Okay. Everything has got to change. Starting this very moment, I've got to turn my weight around, and make the scale go in the other direction.
This is loooong overdue. For the last year and five months I've been "letting myself go". That sounds horrible, but I can't think of another way to describe it. I haven't done it on purpose [on the contrary - I've been trying REALLY hard to get fit], but still, in some ways, however unconscious, I think my actions have been intentional.
I bought the lie. I believed it wholeheartedly, and it deeply affected me.
It's in the magazines. It's on TV. It's online and in movies - all over.
Skinny, beautiful people are better than than their thicker, plumper friends.
Gah.
It makes me sick to write it down, to put it out there. I know it's not true. But there's a difference between knowing and knowing.
I've been struggling, wrestling with this for a while now. But I didn't know how dark it truly was. I couldn't fathom the extent of the damage believing had done to my psyche. And then, the other day, while my husband and I were having a moment, I just began to sob. And it hit me. Hard. Deep down in my marrow, I realized, I didn't feel like I deserved his affection. I didn't understand it - why . . . how he could be attracted to me. I didn't believe it. What I believed . . . was a lie.
I couldn't convey what I felt. I couldn't explain it to him. I sobbed silently. We both accepted the awkwardness of the moment. This was not the first time I'd broken down at an inconvenient time.
But, it was the first time I knew why.
I feel that gaining this weight is a part of my story. Although I hate it, I'm grateful for what it is teaching me. I think I've known that I was believing a lie. That lie got me thin the first time. But it also got me fat. That, and my deeply-embedded insecurities [ie: more lies] - the ones that say that I'm nothing, that I'm a mess, that I don't deserve good things] - they are keeping me from becoming a physically healthy individual.
That's over. Those lies, they will not define me anymore. I will become free from their burdens - through prayer and other spiritual disciplines. I pray to honor each day as the gift that it is. I pray to honor my body, my temple.
It's time to begin the rest of life.
I weigh 180 lbs. Holy crap. I can't believe I just confessed that! I've lost my mind.
Those pounds are too much for my 5'3.5" frame. I get tired a lot more easily now. I don't have much energy. Exercise used to excite me - pump me up. Now, it mildly scares me. I know I can get back into shape. For a while now, I've felt I lacked the motivation. I'm not going to let that stop me anymore.
I'm learning how to not procrastinate. I'm learning that sometimes, it's necessary to do the work - regardless of how I *feel*.
I've got some new goals in mind - and I'm excited about seeing them to fruition and beyond:
- I want to wholeheartedly accept the truth that I am a child of God. That my weight means nothing to God as far as my worth is concerned.
- I want to guard against gluttony and vanity.
- I want to prayerfully learn self-discipline.
- The journey has begun - I'm on it - even if I mess up - I'm still ambling toward my Creator. I'd like to delve deeper into the implications of this truth. With weighty issues, I often feel that I'm starting over every other day. I'm not. Even if I gain 100 lbs, I'm still on this journey.
- I am beautiful. My voice, my passions, my gifts - God can use them just as much when I'm 180lbs as when I'm 135 lbs. I have been given a purpose and it works on a sliding scale.
- My daughter - she watches me. She's learning the truths and the lies that I hold dear. I will prayerfully try to practice the truths that God is teaching me - so that she may learn them, too. So that she might not have to stumble in the ways I have stumbled.
Dear God . . .
Help me. Guide me. These lies I've believed [or, believe right now] - they are so destructive. What is Your truth, God? I want to hear Your truth.
Haha! I think God is telling me I already know it . . . and that I need to go write my papers. :)
