How to love the body you have today

How can we love the bodies we have now?

How do we move from being obsessed with our appearance and everything we think is out of place or needs to be different, to embracing our bodies as they are now?

Is there a connection between loving our bodies and creating lasting, transformative change we long to see?

Storytime:

I want to take you back in time with me. To a time when I loved exercising.

I had just delivered our second baby, a little boy. I would carry him and my little four year old and we’d head on down to our apartments fitness center.

I would set up his little jumper and they’d sit and watch Mama work out. I loved it. It became a way that I decompressed but also began to take so much from my body.

Back then I didn’t have much of an understanding on nutrition.

I didn’t understand that nourishing my body especially after a new baby and while nursing were vital for sustaining health.

I wanted to be fit, small. I wanted to loose all the baby weight. I did loose the weight and so much more.

I eventually had to stop because the caloric demand was too high.

I wasn’t eating enough to nourish my body and to care for my small child.

After some time I began to experience what I can only describe as food sensitivities. In an effort to discover what was wrong with my body, I began a process of elimination. Food elimination.

Even though I had reached out to my Dr. she wasn’t much help. What she figured is that it wasn’t uncommon for someone to just develop sensitives over night.

I was on my own.

What began as a quest, a journey into health very quickly morphed into an eating disorder.

Before I knew it, over the course of a year or two I had done much damage to my body, not just physically but also mentally.

I loved the compliments, “You look so great!, Wow, what are you doing you’ve lost so much weight.”

Week after week the women would notice the changes that were happening in my body, they would comment, compliment, oooh and ahh.

Only serving to feed an alter that I had created. One where I was in control and I marveled over their compliments.

Very quickly those compliments turned into looks of concern. I had one kind woman approach me, she asked, “Is everything okay? Honey, you’ve lost so much weight”

What she didn’t know was that, that very week The Lord had revealed to me, in His kindness and mercy, I had a problem.

It came through my husband.

He worked out of town and only came home on the weekends, on one of these weekends he confronted me about my appearance.

Concerned he asked me I was okay, he wondered if I was eating enough.

Through tears I can remember telling him, “I am eating, just not a lot, it hurts to eat, it’s like my stomach has shrunk.”

“Well just eat more.” He said.

At this point the eating disorder had turned into hypoglycemia. Denying my body of nourishment it needed triggered this autoimmune response.

I felt afraid. I knew I couldn’t change it. God would help me I thought, but how?

That Sunday my husband and I went to church. Our Pastor had just celebrated going into remission.

He expressed his deepest gratitude to the body of Christ, thanked us for our prayers and love towards him.

He then did something I had never seen done before. He said, “I have been the recipient of so many of your prayers and I would like to do the same for you”

He began to call out different sicknesses by name, as he did, through sobs, and much fear, I arose from my seat.

I felt fear because I would have to admit that I was truly sick, that I couldn’t undo what I had done. I also felt fear because now people would know I was battling this in silence.

As violent sobs shook my body I received our pastors beautiful prayer of healing.

Father God healed my body from hypoglycemia at that church service!

Would you believe me if I told you it took about a week for me to realize I had been healed?

Its the truth!

The blood sugar drops had gotten so bad I had to eat every 1- 1 1/2 hours to not experience horrible symptoms.

Mainly dizziness and horrible irritation. I am not quite sure how I didn’t realize I didn’t have to eat all the time just to stay alive, but I didn’t.

When I finally realized what had happened I poured out praise.

The God who sees

Caring for my two young children during this season was extremely difficult. I still look back and marvel out how God gently led us by the hand.

I had gotten myself into a horrible situation. Something that started so innocently. Wanting to get healthy, turned into a real life nightmare.

Learning how to think:

I often hear women tear down their bodies. Complain about extra fat and cellulite.

Here is what I have observed, the more we fixate on what we want to change, the less we are able to change it with our peace, sanity and joy in tact.

I believe the reason is because we take our eyes off of Our Creator and place them onto ourselves.

We think that if we just tear ourselves down enough that somehow this will trigger something inside of us to work harder towards the goal.

Sister, nothing could be further from the truth.

What if instead of telling yourself everything that is wrong with your body, you chose to speak life over yourself.

You chose to thank your body for carrying you all of these years?

For me it looks something like this prayer below:

“Father, thank you for these strong arms that have held babies. Thank you for this belly that has now expanded five times to grow incredible human beings.
Father, thank you for these legs that hold me up Lord. They have treaded upon lions and serpents Father, I have trusted in you Lord and you’ve allowed these beautiful legs to carry me.
Father whatever extra fat is not meant to stay in my body I release it to you Lord, I ask that you would help my body to let go of the extra weight that no longer serves me.
I thank you for giving me this beautiful strong body, thank you for healing my back, thank you Lord.”

yessi argabright

Sister, can you see how different this is from a total onslaught of our bodies.

Our brains are incredible sister. They will believe what we tell them. If we focus on everything that is “wrong” with us, guess what will loop in your mind?

Every time we see ourselves in the mirror, what if we flipped the script and didn’t allow dimples, stretchmarks and cellulite to define our beauty.

What if you could look at love handles and pour out praise to The Holy One who adores us?

Sister, I am telling you, it is only then that lasting change can take place. It is only then that we can learn to embrace the season as it has come.

For me, every single one of my pregnancies I have been very small. My body disperses most of the fat and focuses on my growing belly.

Once my babies are born, no matter how hard I’ve tried, and have felt defeated and discouraged so many times, I have gained weight after the baby.

With the exception of the year when I developed hypoglycemia with my boy.

This isn’t because of a fault. It is through divine design. Some women’s bodies are able to easily let go of the extra weight.

Mine as almost a protective mechanism holds onto fat to help me nurse my babies, with much struggle and through supplementation as well.

I was well into my third pregnancy before I realized this pattern.

Once I observed this I was able to more easily gives praise and not beat myself up for not loosing the extra weight, which by the way would take about two years to come off.

How to love our bodies:

Start with gratitude, always!

Begin to thank God for the way He has created your body.

Ask Him what He thinks about the part of our body that bothers you the most.

Speak life!

Do not tear yourself down. This only harms you. Keeps you in loops of obsession.

I want us to stay anchored in the One who loves us most, just as we are!

As my body and back continue to heal I see more and more the strength that has been given to me.

This fills me with so much gratitude and joy. There is much work to be done on our homestead. Our flower gardens are gorgeous and massive.

Since moving here two years ago, I had mostly stayed indoors caring for little ones, tending to the inside of our home.

This year has been such a beautiful surprise.

Being able to see the garden explode into full blossoms and seeing how many more blooms would have come if we had cleared out the leaves of the last fall.

But alas, I am one woman trusting in the goodness of God.

What He continues to remind me of are these words, “There is beauty all around you, look up and see it.”

Yes, even as I find new little patches of poison ivy. He isn’t faced or bothered by these and I’m learning to not be either.

I am doing my best to train up my children. To teach them to value hard work and to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

I want you to see beauty right alongside me. Because in life, some seasons are truly painful, but even in the darkness beauty can grow.

If you are wanting to add more fun into your life, I created this list of questions I ask myself to help move me in the right direction. Enjoy!

Know I am cheering you on! Believing in you! Desiring that you would bring honor to this one body God has given you, as a Holy Temple unto The Lord.

Train hard yes, but speak life sister, only then will we experience lasting change!

I pray this weeks blog post was a blessing to you, as it was for me to write. To remember Gods mercy and faithfulness to me.

He continues to hold me by the hand. When I feel afraid I don’t have to hide, I can enter into His Presence and tell Him how I am truly feeling.

He will never turn us away. We are loved more than we know. I pray this love draws us ever closer.

If this weeks blog post has blessed you, would you please share it with your people.

I would love to hear from you! Leave me a comment below and always remember you can subscribe too, look for the confirm message in your email.

Many blessings and love In Christ.

Please enjoy this beautiful playlist. This ministered to my heart so much this week.