Body Image

I should be blogging about our journey to Chicago. If I was a real blogger and good at blogging, that's what I'd be doing.

So far I just have one main thing to say about it thus far… it's been hard.

Moving, traveling, settling into someone else's house, three little kids and trying to sort out bedtimes and naps and just management … it might not be so hard if our kids weren't so small, or so many. Aria accounts for like 3 kids by herself. So really, we have been caring for more like 5 kids.

But God is faithful. He has given us mercies and they are new every morning.


No. I actually want to blog about … my favorite thing to write about: body image.

This seems to be something I deal with on a daily basis. It's something I just get to keep coming back to. I'm thinking, "Really? Didn't we already deal with this a while ago? Wasn't I freed from this or over this or something like that?" Well, yes and no. I'm in a much healthier place than I have been. I don't think dark thoughts all day that I hate my body (not ALL day) and I don't go days on end bingeing and then exercising like a crazy person to make up for all of it.

At the same time, I do struggle. I struggle with seeing my body as being good enough. I struggle with looking pretty enough. I struggle with what I would call "body envy" where you look at someone else and score them next to yourselves. I'm amazed at how quickly my brain just automatically calculates how I measure up against another woman. It's like everyone who would score "worse" than me, maybe she's pudgier or something, I have a tendency to like more or feel more comfortable around. But the ones who score "better" than me, I have a tendency to be uncomfortable around and think that I'm less valuable than they are. This. Is. Ridiculous.

The Lord would give me a super tiny friend who sees none of that, just so I can see through her eyes what she's really thinking when she sees me. Let's just say this: she's not "scoring" me based on how big or small I am. And maybe if some corner of her mind does score me, she doesn't let that affect what she thinks of me.

The weight of baby number three is not coming off too well for me this time. I worked hard and tried not to gain much during the pregnancy, but it seems like the pounds are not moving. I will say that I have struggled a lot with stress eating during this move. Many afternoons it was all I could do to keep myself packing boxes and not looking for the next thing to shove in my face.

I want to start waking up every morning and thanking God for my body.

That's what I want to do. I don't think it will solve all of my eating issues or secret thoughts about how I'm not pretty enough. But I do think it would start to shift my mind in a different direction about it.

I need to remember that my body is a good body. It does good things like rock my children when they are tired or need comfort. It allows me to kiss my husband and tell him he's awesome. My body allows me to clean the floors that my children and husband walk on. There are people in the world who would love to have a body like mine. It functions well. It even stores up extra fat for if there's ever a famine. It's a good body.

I want to start thinking differently about food. Let me enjoy it Lord. Levi asked me the other day why something was salty and the only thing I could think of was because God made it that way and isn't He good for giving us such an array of flavors? He gave us sweet and salty and spicy and all kinds of mixtures and flavors we've never even tasted because we don't live in that part of the world… and isn't God just good?

He is good. He created food for our good. I want to eat whole, real food, not because it's the latest craze, but because that's the way God made it. It's how He designed our bodies to filter it. He created us to feel good when we eat healthy things. If I eat too much junk then my body is more prone to illness and I just feel worse. Help me to remember these things as I sit down to eat a meal.

Lord, you are the author and perfecter of our faith. You are my strength in my weakness. You are the One who reminds me a shows me who I am. Help me to be thankful for this body You have given me. Thank You that it is a source of comfort for my family and even for others outside my family. Let me be a place of rest for those around me. Let me give life to others around me. Let me value people and not "score" them. Let me see them as You see them. Thank You for new eyes. Thank You for my body.

Post Pregnancy Body Image

Week two with three kids begins.


I feel like maybe I shouldn't be blogging because things are going so well. I usually only want to blog when things are falling apart and I want to process the whole situation.

Honestly, it's been far easier than I expected.

The nights are long, Simeon is only going to be three weeks on Thursday, so I gotta cut him some slack here.

A big cup of coffee and a nice hot shower help in the morning.
Afternoon naps help too. Although, it's been more challenging with a four year old who is refusing to nap. He needs to nap, but he doesn't want to nap. It's frustrating. For both of us. We're working on it.

People bringing us meals helps too.

But I'm not going to blog about all of that tonight.

I'm going to blog about body image. Please don't look at me funny, I know I had a baby three weeks ago and you can totally roll your eyes at me. I'm going to place this under the fact that I struggled for so many years with my body image and weight and food. Those old thoughts are starting to rear their ugly heads.

So, none of my clothes really fit. My maternity pants ride down because I have the full panel ones and no longer have a ginormous belly to hold them in place. I have some old, out-of-style jeans that kind of fit, but I hate them. Then I have all my other pants that don't. Let's just say that the post pregnancy body is still in recovery.

The temptation is to look in the mirror every day and think angry thoughts.

I hate that feeling of needing to lose weight. I have felt that feeling with utter hopelessness so many times before. It's a place that reminds me of those chains I struggled with for so many years.

So I was sitting down one morning to meet with the Lord. (I have to wake up at 5:30 in order to shower and then have alone time sans children until 7, thankfully they haven't woken up before 7 in a while). I was asking Him just to speak to me about whatever I needed to hear about. In the middle of reading the Word I just had this thought, I wasn't even reading about this but I feel like He just spoke into my heart. "Are you thankful for your body? Did you know that I created your body perfectly?" I started to realize, yes, I am thankful for it. I have born three children, and even been able to nurse them all. I am strong and healthy. I can play on the floor with my kids. I can clean our bathrooms, wash the dishes, do the laundry. God has given me good work to do here on earth and He has blessed me with an able body. It doesn't matter if clothes don't fit quite right sometimes, what matters is that this body serves me and my family well.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I was knit together by the God of the universe and His works are good. If I despise this body that He has given me, I am despising His artwork, His creation.

Thank You Lord. Thank You for the good work You have given me to do. Good work of picking up the laundry off the floor, making the bed, dressing little ones and changing diapers. Thank You that I can move and bend over and breathe again. Let me not be distracted from the tasks that You have for me. Let me focus on my kids and not on myself. Let me treat this body You have given me with respect and not hatred. Your works are wonderful, and my soul knows it full well.

Boasting In My Weakness

Time to blog. Not much else is going on at the house and I'm thankful. Ben had surgery this morning and has been in and out of sleep ever since. I think we have talked a total of 10 minutes in the past 6 hours. I've been cleaning the kitchen, resting, bumming around on facebook and instagram... I thought, I just need to blog for a minute.

I always set up my blogs like that don't I?

I just posted a bunch of pictures my friend Debbie took of me and my kids on facebook. They are absolutely beautiful. She is so talented and I'm thankful for her friendship.

I was just looking through them with happy thoughts, sort of just clicking along, when suddenly I came to the end and wound up at the beginning of my facebook pictures. They were the pictures from when I first started FB like 8 years ago and I didn't have my own camera, so whatever pictures my friends took, those were the ones that were posted.

Let me explain, if this is your first time getting to know me. I was about 50 pounds heavier than I am now. I struggled a LOT with my weight throughout high school and college. You can read about it more in the series The Redemption of My Physical Body if you would like to know my story.

It was kind of like a slap in the face. I'm going along all happy and seeing these lovely pictures and then I see what I used to look like. Lord, help me with this, I don't want to insult Your creation. I also don't want to insult those years when I looked like that. I truly believe they were valuable and meaningful and I'm truly glad I looked like that. It's just a bit of a shock, to see the difference.

I've been thinking about the scripture that says, 'And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.' 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 This whole area of food and body image and self-control have been weaknesses in my life. I am so weak in this area, I struggled for years to try to get a handle on it. Always, the harder I tried, the worse things got.

Finally, I came to the end of myself and had to surrender it to God, for good.

Can I just boast in the fact that I am weak in this area? Whenever I try to start taking control of things and manipulating and start concentrating on losing weight and taking my focus off the Lord and putting it on food, everything starts to crumble. I praise God that it doesn't take me long these days to surrender back to Him and put it under His authority again.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to boast in the fact that I did not go from who I was 5+ years ago, to what I look like now. I did NOT do it. It is not because I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and dug in my heels and determinately said, "I will do this!" It's because I gave it to the Lord and surrendered food and my emotions to Him. Day after day after day. I had accountability in that with my husband. So many times Ben has said, "Jody, you are not allowed to diet. You know that won't help you. Only the Lord can help you." in so many words. He's right.

Lord, You have done these things in my heart, in my life and the fruits of it are evident in what You have allowed in my body. Thank You for Your rich blessings. I DO NOT deserve them. I am thankful that You have had mercy on me.

Thank You.

Okay, as much as it's painful for me to see, I'm going to post this, only to say that this is what I used to look like.

And this is what the Lord has done. As I said, this is the fruit of obedience.

And this one, because it's one of my favorites.