Body Image and Such...
The next time someone refers to you as a "tool", roll with it. In fact, embrace it and say: "Why, thank you! I am trying to be a big tool!" With emphatic smiling and such. I hope to post more about our Easter soon...but this was pressing. Yet another thought from Rachel on "Loving the Little Years." I think many moms (my very own included) would have fantastic advice when asked - but Rachel wrote it down in the very middle of the whole mess of loving small ones - and she penned it with style and accuracy. Thank you, Rachel.
Have you ever struggled with your body image? (this is a dumb question, I know - just nod and get on with it)...well, I love her bottom line: it is a tool:
"First of all, our bodies are tools, not treasures. You should not spend your days trying to preserve your body in it's eighteen-year-old form. Let it be used. By the time you die, you want to have a very dinged and dinted body. Motherhood uses your body in the way that God designed it to be used. Those are the right kind of damages. We are not to treat our bodies like museum pieces. They were given to us to use. So use it cheerfully, and maintain it cheerfully. When you are working hard to lose that baby weight (as you may need to), think of it as tool maintenance. You want to fix your body up in order to be able to use it some more. We should not be trying to fix it up to put it back on the shelf out of harms' way or to try to make ourselves look like nothing ever happened. Your body is a tool. Use it.
Also, your body is a tool - maintain it. Having sacrificed your body for your children is no excuse for schlepping around in sweatpants for the rest of their childhood.....So realize that your body is a testimony to the world of God's design. Carry the extra weight joyfully until you can lose it joyfully. Carry the scars joyfully as you carry the fruit of them. Do not resent the damages that your children left on your body. Just like a guitar mellows and sounds better with age and scratches, so your body can more fully praise God having been used for HIs purposes. So don't resent it, enjoy it."
A great word to all women - and particularly mothers.
My latest fruit I carry around:
