Wonderfully Made

I praised you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that fully well. (Psalm 139:14 NIV)

 

1998, I graduated High School weighing what I weighed my 9th grade year... 130 was the magic number for me I guess. I never thought I was fat.. How could I when I was 5'8 and everyone around me made comments that would follow me till I was 30. "Your to Skinny", "Do you eat at all", "Are you anorexic", "If I had your body...", "some of us can't eat like you do"... Statements like this drove me to actually not like who I was.  People might as well called me ugly. I used to pray that God would let me have a butt and a chest!! :) Yes, I did.. 15 years later he gave them to me!

    Even after having 2 children my heaviest was 155. I still lived and breathed those comments. Being 5'8 I was right where I should of been. But I thought I was FAT.. I began giving up on the thought of me being pretty at all.. My Momma and Sister started taking me clothes shopping.. To this day they still do! When my girls were babies I was a stay at home mom, then I cleaned houses for the last 5 to 6 years. Until God moved us to Oklahoma, then I was back at home, trying to find myself in a mess of emotions as my walk with God was the best it has ever been, life seemed so evil around me. I was stuck in a hole that didn't make since, I was screaming.. God and my husband was my best friends.  The way it should be, but the world shouldn't of felt so dark.

    From May of 2012 to May of 2013 I gained 40 pounds. I have had to deal with a lot of emotions during this time. Not just from weight, but from the world of life!  I smoked from the age of 13 to May of 2012 (heavily at 16 and on).. almost 20 YEARS..... My husband and girls have been on me for the past 7 or more to quit.. I loved it.. I hated the smell, the way it made me unsociable, what it was doing to my health, and that I would let my husband and girls down every time I tried to quit and would fail (around 50 times). Smoking was the only time I felt I could relax.

     I have NEVER been over weight. I was happy I was gaining some, but when I hit 180 something happened.. I gave up. I thought well I will die smoking or fat, which one is going to be? So I had to choose FAT, my family would think even more less of me if I started smoking again. I was introduced to ACE (Appetite Control Energy) by my sister in April of this year, when I was my new heaviest at 195.. (I cry even writing that.)  Since then I have lost 34 of the 40 pounds I gained over this last year. Yay!

     It has been hard! For those of you who think that ACE was an easy way out, you my dear are so wrong!! I could take the easy way, but what would be the point if I didn't learn from what God has put me through.  ACE helps to control those moments that you eat 2 plates of fat as you are licking your fingers as it is turning into FAT.. ACE gives me the energy as, yet again, a stay at home mom. I can walk 3 miles without dieing.  I can do 120 sit ups like nothing now!! I can go for a piece of celery instead of a candy bar and feel that satisfaction! I am very thankful for ACE for cleaning my mind! The same I am thankful for those nicorettes that let me break that addiction that was killing me too. No matter how I do things, If I am making progress I am a better person for trying!

     Today, I am 6 pounds from where I was a year ago! I feel so happy about my loss, yet so invisible. My self esteem is probably the lowest it has ever been.  I DO NOT feel pretty. I DO NOT feel worthy. I DO NOT feel attractive. You can say all you want that it doesn't matter what others thinks of you, but oh how wrong.. I think the world of how my husband and those around me sees me. I will never say again like I did when I smoked or when I weighed almost 200 pounds "you either like me or you don't"??? How would that ever make a better me? God is working on me about this, I just wished he would hurry up! :)

     Everyone around me is losing weight too! We have so many family and friends on the same journey. The "your not worthy" comes to play when the comments around me are "You look beautiful", "You look amazing", "Good job", "I'm proud of you"... yet I do not feel any are directed to me, even though some have been. I know that this past year I have been mainly at home and not out around people much, so my gain wasn't in peoples face my whole life and everyone knows me as the "skinny April", so therefor the praise isn't as strong. 

     You maybe reading this and think of how selfish and jealous I may seem, because I feel that too. My love language is Words of Affirmation. I take words personally. I wished I could change it, I so do. It isn't so much what others think, it is what they say! 

    Not feeling worthy or accepted is such an obstacle from keeping me from being who God wants me to be. About 3 years ago a friend came up to me at Church and told me that she felt that God wanted me to know that I was wonderfully and fearfully made. "Ok? Like whatever that meant!" :) This past year, I have held on to that scripture! I hear it during my worship time, I hear it at the doctor office, I hear it doing laundry!! :) 

I praised you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that fully well. (Psalm 139:14 NIV)

So what to do with that??? PRAISE!!  I need to praise him! Without God I would of never of had my husband, without God I wouldn't of had my children, without God I would still be smoking, without God I would be stuck in an unhealthy body. I am not who I am, I am who God made me to be! Every inch of my life I will praise him! Not for just the greatness, but for those unanswered prayers and for the answered ones! Thanks for the Butt and the Chest, and thanks for knowing they wasn't meant for me, God! Fill my cup!