If that wasn’t enough of a challenge, carrying around sixty extra pounds certainly was, but I loved every minute of it. Pregnancy was one of the happiest times in my life, and while I gained more than the average, the Lord helped me lose all of it within a year. This was with postpartum thyroid disease and a doctor who told me that the odds of losing all the weight (for a woman my age) were slim. Would I love to lose another ten? Sure, who wouldn’t. But I’m not going to obsesses over it. I’m not going to complain about my body. I’m going to appreciate its real beauty by watching God do so many beautiful things through it.

Thank you, Star. Glory to God, my ultimate healer. Taste and see that He is good!