CW // body image; chronic illness
TW // self-harm
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I encountered a new dimension of chronic illness, and for a girl who only minimally wrestled with it before, it’s been enlightening in a painful way. What made it more curious were the three girls that came to me about this exact topic shortly after my struggle began.
Body image is worth a conversation.
My fervent hope and prayer is that somehow these words encourage your heart, reveal lies, and speak truth to your hurting soul. A tidbit that points you in the direction of healing, back to your Maker, redefining beauty, and beginning a restoration process more profound than you or I can imagine.
For some, this is a lifetime battle; for others, only a season. It may have traumatic beginnings or have appeared in gradual bad habits. Perhaps it is minor. Perhaps not. Maybe it is rooted in a lie of unworthiness or maybe a lie of comparison.
Regardless of how you and your body are relating today, may you find assurance that your body is “very good.”
My sister’s career focus is getting people moving well again. When the world shut down, she exercised her tremendous will on my family in an effort to move us all toward better health. An all-encompassing more activity, less chips, more movement, less salt kind of step.
I was very resistant – it felt like I was being shamed; my weight was called into question; I felt blamed for not controlling the uncontrollable. In a subsequent conversation fraught with raw emotion, I made the tearful comment, “It doesn’t matter! No matter what number the scale says, my body is never going to be pretty.”
I find little to celebrate about my body…it does not matter where I look, my body has failed. Inside and out. Top to bottom. There is not a piece of me that hasn’t failed. My brain has forgotten how to walk. My antecubital is scarred from blood tests and IVs. My wrists bear the marks of dermatology diagnostic tests. My hands bear the scars of IV infusions. My insides are missing organs and housing dead ones. My abdomen has six scars bearing witness. My thighs are swollen, covered in stretch marks, and my feet are pock-marked from rare viral responses.
There is not a point in trying to manage my weight….it doesn’t matter if I don’t have stretch marks, if my body fat percentage is perfect, if the scale reads the number my doctors want me at…there are still bruises, still remnants of adhesive allergic reactions. There are still poke holes and tape residue and scars.
There are always scars.
My body is marred. It will always be damaged.
I am marked. Permanently and forever.
There is no escaping.
That is my body image lie. Rooted in a false sense of identity. Believing my marks define me, choosing to see the hopelessness and the defeat. Believing I must escape my reality.
Hiding is easy. At some point, we all hide. The anxiety, the eating disorder, the stress, the fear of clothes shopping, the disappointment when the dress doesn’t fit. We omit the double mastectomy, the brain surgery, the marks of self-harm, the betrayals, the loss.
We mask the pain, the exhaustion, the overwhelming fears of unworthiness and ugliness. We ignore how we feel, acting happy here, sympathetic now, and celebrating wildly for these two hours.
There is no hiding from ourselves, though. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. I am still scarred and marked and hurting and exhausted and wishing I didn’t have to do this. You are still anxious, being swallowed by the comparison, longing to sleep, tired of feeling inadequate, and wishing you didn’t have to do this.
At the end of the day, we look in the mirror and all we see are the scars, the fat, the stretch marks, the ugly thoughts, and the vision of what we think we *should* be.
Most days are okay. Some days, though, it just crashes down on you like a ton of bricks. Hiding is no longer an option. You fall on your knees, crumpling under the lonely weight, holding your hands out, offering nothing but broken ugliness, sobbing because there is nothing. You are nothing and have nothing.
It feels like you are no more than the broken body you are. Those are the hardest moments. Looking up from pretending and realizing you don’t know who you are. Those are the hardest moments, looking in the mirror and seeing nothing. Nothing but a failing body, a broken body, an imperfect body, a body you wish wasn’t yours.
Now hear me.
Find someone who listens. Who sees. Who is not afraid to speak the needed, necessary, and hard truth to you in those moments. Seek out the person, the people, who kneel on the ground with you, around you, hold your hand in theirs, and remind you.
My person is my mama. I sat in the sunshine with her as I tried to sort through this mess, watching the cotton, the herd, and the cat. We cried. My body image views are perpetrated by my medical journey. She acknowledged she has no idea what I bear and experience daily. She doesn’t know how to help me change my thoughts and views about my body.
But she knew where to start, and Who to go to.
Hiccupping a sob, she looked at me. “You will always be more of a target. You know that, right?” My scars allow Jesus to be exemplified in my life so much more. He was pierced for each one of us and died with scars that we might have life. He wrote the parallels to His story in mine…I faced death, was surgically pierced, and bear the scars that gave me life. He is not done with me yet.
My story, written in and with His blood, is not finished.
So she reminded me who. Who He is and who I am. He is the author of my story, and He chose this one for me. He trusted me to bear witness to His might, and He trusts me to carry a greater resemblance of His own story and all that comes with that.
I bear His image, and I have the scars to prove it.
You are an image bearer. Crafted in His eyes with His perfect vision. Every version of you. Do you understand the depth of love that accompanies that?!
The lace-like patterns inside your stretch marks that brought a baby into this world. He deemed those so.
The scars from self-harm that He rescued you from – those tell a grand story of restoration and redemption.
Those extra pounds may be scars from a season of loss or hardship, and He brought you through that, too.
You are His.
No matter how you look.
Then my mama made another comment…one about my body being a temple. His temple. And I mourned…how can my body be a temple to Jesus if it is so marred by the world? It is broken and disfigured and unlovely.
It occurred to me in that moment….so was Jesus’s body. He was tortured and abused and scarred and bore the spit and anger of a hurting, broken, desolate world. His body was defiled by the world, and He was still found redeemed and precious, priceless and pure in the sight of His Father.
My thought process has been one born of lies and lived out in blindness. A thought process implanted by the enemy and curated by the lowlifes at his will. I have fallen for every single line of it.
I am no longer content with being complacent.
I do not give my enemy permission to spew lies about my body. This is not his body. I am not his design. He has no say in how I think and what I believe.
I am slowly accepting that chronic illness has negatively affected how I look at my body, at my reflection in the mirror. I am slowly understanding the holistic impact of poor body theology. While I fight hard to make sure no one sees my disease, that is all I see.
I am committed to believing and living better, though. I deeply desire a God-honoring theology of body. I am determined to learn how to celebrate my body – the days I go without a nap, the nights I sleep all the way through, the days where I wear normal underthings, traveling and not needing a week to recover, making supper, going for a walk.
I will celebrate what I can do today while taking steps towards more at the same time. I am determined to see my body, my scars and marks, through my Maker’s eyes. His are the ones that count.
I’ve spent decades caring about my weight and body because health now means better quality of life later. It makes healthy pregnancy and healthy babies a more realistic probability. It makes controlling cholesterol easier. It keeps the nerves in my hands and feet healthy, allowing me to feel the world around me and keep those appendages. It allows my body to fight infection better and heal faster. A healthy body now enriches my present and my future, letting me live more fully. It means my pouch will last longer. My diabetes will continue to respond to insulin.
None of those matter in a Biblical theology of body, though.
He matters. He is why I am still here, still breathing, still writing, still living. He designed this body…He weeps over every new mark and scar with me, blessing it to give me life as His scars and marks have given each of us life. Viewing my body as His canvas is holy. My body is meant for more – more grace, more miracles, more scars and bruises and allergic reactions, more stories, more Jesus displaying His power in my life and in this world.
You are more than what you see in the mirror. Completely and entirely more. You are not the lies. You are not the enemy.
Your body is not the enemy.
My prayer for you is one of courage and unfathomable bravery to face the lies. To turn to the demons stirring these things in you and say, “NO.” To reach for your Maker and cry for help.
May your stillness and brokenness be blessed by the Lord who sees all. May you find those who relentlessly remind you Who’s you are. May you allow Him to heal your heart. May the reflection in your mirror become more.
More beautiful.
More graceful.
More truthful.
More holy.
More comfortable.
More touched by the hand of God.
Dear one, you are more than they say you are. Worth more, desired more, loved more.
You are free to be more, laugh more, celebrate more.
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