Love Spoke So Much Louder

She shimmied her jeans up twisting and turning to get them over hips expanded by two babies born, two babies in heaven and years of yo-yo dieting. Her sides streaked by cream colored marks against her tan skin. I sat on the bed knees pulled to my chest and I thought her beautiful. It never crossed my mind that my mom might not think the same thing about herself.

She died when I was twelve and the memories I have of her are faded and worn around the edges. I'm a mama myself now and I look at my own wider-than-they-once-were hips and I sigh deep about what once was. I know that she must have done the same as she wrestled those jeans up over her backside.

I remember the day she had lost enough weight to shop at the non-plus-size stores. We went to the mall for a mini-shopping spree. It was the mid-nineties and the Gap was everything. She bought a jean jumper and a sleeveless turtleneck sweater and it was as if she could have been Friends with Rachel and Monica. I had never seen her look like such a cool mom.

But there again I never heard my mom's struggle with her outer appearance. She never said, "Oh, I'm so fat!" or "I wish I was as pretty as {insert whoever}" or "I hate this about me." Her struggle was silent though I realize now there must have been an internal battle raging.

We all knew that girl in high school (or confession time...maybe we were that girl?) who always said things like, "Ugh, I am just.so.fat." when she couldn't have weighed more than a buck ten. My mom struggled with her weight her whole life and I am reasonably certain she would have wanted to slap that girl silly, but I digress.

Our words matter. How we speak about the way we see ourselves reflects our understanding of how God sees us. Some of us have deep scars that have to do with our physical bodies. Some of our wounds have been inflicted by other people. Some of our deepest cuts have been made by words spoken to our reflection in the mirror. Some of us are still fighting a battle with beauty that rages in our everyday.

I'm sharing the rest of this story over at Velvet Ashes today and I'm offering this up as part of my 31 Days of Chasing Light series. God created us unique in all our imperfections and yes, there are things that we would like to change and some that we actually can change, but sometimes we just need to rest in the beauty that God has given us. The kind of light and beauty that radiates from our hands and soul. 

If you haven't gotten a chance click back over to Sunday's post and enter to win a copy of Emily P. Freeman's book A Million Little Ways. 

Photo Credit: davedehetre via Compfight cc