Body Image

I remember being 6 years old in my dance class. My mom walked out of the parent waiting area and offered me some of her Sprite. Two sips in I heard the teacher say from the front of the room, "That's enough. She doesn't need any more sweets." The other girls snickered. 

I remember being 8 years old and dreading my parents' friends coming over. Their youngest child was my age and wasn't the nicest kid. One day, out of nowhere, she poked me in the stomach and said, "Boy, I'm glad I'm not chubby." 

At 12, the two boys who bullied me, cornered me in the school hallway, got right up in my face and sneered, "Why are you so ugly?" 

At 14 years old, my best guy friend told me that he would be interested in dating me if my legs were a little leaner and more defined. 

At 16, I decided not to eat doing school hours so I could look like the girls in my Seventeen magazines.

At 22 years old, I worked at summer camp (the fittest I had ever been) and still I wore shorts and a t-shirt over my bathing suit so no one could see my "fat rolls." 

Fast forward to 31 years old, and I'm fighting anxiety, depression, insomnia, and probably worst of all, I'm down to only eating liquids because everything seems to make me sick. I couldn't understand what was wrong with my body. Why couldn't it just work the way it was supposed to? 

I went to an inner healing session at my church at the time. There, through two lovely ladies, the Lord reminded me of my future. He reminded me of all the words spoken about me before I was even born. 

I took a heart-healing class and through the teacher, the Lord reminded me of all the cruel words spoken over me. Then I learned how to start letting those words go. 

A mentor taught me how to bless my body; how to stop speaking cruel words to myself and to change the dialogue I had with myself. 

In the tub one night, I started to recite the Lord's scripture over myself. I literally thanked my body, part by part, out loud, for carrying me through life. I started to reminisce about all my body had done for me since I was born and started to dream of all I would still do. Then I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. It was just a passing thing, but it was so different from the depression I had been sitting in for so long that it was glaringly obvious what it was--joy.  Over the next days and weeks, that feeling of joy kept increasing. 

Proverbs 14:30: 

A heart at peace gives life to the body

Ephesians 5: 29:

After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body

These were some of the verses the Lord reminded me of as the weeks went on. I didn't know I didn't like my body. Subconsciously I had tried to make my body what I thought it should be. I had starved it of good things and punished it with bad diets and too much physical exertion and hidden it under big clothes. Years of this self-loathing had finally caught up with me. 

So when I stopped and thanked my body that day for carrying me all these years it felt like a single ray of light breaking through dark clouds. The more I spoke good things over myself and the more I reminded my body of what the Bible said about it, the more joyful I became. My mind was changing its thoughts about how I looked, and my body was responding in a positive way. 

1Peter 2:9 

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1Corinthians 6:19

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.