Why I will not teach my daughters to love their body,

I've struggled with body image. My body image. When  I was a teenager I heard those voices in my head. Those voices telling me how fat I was and that my only hope was to starve my body and take weight loss pills. I gave into the lie that I wasn't enough, I'd never be beautiful until I was skinny(ier) and I wanted to make myself skinnier so I did what I could  to do that so I skipped meals, drank weight loss shakes, and took weight loss pills and doing so could have killed me because I wasn't fat and I didn't need to lose any weight and the fact I was putting all those harmful things into my body I'm so blessed that I'm healthy today.

 After having my first daughter Evelynne I lost a bunch of weight due to breastfeeding and everyone thought I was too skinny leaving me insecure there, too! I was at the point where all together  I was just insecure with how I looked. I didn't like how I looked then but I didn't want to gain weight either. Either way I felt under pressure because so many people had an idea of how much I should and shouldn't weigh. According to Hollywood I should be as skinny as possible and to everyone else I needed a little meat on my bones and one thing I've learned after being on both sides is that as long as my identity and happiness and security is in my weight and looks I will never be satisfied and I will never be happy. So, I stopped choosing my body and instead I chose Jesus who thinks I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

I would not encourage my daughters or you to love your body and make that your reason to love and find worth in yourself because darling, your physical body will just disappoint you and here's why.

Say, you do work hard, eat right and finally you're dream body comes along. You have abs,and a great everything else and everything's great.. for a while. You're body will change whether you want it to or not. Maybe you'll have kids and if you do you might get stretch marks and truth is pregnancy just does so many things to your body that makes it different. It's so extremely worth it but you're body will never be the same again. And it's not a bad thing and certainly not something you should be ashamed of. 

And even if you don't have kids, you can't stop the process of growing old, getting wrinkles, and sometimes gaining or loosing weight isn't an option.. 

Our physical body isn't consistent and in my experience if what you see in the mirror defines your happiness and where you place your joy and identity than you will never be filled  because you will never feel beautiful in your own eyes because you will always see flaws and that zit on your face or pouch on your stomach will steal your chance to be happy with your body and that's not a good thing! This is why I believe loving your body is dangerous and will not be teaching my girls to love their body but instead I'll teach them something even better!

I'll teach them to love themselves. The person God created them to be and their identity in Him. I'll teach them to not focus on the physical but instead focus on their inner worth. Who they are and who they're becoming and who they want to be and leave the physical on the back burner.. Now, I'm not saying that I'm not going to tell my girls that they're beautiful. Of course I will! But that will not be my main focus and I don't want it to be theirs either! 

The Bible says "Charm is deceptive and beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised" -Proverbs 31:30. 

Even the Bible talks about physical beauty and how focusing on that is harmful and yet, that's what this world is about.  in other translation it speaks of beauty as something that does not last, it fades and that it's fleeting.

Definitely something that should not be our main focus despite what the media says. I've found and experienced that the only thing that body image obsession gets  you is unhappiness, insecurity and never feeling enough and not just brings harm to you emotionally but physically as well. 

My prayer for my girls and all women as well is that we can look in the mirror saying "I look amazing and I am amazing!" not because we are at our goal weight, we're flawless and we have abs but instead I want us to see ourselves that way because of Jesus! He made us beautiful, His love for us never ends and the beauty He placed in us is flawless and it never fails! Lets focus on His beauty today friends and for goodness sake stop focusing on the fact that Princess Kate looked so perfect coming home from the hospital after giving birth and how we wish we looked that good.. Am I really still hearing about that? 

Much love!