The point of this book is to help others. To share on a subject that is so important for us to be educated about. Eating disorders can be difficult to understand, often even more so in Christian communities.
For whatever the complicated reasons were as to why Nikki turned along the path towards Bulimia, what may have helped shorten her suffering was acceptance and love from others, even if understanding was too difficult. So this book gives us all the chance to learn and be better equipped if and when we come across it. Too often she was met with little or no understanding and support from those around her, including professionals, probably not because they didn’t care, but because they didn’t know how to care. They didn’t know how to deal with this type of mental illness.
Nikki is exceptionally brave to write so honestly and openly, to expose her innermost thoughts and motivations to the reader. I hope it was a cathartic process for her. I also hope she gets much encouragement from knowing that her writing this story will help others, those directly suffering and those wanting to understand more so as to support sufferers.
This memoir is soaked in integrity and openness. It is a window into a world that we need to try to understand, to know of the traumas and triggers that cause the brain to react this way.
It is a great testimony that Nikki carried her faith through the experience. Her faith matured and she held it close, finding that it was in fact a place for love, healing, reconciliation and forgiveness. It really shows how God wants all His children to be the people He intended them to be, to fulfil their potential.
As you read the accounts of the thoughts and actions of a sufferer of an eating disorder, you realise what a terrifying journey it is. Much of it is not an easy read, hearing first-hand about its tortuous effects.
Faith and truth set her free, miraculously. She offers insights into eating disorders as well as into the Christian faith, and how healing can be claimed. It was not an easy or instant journey. It required persistence from a faithful God. His promises are true even if it is hard for us to accept them, and even if it takes time for us to see them reign in our lives.
We are given a clear view of God’s expectation for healing, maybe compared to ours. His is only happy with one hundred percent complete healing. He is only satisfied by a level of healing that surpasses our own understanding or that we could ever expect. His love for us is so deep, so wide, so long that it surpasses the three dimensions that limit out understanding. He will persist and persist and persist. He has to. He knows no other way. That is how big His love is. He is a God who wants to restore. The words of Psalm 40 kept coming to me when I was reading:
“I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.”
The final section of the book has a series of reflections offering wisdom gained from experience. A helpful section for anyone who is supporting someone with an eating disorder.
Nikki is an eloquent, honest and brave lady. The only response to reading her memoir is to say well done and thank you for sharing. She is also a talented writer and story-teller, and I look forward to reading other books and poems that I hope she will write and publish.
And The Truth Shall Set You Free, by Nikki Nhyira, is available here.
I received a complimentary advance copy of this book from the author, but was under no pressure to provide a favourable review.
