the struggle still is real
Do you want to know what I have struggled with most since returning to America? Scratch that...what I have struggled most since my sophomore year of college?
I joked about it with new friends at dinner a few weeks ago.
I tell my co-workers about it when we have idle moments in the office.
My husband I laugh together at old photos from time to time.
"I used to be... really. Fat."
Most people laugh when I tell them stories about growing up in a home where the answer to any ailment or heartache was a deliciously filling meal, or have a tinge of jealousy when I tell stories about my Dad's amazing baked goods, all made from scratch, or the lunches my Mama made me (bagels with peanut butter and sprinkles...sometimes I envy my younger self). Some people look me, shocked, when I tell them about eating whole pizzas in one sitting in middle school (like a whole pizza...not this "personal pan" shenanigan...THAT was a rough phase, no doubt).
I tell it with humor now, and people sometimes sympathize and tell their own "chubby" stories, sometimes with photographic evidence. Other times, people simply chuckle and ask the rest of the story.
I loved soccer, but wasn't in shape or confidence enough to continue playing. I loved dance, but I loved volunteering and youth group more. Let's not even discuss basketball (far too painful).
In college, a new friend asked me to do her a favor. She asked me to learn to row with her. Uncomfortable that her new lifestyle as a university student would cause her to become out of shape, she sought rowing as a solution. I told her I'd join her while she learned, but made no promises to stick around. In my head, I was intimidated- I had never heard of this sport, and had never been particularly great at any sport, and I had no confidence that this would be the one.
Rowing is such a beautiful sport that teaches so many incredible life lessons. I sat in the boat, and was criticized at almost every lesson and practice, but for the first time in my life, as I hit the water with the crew, I had a stake in something, I felt equal to every other person in the boat with me. There were some very intimidating varsity teammates- one who will forever remain in my memory for cursing me out when I said three words in the midst of an evening workout. But the crew and I, we became very serious very quickly.
{This glorious photo, taken for the University of Tampa Sports PR archives, has taken itself out of retirement multiple times on the internet. I can't complain. Is it strange that I take pride in this photo? The answer is yes.}
I found myself going for workouts late at night on my own, wanting to work harder and harder, and not willing myself to miss any practice. By springtime, I had earned a seat in a varsity boat. (If you're wondering, the first race didn't go so well; nevertheless, I was hooked...)
In the midst of all this, my body (and mind) was changing. My first summer home, I vowed, with the rest of my teammates, to workout as often as we did at school, and so I joined a gym. This venture began with a consultation with Frank. (I feel no need to protect this person's identity, sorry.)
"What do you hate about yourself?"
"Hmm...I'm not sure." I was proud of my body, in its current state. It had earned me medals. Gotten me good seats in boats. Made me new friends, teammates. Given me confidence. Been a vessel to worship the Lord in new ways. It had pushed me past the limits of what I thought was possible for me.
"There must be something. What about your stomach? Arms? Thighs? You can hate more than one part..."
I was proud of my body. Before I walked in that room. I walked out, wondering why it was so easy for a complete stranger to have the power to see me feel so terrible and confused.
Now, before any of us go damning Frank, I can assure you there were many people who asked me these questions before. Maybe not in the same way. In middle school, I was constantly teased and harassed, sometimes by people who were my own "friends", because of my weight. I wanted to be smaller, thinner, and look like my other girl friends, but I honestly couldn't figure out how to do so. (I was NOT going to be a cheerleader, I couldn't play basketball, and there was no soccer team at school.) In high school, people left me alone, but only because I used the defense of becoming a shape shifter, changing my opinions with the wind, and being kind and sharing gossip to feed my own needs and ego. People asked the question before, in much louder voices, but it was my new sense of "confidence" that it hit hard.
The message I heard in my adolescent life is that my physical appearance, specifically my weight, made me flawed. This message carried over into my adulthood, leaving me anxious, for the first time, about every single thing I was putting into my body, and counting the time spent in workouts a week. I vowed to continue the practice of keeping the fat off my body, fighting genetics, and continuing to live in my newly found "confidence". I had to do this delicately, without overworking myself, sans talking about workouts to others, and certainly without developing any sort of eating disorder, as I'd watched one of the closest people to me struggle with this affliction- I wanted to remain who I had become physically, without destroying myself as a means to this end.
This isn't anything new. We hear it every day. Women now, more than ever (or more than I've ever noticed), are fighting against "conventional beauty" in a host of ways. So many hash tags and articles about.
While so many women as free with their bodies, proud of a few "extra" pounds over the suggested "beautiful", comfortable to pose in their underwear for the world to see, the struggle is still real.
I know this isn't news.
I just need to share that, for me, the struggle is still real.
In the midst of trying to be our best selves, I find myself looking at other women for my own direction. Social media kills me. So many #inspiration and #motivation photos of women with six-pack abs and #progress photos. If only I had that body. If only I ate clean for a whole thirty years... I've got to get my best mile time lower.
{In Africa, "fat" was a compliment. Having enough food and not having to work your body into being slim and lacking body fat is an honor that garners respect, not ridicule. Women who are noticablely muscular, are so because they work full-time, walking miles to do chores or haul goods, and then head home to hold babies and do the same tedious work. I've never heard a working African woman boast about her physical strength, her toned biceps, her incredible abdominal muscles, although she undoubtedly has all of these. Although I was not always surrounded by African voices, the dulling of the voice asking the question, "What do you hate about your body?" was good for me. Now, immersed again in American culture, able to tap social media and be bombarded by e-mail, the question is much louder.}
{Seriously. Beautiful. Women}
Maybe I'm just over-competitive, or, let's be honest, ridiculous (this is probable). Regardless, the struggle is real.
Here is the truth I missed long ago...
I am flawed. But it has nothing to do with my weight, or frizzy hair, awkward posture, or gap teeth.
It has everything to do with a man and a woman and a tree when the world had just been made.
Here is the bigger truth, the best truth, the truth that I also missed, and still ignore, many days...
"You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you."
+Song of Solomon 4.7
This is what my Maker says to me. {If only I would listen more to His voice.}
One of my favorite things about rowing happens while we race. One of the worst things you can do for yourself and your crew is look in the other boats of the race. You lose focus on your own race. You lose track of the rhythm of the strokes being taken in your boat. You forget to listen to the voice of your coxswain, leading you through, telling you when to drive your legs, how close you are to the power strokes, and yelling, "YOU'RE STRONGER THAN YOU KNOW. TRUST. BELIEVE!"
{I love this photo and all, but- broke college kid, paying money to SportGraphics? No thanks, I'll just take the sample, watermark and all, from FB.}
{The glorious moment when our coach's parting words to us in a big race were, "Row it sassy now." So. much. joy. And row it sassy, we did.}
It's one of my favorite things, because it's the thing I forget most in life- the thing I struggle with most.
Comparison robs us of the truth of who we truly are, comparison robs us of hearing the real truth. That our flaws are not our identity. And that our flaws- in the sense of physical imperfections- are the things that separate us from God. When I sit where I've been placed and focused on someone else's strength in comparison to my own, I miss out on the fact that, because I am loved by Jesus, I am seen as beautiful, without flaw or blemish.
It's powerful stuff, when you keep your eyes inside your own boat, focused on your race, listening only for the voice of your Leader.
I grew up learning to give something up each year for the season of Lent, a practice of fasting that should ultimately draw the follower of Christ closer to Him as we journey to the cross together.
I've given up sweets so many years, it's far too easy. I've given up social media, too. The real thing I need to give up is the constant critique of my own, God-given body.
"It is exhausting, being around someone who is so unkind to herself so often."
"It is so hard to love you when you insist on seeing yourself the way that you do."
{These are real words. From a real man. Who loves a really self-conscious woman.}
I am beginning the practice of giving thanks to God for my body, being thankful for rolls and muscles and all the parts I have learned to love and been taught to hate. I want to draw closer to Christ, my identity found in Him alone, and in doing so, help others to live in a way that is gracious, redemptive, creative, and still challenging. I think I'll begin by meditating on the Gospel of John, as well as finishing the book Eat With Joy by Rachel Marie Stone (I recommend it!). I am praying for strength to accept the gift He has given me as it is, and to love it well.
I am looking for friends who can join me in this, pray together, friends who I can encourage and who are willing to be honest about their struggles.
Because the struggle is real. But He is the truth.
{This is just the part where I affirm everyone who is on an exercise regimen, posting progress photos, eating "clean", and whatever else there may be out there that I haven't seen yet. You do you. In full disclosure, I have no intention of changing my habits- I will still exercise daily, not touch standard French fries (yet, they truly are yucky to me... if you only knew what they do to my insides), and each way too much fruit in one sitting. I am simple desiring to learn more about how to focus on my body as a vessel of bringing redemption and restoration, and not as an ornament or thing to be critiqued.
And in the end of the day, no one really needs to see my abs anyway.}