My daughter,
I see you, holding too tightly to lies that flood your heart.
“You have gained too much weight.”
“The beauty that counts is on the outside”
“Undesirable, unwanted, weak.”
My daughter, I hear you. I hear the fear as it consumes you, as the lies bring back habits and obsessions I freed you from years ago.
My daughter, do not listen. Do not fall into defeat.
My daughter, I made you, so perfectly and beautifully. I knit you together, so strongly. I built you, a temple.
My daughter, I want to break the identity you’ve been seeking. I do not call you how the world calls you, I call you higher. I call you overcome by perfect love, consumed by wild, holy freedom. I call you to recklessly share that in this world. Fearless daughter, I do not call you into defeat, I call you more than a conqueror.
I call you higher.
-your Heavenly Father
Coming onto the race, I did not expect my biggest most longstanding challenge to be body image. What I believed was broken quickly consumed me as scrutiny and self disgust took over with each meal or missed work out. It left me laying on the ground overcome by lies and fear. It stole my joy and consumed each thought as I compared myself to everyone, my old self, as I analyzed each part of me that wasn’t attractive and felt so guilty that I possessed these things. My first months of the race felt like a tug of war game between victory and defeat as the enemy’s lies and the sweet, patient truth of the Lord went to war in my heart.
For most of my life, so much of my identity has been found in my body. It was an identity I could control, one I could alter to be more desirable.
I did not see my body as a temple created by my King as much as a painting that needed endless alterations in order to please the world.
I did not realize my desperation and need to control this identity until the race, when that control was lost.
There is a part in the book The Shack the where the Holy Spirit is working on the garden of our hearts. Weeds are being uprooted and flowers are being planted. As this process is taking place the Holy Spirit says something that the Lord has relentlessly been reminding me of. It says, “together, you and I, we have been working with a purpose in your heart and it is wild and it is beautiful and it is perfectly in progress. To you it may seem like a mess but I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and it is alive.”
A few weeks ago, I sat down with my squad leader and she spoke words over me that brought life to the perfect pattern.
“I believe you are free from this.”
Free.
Free from the lies, the self doubt, the scrutiny. Free from the control, the heartache, free from the identity.
Free.
What I saw as a mess of me, the lord saw as an open door. One that led to the uprooting of years of weeds and the planting of the wild, perfect purpose of stripping me of this world and clothing me in his love.
This process is not finished, and like this blog, the process is messy. Every day is an act or surrendering what the world tells me for what the lord tells me and then actively choosing to believe it.
It is hard, it is shaking me, it is growing me.
When I began this blog, I titled it “The Weight of the race.” By the end, it became “The Beauty of the race.”
So to the girls and women out there who may encounter a similar struggle,
Cross out weight. Out of your mind, your story, your heart. Let the lord write beauty.
Start actively declaring that your body is a holy and living sacrifice, one of worship for our perfect creator and his perfect creations.
Let him show you the roots and dig them out. It may be painful and a little bit messy but trust the process, what will replace those roots is far more beautiful.
“Therefore I urge you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
Romans 12:1-2
If you are facing some of the same struggles voiced in this blog, please reach out to me. I would love nothing more than to talk to and pray alongside you! My email is [email protected] or you can message me over Instagram or Facebook!
