On Body Shame and Living Loved

I stared down at the picture and a wave of shame washed over me. How pathetic. 

I had been scrolling through the camera roll on my iphone, looking at old photos of the girls when they were babies. Ya know, that thing where you can’t wait until it’s their bedtime, but then you miss them so you look at pictures of them on your phone? It was that. But as I innocently scrolled through my photos, I saw another old photo. It was a photo I had taken as my “before” picture for a workout regimen I started a few months after Cora (my second daughter) was born. It was a photo I would die if anyone else ever saw —  it was for my eyes only, I had taken it to track my progress.

The problem was that that “before” photo looked…. well, it looked pretty much exactly like what I look like today. Meaning, in the last two years I really haven’t made much progress.

Cue shame.

For all my eating well, working out, rounds of whole 30, and hard work… I still looked the same.

I started to simultaneously feel like I need to just “try harder” and yet also, “why try at all?”. Feelings of body shame and insecurity washed over me, threatening to consume me. I could choose to indulge them, sinking into self-loathing and pity, but I knew that I had to listen to truth.

I had to root myself in truth and love and in my true identity.

My identity is not a number on the scale. It is not my jean size. It is not in my reflection or before & after photos or whether or not I look good in my bathing suit. In fact, it is not my appearance at all. The enemy of my soul would love for me to find my worth and validation in beauty and perfection, but that will always be a lie. A lie that if I choose to believe, will only bring about suffering. A lie that will rob me of my true joy and confidence. A lie that gives way to a never ending cycle of guilt & shame and feelinglike I’ll never be good enough. 

But how easy it can be to forget. To give into societal pressure to be “perfect.” It is not wrong to care about health and fitness, but we also must not idolize it. We must not worship at the alter of outward beauty, letting our appearance define us. Constantly comparing ourselves to others, often leaving us feeling empty and small. There was a guest speaker at our church recently, and he said something that has really stuck with me. He said, “comparison is ultimately rooted in pride, because you want to see how you measure up to others – which leads to either pride that you’re better or shame that you fall short.” That really struck me. Both are traps that are so easy to fall into, especially in the social media world. A million images & ads affirming the lie the enemy has already planted: “you are not enough.” And how easy it is to believe the lie, and agree with it.

But I will fight for the truth. I will fight to know that I am a beautiful, chosen daughter of an almighty God. My identity is in Him, and in Him alone. I will fight to love my mom body, stretchmarks and all, and be grateful for the two beautiful daughters it has carried and birthed. I will fight to ignore the voices of insecurity and shame, and listen instead to the voice of love. I will fight to teach my daughters that they are more than their outward beauty. That they are wholly loved and accepted. I will fight to teach them that we eat healthy and exercise out of self-love, not self-loathing. I will fight off comparison and envy and the lie that tells me I’m less than. 

I will fight to live loved.