This pandemic chaos has given me time to slow down and be still. I’ve known I’ve wanted more… more ways to share my story, more ways to speak into people lives, but I didn’t know where to start. With lots of prayer, this is where I'm starting.
I was bulimic in my middle school years, I told nobody. It wasn’t until Jonathan and I got engaged before that was let into the light. Still carrying those tendencies into early high school I starved myself while driving myself into the ground with sports, I had no energy, I fought depression. Thinking I had left those toxic habits behind I moved to and became consumed with exercise and counting my calories. I used diet pills. I visited the scale every day.
Looking for love in the wrong places, I showed off my body on social media, but cried over the “ugly” places on my body I didn’t know how to fix and I photoshopped almost every single one of my pictures to “fit the look”. Depression followed me, I never felt like I measured up, I felt like my worth was defined by my looks and affirmation.
AS AN ADULT, I continue to battle with COMPARISON. Even comparing my 162 pound married me, to my 130-140 pound me in high school. It’s never been enough. BUT for whoever needs to hear it, YOU ARE ENOUGH AS YOU ARE.
You are not defined by your looks, only by your creator. Who the heck ever decided abs and a flat tummy (with curves but oh, no fat or cellulite!) were the only standard of beauty anyways? That’s not what you were created to be consumed by.
You don’t need to photoshop that picture to pull your stomach in and make your butt look bigger. You don’t need to suck in till you can’t breath and make your friend take 100 more picture till you get the “perfect one”. You don’t need to be the most toned, have the smallest waist and get that little bit of fat between your thighs to stop touching. YOU ARE BEAUTIFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE, just the way you are.
Take care of your body! By golly if you’ve got a flat belly and abs and you love working out, all the power to ya girl! But to all you gals, the world is deceptive, please let this be a wake up call… you were made for so much more.
- LL
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