I've always wanted to be beautiful. I can only remember feeling beautiful less than a handful of times in my entire life. I didn't feel beautiful on my wedding day - either of them, I didn't feel beautiful at prom. I felt beautiful after losing some weight in my thirties, until a guy that hit on me and said he liked "thick" women - thanks for calling me *fat*....
I know outward appearance isn't what should be important for any person - whether judging oneself or evaluating others, but the fact remains that we have it ingrained in us from birth, especially women. While it may not be right, most of us will forever struggle with the inner turmoil of balancing external aesthetics and internal beauty.
I have always loved the thought of working out; I even wrote a research paper when I was a freshman in high school about weight lifting. I was active in sports as a adolescent, but circumstances and situations and plain lack of motivation have hindered me from actually following through on being active and healthy as an adult.
In my thirties I attempted to take control of my life and health and started down this path - lost a lot of weight and was a work-out junkie but became derailed when I relocated with a job.
Two years ago, I began again. I've lost a great deal of weight - maxing at 82 lost. But for the last year I have plateaued and fluctuated with between that and +15. The plateau discouraged me so much that I stopped working out and stopped eating well and just gave up. Strife at home made the situation worse, and I began a self-destructive attitude for everything, whether it was eating, working out, relationships - taking care of myself in general. My mental focus changed. I became self-absorbed, and very depressed... Everyone else was at fault for everything going on and as a result my relationship with my darling children and my wonderful husband deteriorated. I slipped into even more destruction and finally my marriage crumbled and he left. Don't get me wrong - it isn't solely my fault or responsibility, but there are many mistakes I've made. I now realize that I've been seeking the wrong things in my life, thinking that I can *fix* everyone and everything myself and that is far from the truth. Only God can take care of my life and any other solution isn't a solution.
After my husband left I began to significantly struggle to make it through the day - a simple day took all my focus and exhausted me. If small changes diverted me from my planned schedule, I would become an emotional wreck. I had suicidal, seriously suicidal, tendencies. I would partially plan out an act. Fortunately, God's perfect grace kept me from doing anything so stupid. It isn't that I wanted to really leave my family, but just escape the pain. It is a pain I have never before experienced. My friends, though very encouraging, were telling me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and I just couldn't. I am a very strong woman and I couldn't do it. I felt like I was drowning - suspended in water, desparately needing to surface for a breath but I couldn't find my way up. I was motionless, helpless and dying.
Over the last week or so I've been forcing myself to do productive things: getting out with friends, projects around the house - small ones, and immersing myself in God's healing presence. Just a small drink of His living waters began a healing, miraculous healing that is still moving within me. (PRAISE GOD)
The last two days have been the most mentally and spiritually productive for me in a long time. So begins my new journey. I am pouring myself into God's Word, supplemental spiritual material and beginning a three-month workout program. I decided that I want my marriage to work and that God can heal me and He can heal my marriage and He can heal my relationship with my husband and my children: me with each of them, and them to each other. I can't do it but I can pray for them and create an environment where they can grow. So, though I want my marriage back, *I* will not do anything to save it. My make-over is to fix ME... I can feel God's beauty growing inside me. I am feeding my soul with the nutrients it needs to bloom; and I am going to cultivate my temple so that the physical foundation is strong and can sustain and endure the stresses that relationships and world put on me - all according to God's will. So when I say transforming beautiful - that is exactly what I'm doing. I am transforming my definition of beauty and seeking the beauty God has inside me and feeding it so that it can burst outward like a blooming flower, whose fragrant scent and colorful petals we all find so alluring...
You see - all my previous attempts at my outward appearance have been selfish and superficial. I now want to be beautiful as a Godly woman, and I want to be beautiful to my husband; and I want to be an example of health to my children. God says our body is a temple, and though I believe much of that meaning is in reference to an external structure where inside God resides and fellowships with us, we should be careful and dilligent in building a strong physical structure to protect the internal sanctuary of God. If not maintained, the walls will deteriorate and crumble, eventually destroying the entire temple.
Here begins my new journey - to a greater walk with God and a stronger temple for his presence.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment