Don't You Know Your Beautiful?

I love when Jesus brings something you have prayed about full circle! To me that is just part of His goodness!

I hope today's thoughts bless you and help you to look in the mirror and see yourself different!

I had a hard childhood! For most looking in would never believe the horrors that went on behind closed doors.

However the abuse I endured sent me on a potentially deadly spiral.

I thought it was the only way anyone would love me! I think I was 12 the first time I made myself go to the bathroom and throw my food up.

I have always been curvy even when I was at my lowest weight as a teen! I just remember looking in the mirror and seeing a 200lb person looking back at me! I could not have that, No one would love a fat girl and certainly not want to marry her one day!

So from that day forward I starved myself or would binge eat and throw up.It was very important to be small! Bless My Mommaw's heart I know she meant well!She would pat me on the stomach and tell me to suck my stomach in men didn't like big belly's!

I always heard that in the back of my mind, honestly sometimes I still do!

I remember when I was around 14 or 15 crop tops and bodysuits were the thing to wear with some short shorts!

I was determined I would be tiny enough to wear it and be thin as I did! 

I will never forget when I first started dating Jody we went on a date and we went to eat I refused to eat in front of him! Few weeks later he was at my house having dinner with my sister and I. They were picking and made a comment and I dropped my food off my fork. I heard them laughing I ran to the bathroom and threw up! I did not eat another item that day! Myself image issues lasted until we had our first daughter! 

I remember right after I had her we were in Walmart and it was the first of the year. My oldest was born late December. So you can imagine my thoughts of weighing 130lbs after giving birth! So while we are on our shopping trip. I thought it was really important to loose that 30lbs! I could not keep it and it could not wait! I bought this little work out outfit to wear.

I remember while Jody was at work the next morning I put it on I had all intentions I was going to start working out! I had a really difficult delivery and was in no shape to try to exercise,I was anemic and had double pneumonia.

So imagine how difficult it was to do 5 sit ups!

I couldn't I was so upset, I was crying and my sweet baby began to cry. I was on my way to change clothes. She sidetracked me and when I finally made it to the bedroom. She was in my arms! I had just made myself get rid of breakfast! I caught my image in the mirror as I was holding her! I instantly began to cry! WHAT was I doing! My body just created this beautiful baby! Was I going to teach her to hate herself too? After that moment it was like a switch went off in my head.

I finally learned to love the body that had been abused horribly. It was time to heal it and teach it to love what it saw!

I made a promise to myself and my girls I would raise them to love themselves and to rock their beautiful body that they live in each and everyday! 

You see God fearfully and wonderfully made each of us in His image. Did you catch that! It's highlighted go back and read it again! 

How can I not love or like something about the girl that he created to be in  His Image! Had all these years been calling my Daddy ugly? Telling Him he was imperfect when He is perfection! 

So I had made it my mission to really teach girls to love the body that God gave them and to have self worth! 

We have a girls club called A Life Of Faith and I really teach that there! Because none of us are made to be a carbon copy of one another! I am glad of  that. We would live in a boring world if we were!

I had kept that promise of loving myself! I have remained confident and not ashamed of the scars my body holds! Or ashamed of the stretch marks it has beside for me it was proof I had two beautiful girls! Carrying a life is the most amazing feeling ever! I had learned to rock my corkieness!  I have no problem to rock and Disney princess shirt and a tutu! I am 44 yes old and I am still very young at heart! I will rock a wheelchair, cane, walker, even oxygen if need be! 

For it was just a part of who I am now! There was no need to be ashamed!

Over the past 5 years I have faced many challenges! 

One challenge was going to try everything I had taught myself over the years! 

It was becoming scary!

One of those being weight! I have been the biggest I have ever been!!! Guess what the switch got hit in the wrong direction! About July or August I think. I fell in my bedroom on night and hurt my leg. I needed my walker again until I could put weight on my leg again! It also caused my wonderful husband to believe I needed to have my bathroom door removed again because I can not get the walker in the bathroom easily when it on. I was so mad, when he took it down. For the first time I was kinda mad! I was going backwards. I am getting worse!  

   I am not getting better and look at me! I remember telling Jody in the bathroom one night as I was doing my best to not look at myself in the mirror. I was so sorry for how disgusting I looked and cried when I sat down on my shower chair!
He reassured me as he always does I am beautiful!

I couldn't hear his words though! All I could hear was the old words! Ugly, fat, disgusting, unlovable, sickening, and wanting to binge eat and throw up! 

Thank Jesus! My thorachotomy area hurts so badly it changed my mind about throwing up!

Instead everyday I beat myself up mentally! I hated who I had become! Each time I would put something on that no longer fit! I would cringe inside! For years I had told my girls it's just a size and it's never a true number because no two people sew the same! No two seamstress is going to take the exact amount off of the fabric even if they are sewing the same shirt! Not to let that number bother you! Dress in a size that is comfortable and do not worry about that number!

Boy did I ever let my new number break my heart into thousands of little pieces! 

I am so ashamed that I allowed satan so much space in my head! I knew better ! However I had let him take up residence and he was having a field day.

Back in the summer I would make comments and Christian would get into me and remind me it wasn't my fault it was a lot of fluid and I had to remember all the steroids I had to have for my lungs. I would smile and agree. Yet by bedtime I began to bash myself again. I began asking God was He mad at me? He knew how I felt about being really big and now I was the biggest I had ever been! 

In November I had to be hospitalized twice! The second time I was so sick there were a couple of times during both stays I thought my Daddy was going to take me home to Him! I was really really sick!

Probably the sickest I have ever been! I have had two major heart surgeries and a major lung surgery! This illness trumped that!

My Daddy took some time to minister to His daughter. He came to me just where I was. He confirmed through so many people His love for me! I think the night that got me was I was watching one of my favorite TLC shows my 600 lb life. I remember the tears streaming down my cheeks and I had already been talking to Daddy we talk all day long but we had really been talking. I told Him I didn't care about how I looked I just knew I wasn't done here for Him! I had so many things I wanted to do still! I also wanted to see Christian get married and have a family continue to watch Amber and Andrews family grow and blossom! Being Granny is one of the biggest blessings ever! He told me that night my size would never change how I ministered for Him! I did however had to change how I seen myself when I looked in the mirror! The next time I stood in front of the mirror I needed to remind myself the same things I had taught my girls and my kids from another Momma! I feel so  blessed their Momma shares them with me! Here's the thing I know they are gonna read this and I want them to know I did just what my Daddy told me to! I was brushing my teeth and was talking to myself in my head! I reminded myself of all of God's promises and how I am fearfully and wonderfully made in His image! He thinks I am beautiful! He loved me and all the parts I don't sometimes! A nurse flew in my room asked me if I was okay! I was like yeah I am just brushing my teeth! Is everything okay? I was like yeah I am just brushing my teeth why? She said well your heart rate is 200 sweetie! Would you mind getting back in bed and try to stay there!

When I got home I really had to continue to work on my mindset because I truly wanted to love every inch of this crazy body of mine it is super important to me! I can truly write and say! I am in the best place loving my body that I have ever been! I love me and my numbers! I also love me enough to that in the hospital I made a promise to Jody and myself I was going to clean my diet up and take care of the body God blessed me with! I have done just that! We are eating clean as a family and it feels amazing! More than the food helping it's that I  showed myself the Grace it deserves and loved myself how my Daddy told me too! It's the best feeling in the world to love yourself as you should! I can't wait to be able to start A Life of Faith back and continue to teach young girls to love the body they live in!

I know this is a long post! Please stay with me though! I asked a few very near and dear to my heart people to share their stories with you so they can help raise awareness of self love and their journey to get where they are today! Because truth be told this is something that needs to be talked about more! Not swept up under the rug! Most of the time people who struggle with weight have been through a trauma and have stuffed it away and haven't dealt with it and use food for comfort or punish themselves.

It's okay to talk about the hard stuff! It's okay to share your struggling to love yourself! Ladies we are like beautiful butterfly!We go through many changes but still come out beautiful and uniquely you!

I love you curves, the scars and stretch marks I bare, I love my curls and the fact they stay up in a bun, I love the healthy choices I am making for me, I love the numbers all of them! Because they are just that numbers! It doesn't change the beauty that God placed in me when He created me! Beauty comes from the inside out! He loves His unique daughter He created in His image! I love her too! Let me introduce you to my friends !

Meet Christian

Beauty comes in many forms, many shapes, sizes, heights, edges. We’re all different, and unique in our own way. It took me a long time to see that, even though I was taught growing up we’re all uniquely made and sculpted by God, that we are all perfect in his sight. I haven’t always seen that, I haven’t always felt confident or beautiful. When I used to look in the mirror I saw a girl whose hair wasn’t straight but was a frizzy ball of fiery girls. I don’t have a jaw line but a super round face, I wasn’t skinny I had curves for days, my thighs touch and have cellulite, my arms are not firm and they kinda flap when I move them, I’m a shorty who had a small growth spurt but still climbs on counters to get things or ladders, I have freckles all over, that dust my body like stars dust the universe, and my eyes aren’t this bright beautiful color they’re simply brown, big brown eyes that look like honey in the sun light.  I let society, and what others said about me, poison my thoughts about myself to the point I started starving myself so I could fit into societies “beauty norms” I would look at myself and only see hatred, I could barley even look at myself in the mirror without being disgusted, and it wasn’t until about two years ago when the way I viewed myself changed. Every body is like poetry, we are all created differently, we all have our own story, none of our ink melts into the paper the same way others do. We all have our own spots, scars, and blemishes, not everyone’s souls are the same, we all have been through different things that touched us differently, that molded us into someone different. We all have our own unique shells that bind us together making us who we are from skin and bone. Our bodies are our temples, and none of them are just alike, they are not copied portraits. They are their own original masterpiece, that is constantly changing and molding everyday. I am beautiful just as I am, I am exactly how God wants me to be, he molded me, he sculpted me with his own two hands. The God who made the stars, oceans, mountains, and butterflies, he made me. He made the things I love and adore, so why am I any less? Why am I this disgusting, hideous creature, if he created me just as unique and with my own unique thumb print, just like a butterfly who has their own unique wing pattern? I don’t look away in disgust anymore when I look at myself in the mirror, instead I look at myself even on my worst days when I feel less than beautiful I look at myself and tell myself I’m beautiful with all my flaws that are perfectly imperfect. God made me just how I am and that’s enough for me, even if it isn’t to anyone else I love who I am and I love my body and the stories it has told. You are fearfully and wonderfully no matter what you have been told, no matter what that person told you or made you feel, no matter what society has told you. You are perfect every inch of you, head to toe, inside and out! You are absolutely beautiful! A masterpiece! And don’t ever let anyone tell you different.   

Meet Lexy

Self love is something I am still learning, I actually struggle with loving myself still, because of things that I have gone through in life that has damaged me, things that have caused me to gain weight or things that make me look at myself differently, bit I have definitely improved, I have learned to embrace my brokeness, because those are things that God has brought me through and continues to bring me through. God made all of us fearfully and wonderfully made! Self love is something that some may not think is important but it is, and I do my best everyday to love every inch of myself inside and out! It shouldn't matter if we don't like the number on the scale, or if we don't think a piece of clothing fits how we like or think it should, because no matter what we all are beautiful, we all have worth in this crazy world, and we all are enough!!! We all are created in God's image, so love yourself, everything about you is beautiful. I hear and see so many people bring each other down, when we should be lifting each other up, so love yourself so hard as well as each other! Never forget that God makes no mistakes everyone is priceless and beautiful!!! 

Now I'm gonna go look at myself in the mirror and tell myself that I am beautiful and enough, and God made me who I am for a reason! you should do the same because it's true! 

Meet Aspyn

Self love is a touchy subject for most people because of what they have gone through or what they are going through and I am here to tell you I have struggled with loving myself too wether it was comparing myself to people or looking in the mirror telling myself I wasn’t good enough there was always something that I put into my head that made me feel like I wasn’t worth it or I wasn’t good enough  (that was the devil spreading lies) but I always did that and it made me feel like a terrible person like I didn’t belong anywhere and then one day I was reading a bible verse that is psalm 139:14 and it says “I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” and that opened up a whole new perspective for me because in that moment I was like you know what Aspyn you are fearfully and wonderfully made and God makes no mistakes with creating you! Don’t compare yourself and don’t look in the mirror telling lies to yourself because your worth isn’t found in what you tell yourself your worth is found in Christ and Christ alone and I will tell you that many times I have felt like I was unloveable because I looked this type of way or I didn’t fit in society’s terms of “beautiful” but now I tell you that my identity is not found In society my identity is found in God

Meet Kendra

The eating disorder I took pills to lose weight laxatives drank nothing but water would eat one meal a day if  I had to I tried not to eat at all. We went to the gym some I would cry when I went to get dressed because I thought I was fat. That's what I seen myself as in the mirror. It didnt matter what anyone told me either I seen myself as fat even though I was very very skinny.

Today though is a different story. I have gained more weight than I could ever possibly imagine or want to due to my mobility. I used to think you had to be beautiful on the outside but boy have I learned differently. God has taught me some many things over the last few years and that is one of them. Beautiful comes from within. If your not beautiful on the inside the it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside!!! I can be just as beautiful heavier as I was skinnier. It all in the way you carry yourself. And along with saying that God made us ALL fearfully and wonderfully made. That doesn't come with a " label"  it doesn't matter you shape or size,color,hair type,if your short or tall how much you weigh.. ..it simply means we are ALL beautiful in Gods eyes. 

Meet Payton

Everyone deserves to love themselves.

I feel we all struggle at some point with body image and how we feel when we look into a mirror, it’s a hard battle to fight. Even after we’ve began to grow a love for how God created us to be, we all still have hard days where we just can’t see how truly beautiful and amazing we are. It helps when you tell yourself positive things or affirmations when looking into the mirror, because what we tell ourselves is what we tend to believe, so if you say or think negatively of yourself, that’s how you’ll feel, positivity is so important in the journey of finding and loving yourself. Try and remember how beautiful, loved, and cared for you are! 

Each person has stepped out of their comfort zones to share apart of their story with you! Because like me we want you to see your worth, your beauty, to see yourself as our Daddy sees us! Fearfully and Wonderfully made and He love us so much He gave up His son!

So How can we look over such an amazing verse and not apply it to our lives each and everyday! We need give ourselves the affirmation we need! Don't depend on getting it from someone else! Because people are not perfect and will let us down! God is perfect and if your struggling on finding that worth ask Him! He will give you what you need! Because after all We are Beautiful! Remember beauty always starts on the inside and it works it's way out! 

So what do you need to tell yourself today? I hope you tell yourself your beautiful! If this has touched you and you feel like someone's story connected with you! Email me at lilgranny76@gmail.com

I know myself would be more than happy to help you! I feel sure the others would too! After all we want to see you walking in Footsteps of Grace! Knowing you are fearfully and wonderfully made!

Psalm 139:13-14

Prayerfully Yours ~Shellie~

Don't You Know Your Beautiful? Just The Way You ARE!