Recently I have discovered that my sweet little knees that have endured much dancing, running, and joyful Zumba-ing are no longer up for the challenge. Three months after having my third baby I was ready to try working-out again and looked forward to feeling good about myself. I lined up an audition for a job at a nice gym and was ecstatic about the thought of getting an hour to myself every week, even if I was working. I probably should have trained a little bit before jumping into teaching a high impact hour of my own choreography, because I could barely get through it. Wow, how quickly you lose your fitness level. I kept checking the clock and re arranging my play-list to cut out the faster tunes, and even with my disclaimer of “I just had a baby” I hoped that the women didn’t realize just how tired I truly was. At one point, I looked in the mirror and saw myself differently. Here I was, but I didn’t look the way I used to when I taught. Sure I have some extra poundage, but there was something different. It was purposeful curvy poundage. A lingering soft belly protruded from where Gabriel had taken residence for so long, I am and look like a nursing mom. I thought, “why am I trying so hard to do this?” Not that a nursing mom can’t exercise and get fit, trust me I am a fitness instructor so I am all for being healthy and exercise. But for me, my very own reflection was ever so striking of the season I was in. I was somewhat taken back. This didn’t fit. This me, doing this very thing, at this time and place. It’s funny because I put myself in this position, my own proactive ness had set up this meeting and the high expectations of myself, but why? Come to find out later in the evening that my knee pain had increased and it's probably the end of my Zumba career. This makes me sad but is later redeemed in Story #2. While icing my knees I started wondering why I pushed myself to teach when I wasn't quite ready and why was I so sad at the loss of my capability to teach high impact aerobics.
After digging a little deeper I realized that working again wasn’t the only motivation for me starting to teach so soon, and the following realization made me sad. I really just wanted to drop my baby weight as soon as possible. Yes, it would be nice to fit into my jeans and I think that's a fine thought. But n the back of my mind I was hoping to work to accomplish my ideal body weight and get it over with. There is something wrong with this picture in my head, with the picture in all of our heads of how we think we should look at any given moment in time and the guilt that comes if we don’t. Oh how God’s heart must break for us. I just went through this huge, mountain top experience of having a baby and my world is upside down with all kinds of love for this little being, why would I be trying to wipe away so quickly the beautiful growth that brought him here? Unfortunately it’s the classic cliché of what society has portrayed its expectations of women to be, and these images have surrounded me since I was a little girl. They are embedded into my core being and almost every woman I know. Why does a woman think that as soon as she has her baby she has to be super fit all of a sudden? Why does this idea of body image and let's be honest, vanity start in elementary school? At what point do we stop putting ourselves under such scrutiny and give ourselves grace, the kind of grace we give to our friends who are worried about this stuff. And the thing of it is, that this isn’t something I struggle with on a daily basis, it isn’t at the forefront of my mind like it seems to be for so many sweet beautiful women I know. But it’s still there, this part of me hoping to be me, but a better me in the world’s standards, which are apparently my standards. It really takes so much un-doing to discover how beautiful we truly are.
I think that’s why certain lines from movies always strike this unknown chord in my heart; For instance when the leading man in Bridget Jones Diary tells our insecure heroine, “I like you, just the way you are.” Or in the Joy Luck Club when a mother speaks to her ever affirmation-seeking daughter and she declares, “I see you, I see you.” And even more importantly, in scripture God speaks about us as His beloved child, His beautiful bride, and how He, the King is captivated with our beauty. Those lines are unbelievable to me, they either make me re-read it 5 times or cry. And when my husband tells me how beautiful I am on the days that I put absolutely no effort into my appearance, I am typically shocked. My first response is, “are you serious, I have spit-up on my shoulder?” And his ever affirming, “Of course”…renders me speechless. One of my favorite feelings is when I see an old friend from high school or college and they walk into my house and help themselves to a snack and when I so much as gesture to serve them they give me this look like, “c’mon, I’ve known you since before you tweezed your eye brows and could drive…are you seriously going to play host?” It surprises me how well they know me, how much they love me, how they know my vices and they know how to encourage me, it’s so refreshing.
Isn’t that really it though? Don’t we just want to be seen and be proclaimed beautiful and lovely? It feels soooo good to be known. For someone to know your heart and who you are, your goodness, your flaws, your tendencies and then to tell you or better yet show you that you’re loved. Maybe the struggle with body image exists because it’s the only way we think we’ll actually be seen. And then if we’re seen, perhaps we’ll be known. And if we are finally known, then maybe finally we’ll hear those words, “you are lovely, you are the apple of my eye, I hear you, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, you are worth the greatest sacrifice and my dear you are captivating.” Funny that there’s a whole book on that, it’s just really hard to believe when you are worlds apart. But if you listen so closely, you’ll hear God’s whispers, you’ll feel His adoration wash over you, you’ll read about all that He’s done and will do, and how His plans are to prosper you. You’ll be reminded that He makes everything glorious, and you’ll be relieved when you remember, that He in fact, made you.
