Women Living Well

So I follow this awesome blog, Women living well. And I have been missing from the blogging world for a couple weeks, and wanted something to really be deep and meaningful to blog about. Anyways, this blog is doing a series about Christian women living well in an opposite world, which focuses on being a Christian woman, but I think that lots of this is common sense as well for those who aren't. So much of society and life now a days is focused on appearance and instant gratification and so much else is lost!! So I am gong to share this blog for a few weeks about living oppositely. These are her words not mine and I hope to aspire to these being my words one day!!!




"I hate my muffin top.  It makes certain dresses and shirts fit ALL wrong.  So I resort to ruffled shirts, A-line dresses and anything that hides it. I wish I had a flat stomach… a flat stomach is only some self-discipline, exercise and a bit of lipo suction away, right?
But I’m learning…
I’m learning that I don’t have the discipline it takes to make this muffin top go away any time soon…maybe that will be next years New Year’s Resolution…{again –*sigh*}
And maybe you don’t have a muffin top - but you carry extra weight somewhere else…maybe in your thighs, arms, chin, or bottom.   And maybe, like me when you look in the mirror, you judge yourself for the food you ate yesterday –cause Opposite World tells you –you really should work on that “trouble spot.”
Well, recently I was comtemplating my muffin top –deep thoughts right? lol!  I was thinking – why in the world is that still there? I’m on the eliptical 5 nights a week and I don’t drink milkshakes or eat fries!  And then it hit me –because God has given me my daily bread.  Actually I have a  fridge full of food –he’s given me my weekly bread!

My muffin top is evidence of God’s goodness in my life!

You see, when I make a meatloaf for our family of four –after we each have an appropriate portion for our body size – there’s a few slices left. And guess what happens –I eat a little extra.  And after my son finishes a game of basketball at the gym, we take the kids through the Dairy Queen drive through to cool off (I always get a kids sized cone).  And in the fall there’s candy corn, at Christmas there’s cookies, Valentine’s Day there’s chocolate –and the list goes on!  Pizza Bread, Crock Pot Mac n Cheese, Taco Salad, Burgers and Hawaain Meatloaf grace my dinner table every month.
Now all the dieting books say the above eats are the reason I have a muffin top –right?  You may be thinking, “goodness — don’t make meatloaf and mac n cheese.  Those are not on the healthy food charts!”  Well, I do cook chicken and fish and lots of veggies too .
And I get it – I do.  I get that I am making choices that keep me from getting rid of my muffin top.  So I need to stop whining about it.

Those overflowing plates of food –those are evidence of God’s abundant blessings in my life. 

Now you may wonder if I feel this way about other’s muffin tops.  Nope – yours doesn’t bother me at all!  I have a double standard.  Yours looks great and if you complained about it –I’d tell you, you are beautiful. I’d probably point to your children and tell you, they are SO worth the muffin top!!!
But Opposite World whispers in my ear –every time I look in the mirror, “you should not have eaten that yesterday.”
First world problems right?  They don’t have to set up treadmills in third world countries where women are working themselves to the bone to survive or worse… starving.  I’ve read of women in Haiti whose children are so hungry they feed them dirt cakes just to stop their hunger pains. 

My muffin top is evidence of God’s abundant blessings.

And so we bow our heads and give thanks for our daily bread.  And we eat –not as gluttons, but we never miss a meal – and we get to eat an abundance of fruit, vegetables, meat, and bread.

Thank you God for these blessings!

 Jen Wilken writes:

The expectation of physical perfection hits modern females early and often. In middle school, girls cut themselves to deal with the pressures of conforming to the ideal. In middle age, women do, too—but allow the surgeon to hold the knife.

Oh that is so profound – is it not?
Jen goes on…

We carve the record of our self-loathing into the very flesh of our bodies—a self-marring, a literal carving of an idol. Increasingly, physical perfection is the legacy of womanhood in our culture, handed down with meticulous care from mother to daughter, with more faithful instruction in word and deed than we can trouble to devote to cultivating kindness, peacemaking, and acceptance that characterize unfading, inner beauty.

What are we passing on to our daughters?  This weekend I attended the sobering funeral of my beautiful Aunt Lori. She died at the age of 54, after a brave 5 year battle with cancer.  And you know what…no one mentioned her waist size at the funeral.
Do we get that –no one cares! And certainly God does not care! He is not going to greet me at the pearly gates and say –you should have never eaten those Christmas cookies!!!

I don’t want my kids to look at my picture after my death and say “our mother was so beautiful“, I want them to say ” My mother oozed with the love of Jesus.  She loved God, loved Daddy, loved us and loved people!”  That’s what I want my legacy to be!

Christian women should be the most joyous and cheerful women in the neighborhood. We have hope, security and a Heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally! Let’s not torture ourselves with the Opposite World’s lies…grumpy because we’re famished from dieting.  I have learned that I need to eat and have energy to serve God heartily.
Oh friends and foodies and marathon mamas – I am NOT saying we should not strive to be healthier or eat healthier.  I love the way you take care of the temple of the Lord.  I love reading your blogs and learning off of you all.  I admire your diligence and discipline and let’s be honest –I dream of having your waist size!  This is not a post dissing healthy living.
This is for all the women who feel like they are “less than“ because Opposite World says –strive for your dream weight that is–just.out.of.reach…And maybe…
Maybe I’m trying to learn to NOT hold that double standard…
Maybe…just maybe -I’m trying to tell myself…
.

I’m

okay

. 

 ”Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” ~ Proverbs 31:30

Thank you Lord for my abundant blessings that my muffin top represents.  Help me to stop fearing food and Opposite World and to fear YOU only."