BODY IMAGE

     Oh the body issue.  I have to be honest I really didn't want to write on this one.  I have been saying, "maybe later Lord" for a few weeks.  So instead I will jump right in.

11 years old- Sixth Grade

     I have struggled over having a right perspective about my body since I was 11 years old.  I hadn't given a single thought to what my body looked like until the day I was molested.  I was told by the man that molested me for an entire day, "You need to be careful you are so beautiful people will want to hurt you."  I came away from the experience not understanding why Jesus didn't save me and had a deep seeded desire to never be beautiful. This happened a week before my sixth grade graduation.

Sixth Grade Graduation

     As I have chosen to live my life with God, He has graciously taken me through several times of healing over lies that were planted in the tender ground of my 11 year old heart.   He has pulled out weed after weed so that His word, His truth can grow in my heart and I can live a fruitful life today.  It wasn't until well into my adult years that God showed me the root of some of my wrong thinking about my body and beauty in general.  I believed in my teen years that beauty was value.  I didn't really get the whole gentle and quiet spirit being valuable to God and sooooooooooo much more important. More important than hoping my boobs would get bigger and that I would stay skinny forever.  I didn't stay skinny forever.  I was very thin until I got a license and found Starbucks!  I had now idea what good nutrition was and why I would eat in secret when I was upset.  I was upset much in my teen years.  On the outside I may have been apart of the "in crowd" and looked like I was happy. On the inside I felt worthless, unloved, not funny enough and never able to be myself.  I didn't actually know who "myself" was I just knew I wasn't comfortable in my own skin.  My senior year of high school I started to desire to really fallow Jesus for myself. 

Senior Year
Not just because my parents were Christians and I grew up in the church.  I started to see a difference in what I would hear Miles (my pastor at the time) teach on Sunday nights and how my friends and I would act every other day of the week.  I made a choice.  I didn't know what following God really looked like but I wanted to do it and I sat my two best friends down and said lets do this thing for real.  I lost one friend as a result and the other just got really busy the summer after graduation.  I was so lonely.  I began to eat over anything that brought discomfort.  I wanted to fallow God and began to but there was so much unrest in my heart and I would go to food to comfort myself.  I noticed I was gaining weight but so didn't know how to reverse it.  I would go to the gym and work out and then eat something horrible or curb my eating but not work out.  By the second year of my marriage (age 25) I had some good education under my belt on nutrition.   I would still struggle with sabotage myself.  I would work so hard at making good choices and then throw it all away.  One day while visiting my family in SD God spoke to my heart.  It hit me like a Mac Truck!  I was so fearful of every "being beautiful" that I wouldn't let myself succeed at being healthy.  If I eat healthy food and worked out the end result would always be a more attractive body.  I wanted a more attractive body to the point that it was an idol in my life but when I came down to it I also didn't want a more attractive body because I didn't want to be "beautiful because people would want to hurt me." 

     God has weeded that lie right out of my heart.  I know the truth now.  Now I am just a regular girl with the  self-control issues like any other!  Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.  I have the Spirit in me and all the self-control I could desire I just don't use it all the time.  I think functioning in the lack of self-control to make sure I never became beautiful became a major habit that I still fight to break to this day. 
     I press on and battle on.  God continues to show me areas that need to change in my thinking that effect my eating habits.  I recently received more healing in this area at small group.  I was walking in pride thinking I "should" be strong enough to have deserts around the house and not eat all of them in one sitting.  Over and over I found I am not strong enough to have that stuff around.  I didn't want to be desperate for Jesus in this area.  I wanted to figure out the root of the problem, chop it off and move on.  Often healing and growth don't go just how we want it to.  I studied much on what Paul the Apostle said about the thorn in his flesh.  How he asked God to take it and God said no my grace is sufficient for you.  From my studies I am pretty certain that Paul had a chronic physical ailment that he was asking for healing on. Though struggles with eating isn't a sickness, how stinken' chronic is the need to eat! Its an all day every day thing!  So that scripture is totally applicable.  I found in it the truth, that it is beautiful to be desperate for Jesus about any  life issue.  Desperation for Him is NEVER a bad thing!  I wrote a study on it. You can click on this link to read it. DESPERATE 
     I still struggle daily with this life issue but I have some good accountability set up and I am noticing that I struggle less and less! I am eating healthier than I ever have. I work out 2-3 days a week and the results are the Lords. I feel beautiful and comfortable in my skin just as it is. I would love to loose more weight and be tone and stronger but my focus is not so zoned in on the results. I am making better choices because I love Jesus. I am desperate for Him and so thankful that He is helping me.
     There is so much more that can be said on this topic. I hear there are girls out there that have never struggled in this area! I have yet to meat one. So if you do have a struggle in this area, let me encourage you to ask the Lord what is the root of if and be desperate for Him. He will help us over come and live healthy. 

Me Today! Pressing On!