Does the Scale Matter??

I'm a bit late from last week... or early for this week.  I'll let you be the judge.  I've been thinking about what to write about and the same thing keeps popping up.  And it has nothing to do with parenting and yet it has everything to do with parenting.

My body image.  Yep, I just brought that up.  And yes, I struggle(d) with my body image.  I think that I should do my daughters a favor and love myself for I am.  I've been praying about this lately and listening to our pastor preach and the one thing that keeps coming back to me over and over is that God created me and gave me healthy, wonderful twin girls. Psalm 139:1 says "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well."  And the fact that I don't look like I used to shouldn't bother me, but it does.  Every time I look in the mirror, or at a fitness magazine or fashion on Pinterest, I wish I could look like I used to.  sigh  "But you have wonderful, beautiful girls.  Shouldn't that be enough?"  And maybe it should.  But it doesn't.  I want my husband to think I'm still hot and desirable.  And most of the time he does (except all winter when I'm in sweats!), but I (me, myself) want to feel sexy in lingerie.  Is that too much to ask?  And yes, I go to the gym and workout.  Heck, I'm in the best shape of my life.  I eat better than I ever have.  So why can't I like my body, naked and in front of the mirror????  Then I stepped off the scale… literally.  This was a daily habit for me.  Ritualistic, actually.  Get up, pee and step on the scale.  Good number or bad number?  Does it mean I can eat whatever or do I need to rope it in a bit today?  It was a horrible cycle to be in and I hated myself for it.

Then one day I stopped standing on that enemy.  I don't know why, but I did.  And about 2 weeks later, I didn't mind looking at myself in the mirror. My clothes still fit and I felt good about myself.  I started seeking God and His will for my life.  His revelations have been amazing.  I needed to find who I am in Christ.  Not who I am on the scale.  I need to seek His approval and His love, not my husbands!!!   Did you hear that?  Seek His (Christ) love and His (Christ) approval...Not my husbands.  My husbands approval will come when I am cemented in Christ!   And slowly and surely, I have learned to love my body.  I'm actually still a work in progress.  I still have moments of self doubt, but in order for me to be the best Christ wants me to be and to be the best wife and mother that I can be, I need to seek the Lord while He may be found.  That whole verse is this: Isaiah 55:6-7 "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon Him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."  I spend time with Him first thing in the morning.  It's what works for me.  But guess what I used to be doing first… yep, stepping on that stupid scale.  NO MORE!!  It's the most freeing feeling to be bound up in love for Christ.  Absolutely incredible!!  And on top of that, I haven't been to the gym regularly in about a month and I still like myself.  And I'm not beating myself up!  WOO HOO!!!  John 8:36 - "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!"

For the sake of my daughters, I am so relived that I don't live like this anymore (I did for about 2 years...a quiet, living hell!!).  I want my girls to love themselves for who they are in Christ and who they have been created to be.  Not to love themselves by what they look like.  How could I teach them that when I didn't even like myself?

I'm quite terrified to post this.  Honestly.  I don't want anyone to hate me.  Seriously.  My heart is pounding at the thought of laying myself so open for all to see… So, be kind.  Know that I'm just a mom who is on a journey, just like you.  Let's encourage one another and lift one another up.  1 Thessalonians 5:11 says "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing."

No More Bullies!!

There is an author whom I have just recently come to admire.  She's getting ready to publish a trilogy of books about bullying.  And I believe, if you are a woman or a girl, you have been the bully and you've been bullied.  We are all inherently mean girls!  Yep, me too!  I have a really mean side somedays and I have to ask the Lord over and over again to tame my mean girl inside…self control feels nearly impossible some days!  It's really frustrating and, if you're honest with yourself, I'm sure you can identify with me.

Here's a little background of what Nancy Rue has been writing about…
   "The Mean Girl Makeover trilogy came about as a result of my work with tween girls who, almost to a girl, have lamented that they have been bullied, that they’re witnessing bullying and they don’t know what to do about it, or (this may surprise you) they realize that they’ve joined in and become bullies themselves to avoid becoming targets. When I did some research, I discovered that:
·        One out of four kids ages 8 to 17 are bullied regularly
·        43% experience cyberbullying (Internet, cell phone, etc.)
·        Each day in the U.S. 160,000 students miss school for fear of being bullied
·       Every 7 minutes a child is bullied on a school playground. Adult intervention: 4%. Peer intervention: 11%. No intervention: 85%
   As I watched the age of girls featured in bully-related suicide news stories fall lower and lower, I felt the divine nudge to do something, and for me that something is “Write stories for them so they’ll know what to do.”

   When I approached Tommy Nelson (children’s division of Thomas Nelson Publishing), I was astonished to find out that nothing has been done for this age group in Christian publishing. Why on earth not? Jesus talks about bullying all THROUGH the Gospels, and he doesn’t just say, “Don’t do this.” He says, “Here’s how to step in, here’s now to stand up, here’s how to stop.” The result of our putting our heads together is the Mean Girl Makeover trilogy which tells one continuing story of a group of sixth graders, from the point of view of three different protagonists. The first book, SO Not Okay, is seen through the eyes of a bystander who learns how to step in. The second, You Can’t Sit Here, features the victim who learns how to stand up. The third – and the most unusual – Sorry I’m Not Sorry, is told by the bully herself who learns how to stop." *copied from an emial from Nancy Rue

I'm pretty excited to be a part of this as my girls have been the brunt of bullying in the past and I'm sure they have their moments of being mean girls themselves.  Heck, I hear it at home when we've been snowed in for one or more days!  LOL!!  They start to get a little mean toward each other.  I guess we're just wired that way and we need to go to scripture and see that we are created to be loving and kind to one another.  Let's see… 

*Proverbs 15:1-2 says "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.  The tongue of the wise commends knowledge but the mouths of fools pour out folly."  (Oh, how many times do we speak out of anger only to regret what we have said?)

*Ephesians 4:32 says "Be KIND to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."  (Forgiveness can be quite elusive some days, right?)

And for us as moms when we get ready to scream and yell at our kids either out of anger for because our hormones are all jacked up… 

*Proverbs 31:26 says "She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue."  OUCH!  This one hurts.  Sometimes I open my mouth and it's not very full of wisdom.   This ties in nicely with James 1:19 which says "Know this, my beloved brothers (or sisters) : let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger."  How often do we snap at our kids because they are calling us and we are "busy" doing something else (that is probably not all that important)?   After all, we have been given our children as a gift from God and they are, next to our husbands, our most important mission field!  We are to raise them to seek after God.  How can we do that if we are seeking after other things and not giving them the attention they need and deserve?

Ok, back to bullying… I digressed.  (No surprise there!)  So, we are still praying that we see some classmates through the eyes of Jesus, like I mentioned last week in my post.  I think this will be an ongoing learning curve, I'm sure.  But as it draws us closer to Jesus, the more like Him we will be and that's good stuff right there!!  I'll be posting more about Nancy's books in the weeks to come.  In the mean time, here's a glimpse of her first cover - "So NOT Okay"