Dear Body,

Your fifth grade classmate pointed out that you were the first to look like a woman. It was not a compliment. You turned your face down in shame. But chin up, dear one. You have always been heavy and full, defying fashion’s cute little insistence that a halter top is not actually a neck-breaking torture device. Bursting the seams of life with your wideness and waves that defy the stringent rules of straight lines.

Body, this I promise you: I will not squeeze you, strain you, or compress you to meet an unattainable ideal. I will not wish for another body simply because the world has not yet learned how to embrace your greatness sufficiently.

You have been knit together. Strong and Sturdy. Delicate and Fragile. You will break and heal. You have scars and beauty marks.

I will remind you of what exactly the design of the Creator God has made you heavy and full of. You are full of promise, passion, forgiveness intelligence, and stubbornness. You are heavy with possibility, strength, humanity, courage, love, and, yes, even (especially) beauty.

Embrace the momentum of the passionate Creator and find your heaviness to be a force.

Love,
Me

P.S. And there is nothing, not even a little part, of you that is empty because you have not grown life inside of you and given it birth and nourishment.

This post was originally published as part of a “link up” at my old blog: Mashena