The day had finally come.
My pants stopped fitting.
“This cannot be happening,” I whispered, a familiar panic creeping up the back of my neck and banding around my throat. Quickly, I struggled to close the button on the front of my jeans, pulling and bending until, finally, it pushed into place.
I stood up and looked down at myself. And I think I actually said, out loud, “You are such a fat kid.”
The thoughts after that gathered like dark clouds over the horizon of what was meant to be a gorgeous, meaningful morning of ministry.
You are so gross.
Why’d you eat that pastry yesterday?
You’ll never be able to model.
You know you are most people’s “before” picture, right?
I’ve struggled with body image my entire life. At sixteen, I developed an eating disorder, and spent years afterwards trying to undo the physical and emotional damage it caused my body. Even recently, friends or strangers would kindly compliment me, and I’d catch myself laughing it off, apologising for inadequacies they didn’t see, let alone care about.
My impossible standard of beauty has kept me from wearing shorts, two-piece bathing suits, tank tops – even certain types of shoes and necklaces. Our team had the opportunity to go swimming last week, and I stood on the beach for five minutes debating with my teammates about not getting in without jeans on – all because I was worried what they would think of my legs and stomach.
But yesterday, I stood at the edge of the coast in Greece with two squad-mates, and this time felt that the invitation to swim was a divine one.
Stripping off my layers, I waded out into the water, the sun finally hitting parts of my body that it hadn’t in almost seven years. The waves begin rolling in, first over my ankles, then over my hips, and finally up to my chest. I stretched my arms out and let the current lift me onto the tips of my toes, moving me back and forth like a slow embrace.
“You are beautiful. You are strong. I made you. I am teaching you to be brave. Let me tell you who you are, Kayla.”
The times that I have been the most discontent with myself in any form were the times when I didn’t give Jesus a say in the matter. When I give Victoria’s Secret models, Instagram celebrities, fitness junkies and fashion bloggers greater permission to tell me who I am and what I’m not, I miss out on hearing the passionate, affirming truth that my God is constantly speaking over me: that I am beautiful, and I am enough.
I know that my body is getting stronger. I know this because I got on the floor this morning while waiting for the kettle to boil and pumped out twelve pushups without breaking a sweat. My record pre-Race? Two. My arms have carried sick children to safety, moved truckloads of hay bales across a farm, lifted my 40-pound pack on and off my shoulders hundreds of times and silently held my squad-mates in the dark when the November evenings are cold and we don’t have enough layers. My legs have run to aid of people in danger and my stomach has laughed while full of traditional European food in the company of friends.
Yes, it’s true that I have gained weight since being on the Race. Please don’t feel the need to go back and compare pictures of me from the last two months. When you live on anywhere from $1.50 to $5 a day, the decisions about what and when you eat become very much a means of survival and much less a means of preference. The five outfits I packed have been worn and re-worn so many times that they now carry a distinctive, musty backpack smell, and laundry is done with dish soap in a hand sink. Almost everything is stretched, stained, or torn in places.
Most days, for convenience sake, I hide my hair underneath a hat, to the point that teammates come up behind me and knock it off just to make sure I actually still HAVE hair.
There are acid burns on my legs from trying to fight a nasty skin virus I somehow managed to pick up, and as a result I haven’t been able to shave in almost two months.
There hasn’t been a day since I launched on September 6th that I have looked in the mirror and felt pretty. But God is teaching me that feeling pretty is not necessary in order to serve His people.
To any girl feeling ugly on the World Race, I want to tell you one thing: you were fearfully and wonderfully made. When you can’t shower for two weeks, you are beautiful. When your clothes get torn from ministry work, you are beautiful. When the closest thing you get to a mirror is a car window, you are beautiful. When your pants no longer fit, you are still beautiful.
And not only is feeling pretty unimportant in terms of Kingdom work, but the same God that created the Aurora Borealis and Mount Everest has called me beautiful. He has called you beautiful.
Who are we to call ourselves anything but?
“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.” Song of Solomon 4:7.
