After I wrote Anorexia, Racism, and Defining Beauty, a number of moms e-mailed me, asking for more details about my struggle with anorexia. This is the letter I wrote in response. It’s long, and there are a lot of details, and I didn’t edit it, except to remove any identifying details and add in some subheadings. Publishing un-edited work is scarier than almost anything else for me. But this way you get the feel of my original letter, straight from my heart to yours. ~Elizabeth
Elizabeth’s
Sometimes Missionaries Get Sick
Sickness in a third world country can be scary. Last September I watched my husband battle a 103 degree fever and a pain level of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 (meaning the worst pain he had ever experienced). He was sick for about two weeks, and I was scared. I remember just standing there in the room, staring at him, with no thoughts whatsoever. I hated watching his temperature rise and his pain increase to unbearable levels, regardless of the medicine I had given him. I felt so helpless.
These are the (Mon)days of Our Lives
This is the sight that greeted my husband at the end of this Monday. He did not appreciate his daughter’s blossoming practical joke skills.
My daughter is a slow hand-washer. She does not want help and likes to do it all by her lonesome three-year old self. She, like Peter, not only washes her hands, but her face, and legs, and back, and tummy, and feet, and hair, as well. Her thoroughness consumes about 20 minutes a pop. She leaves the bathroom dripping wet, and has a tendency to slip or cause others to slip with her excess water. We are trying to teach her not to do this.
I’m a Proverbs 31 Failure
“A wife of noble character, who can find?”
Recently, as my husband read aloud from Proverbs 31 over the breakfast table, I wondered if maybe that was a rhetorical question. As in, “can anyone find this woman?” She has an extensive list of accomplishments and abilities. She seems to be able to “do it all,” with skill (check out all the details here). Am I really supposed to be like her?
I’m a what?!
by Elizabeth
I’m an introvert. I’m also a missionary. According to a recently-popularized definition, an introvert is someone who is drained by being with other people, and who is energized by being alone. But missions is a rather people-intensive lifestyle, right? Is it possible for an introvert to be a missionary? For me, the short answer to this question is “yes,” introverts can be missionaries. But the story of how I arrived at this answer is not so short. . .
Jonathan & Elizabeth Trotter 