Scars to your Beautiful

I am never sure why I feel compelled to write. I guess it is a way for me to get my truth out.Even if nobody reads this, I figure that if I don't write it down then maybe I didn't learn anything. I am also not sure why it is always in the middle of the night that I feel inspired. I have always had a restless nature, especially when the lights are off and everyone else is asleep. 

Tonight I found myself looking in the mirror as I often do. Sometimes I stare at myself and wonder if it is really me that I am looking at. I am sure you can relate to the feeling of being captive in your own body. I wonder how I can look so different in my mind. The last ten years have been rather rough on my body. I have so many scars left from being alive. Six years ago I weighed around 100 pounds. I wasn't absorbing food and I couldn't keep much down. Most of the time the only thing people would say is that I was too skinny and I needed to gain weight. I, of course, knew they were right. Even though I put in so much effort to gain weight it just wasn't sticking. Fast forward to now and so much has changed. I had a stomach surgery that allowed me to keep more food down. I went into a slight remission and my body instantly started holding on to everything. I went from 100lbs to 125lbs to 140lbs and now to 165lbs. Even as I write that I feel worried about what others will think. I realize I am not heavy and that it is silly to feel bad that I am gaining weight. I realize that I am a healthy wieght but,I still worry that when others see me they will think that I have lost control. I don't always feel beautiful in my own skin, especially since everytime I start to feel comfortable my body changes more.It is exhausting and embarrasing.

 I now have stretch marks all across my legs and stomach. My belly is riddled with scars from surgery. My skin is scarred from rashes and usually looks red and miserable. My clothes never fit becuase I haven't stayed the same weight for longer than a month. My hair is falling out and I can never wear makeup because it seems I am allergic to everything. I have small purple dots that never faded after staph infections. Most days I feel like my body is too battered to be beautiful. I am trying to change that. 

In my yoga class we often talk about being grateful to our body for the things it allows us to do. It is a hard thing to do when it seems your body has so many limitations. It is frustrating to watch others do all the things I can't do. I hate that when I do activites I often have to set my limits. I sometimes feel that I should be embarrased or ashamed by my bodies limitations. I often look at others and wonder how they could endanger the gift they have been given. I am jealous that they at least have something to take for granted.

As I look in the mirror tonight I am thinking about the things I take for granted. I take for granted that I have weigth. That I have something to hold me up and make me strong. I look at my battered body and am reminded that I am a warrior. I have lived through it all and I am still standing. I know I have things to work on but I need to be grateful for what I have. Most of all I need to love who I am and what I look like. I am beautiful in my own way. My body is a reminder of what my soul has endured and I always should honor that. I hope that others can look at themselves with love. Give yourself some credit already! Look in the mirror and recognize that you are beautiful and are perfectly imperfect. It is always hard to look different than the image in your head. But at least your body is real. Your scars and imperfections are real and they are beautiful. They are a symbol of where you have been and how strong you are. 

       

Then                                                             Now                

Right Beside You

There is something on my mind today that I can't help but address. I was just at work and I had a conversation with some coworkers that got me thinking about the way we treat other people. I often get flack for being sick, not directly but people often (and accidently) find a way to be degrading in conversation. I  hate when people get mad at me for taking care of myself. I have to pay close attention to my body in order to be able to keep living my life. I often get portrayed as a lazy person who is not reliable. This hurts my feelings so bad, mostly because these are all thoughts I think about myself on the daily. I find myself thinking I am lazy, and unreliable and a liability, a problem and a burden. It makes it even harder when people confirm my worst thoughts. Why is it that we do this? Why is that humans love to kick each other while they're down? More importantly, why do we kick ourselves when we're down?

Chances are, you know exactly what I am talking about. Also FYI I am sooo guilty of doing this to others and to myself.(Reality TV is my go to for making fun of people). I think we love to pat ourselves on the back when we see we are doing better than someone else. How horrible is that? Why do we even feel qualified to understand what someone is going through. It is so easy to assume that we know what someone is going through and then decide that we could do a better job. The important thing to note is that in reality we don't. We can't assume we know as much as God does.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we often talk about lifting others. It is a very common theme that is important and wonderful. We speak about helping others when they are down and lifting them up to where we are. Today I am thinking that I've had it wrong. My first thought is, why do I assume that I am above them? And second, how can I lift them if I am not really above them?

So then I began to think about where I am in relation to others. Where am I standing when they are down and where should I be?

 Right Beside Them. 

So why do we so often talk about lifting others? What should be our goal in helping? Maybe it is not our job to lift others, 

maybe it is our job to

kneel next to them and let God lift us both.

I think this world needs more sympathy, more understanding, more outright love. We need to judge less and assume less. We need to stop guessing what people are going through and instead ask them how we can help. If we can't fix it then we can for sure stay awhile and go through it with them. 

This is the biggest lesson I have learned in being sick. I so appreciate those people who make me feel strong and confident. Who make sure I know that I am smart, capable and not defeated. I am forever grateful for the people who sit next to me when I am down.

Next thing that I want to talk about is how we treat ourselves. This is something I am relatively private about not because people judge me but because I sometimes feel vulnerable talking about it. I have had pretty bad anxiety and depression in the past. I am especially sensitive to any new medications so every couple months I have bad episodes when I start new meds. I am a perfectionist and a bit OCD so when I do anything wrong or make a mistake my first instinct is to punish myself. On some meds I have gotten extremely suicidal and I will beat myself up. That being said I am very lucky. These sympotoms are at their worst because of medicine. I always have the option of switching medications or the side effects fade. Some people do not have the option of getting rid of their depression or anxiety. I know people who have struggled with depression for years and my heart aches for them. They are truly unsung heroes that I admire greatly.

The habit of punishing yourself because you are human is one we need to stop doing. I am 1000% positive that the punishment we give ourselves is not what God wants for us. We are His precious children. He loves us and His love isn't determind by what we do. I know what it's like to feel like you have made too many mistakes. I know what it is like to feel unworthy of God or of forgiveness. I know that sometimes we believe that since we can't climb the mountain we shoudn't try to take just one step. But when I reach out to Him I get the assurance that He wants me there and that He doesn't care if I am perfect. He takes me as I am with the intention of lifting me up. I  just want to put it out there that He wants you, as you are. Tattered or torn doesn't matter. He loves you still and always will.

We need to treat ourselves and others as God would treat us. We need to be forgiving. We need to move on. We need to stop keeping score and start playing for the same team. This race is not against each other. We need to stand beside one another and help push each other up the hill and when we fail we need to trust that God will help do the lifting. 

Why Isn't This Enough?

Sometimes things are hard to say...Life has a way of knocking the wind out of you and it is hard to tell people what you are feeling. I went on a 10 day fast of social media and tonight was the first time I have looked at it. It is amazing how much it can make you feel like you are missing something in your life. It can make you feel like you are entitled to what everyone else has even if you have all you need.

About two years ago I went to the doctor and we talked about me having children. She was hesitant to ask but wanted to make sure I knew my options before anything happened. I spent a couple of months going to multiple doctors to get a feel for what I was going to deal with. At the time I didn't understand the significance of this on my life. It was like I had been shot but hadn't felt the pain quite yet. Every doctor agreed that if I tried to have children I would most likely die or my body wouldn't support the fetus and we would lose all of them. My first reaction was to brush it off like it was something I had already dealt with. I decided that we would do foster to adopt and my doctors were all happy and relieved with my decision.

It wasn't until there were multiple births in my family that I started to realize that it was real. I was able to attend the birth of my niece Charlotte and it was amazing. I felt so overjoyed but also a huge sense of disappointment that I wouldn't be able to have that experience. I started to feel jealous of everyone around me. I was so happy for them but I felt so sad for me. I felt that God had taken away the one thing He knows I want more than anything else, to be a mother.

As the months progressed I became a nanny to four wonderful children. I fell in love with them, and their parents, so quickly. I really felt like I had my very own family. I realized that these kids love me even though I am not their mom. I realized I could love these kids without having the same DNA. One of the most important things I learned is that I could LOVE their parents, especially their mom. It was something that has weighed heavily on my mind because I wanted to know that I could be sympathetic to people who were giving their kids away. Of course their mom in no way was giving her children away but it was an opportunity for me to step in and love them and love her. She has no idea how many times I have prayed to know that I would have the capacity to love the biological parents of my future children. She was the answer to my prayers and her family has blessed my life and Nathan's life immensely. Anyone that knows me knows that we have a special place in our hearts for these four kids. Quite literally, they mean the world to me and have give n me so much hope.

As I have spent these months searching my soul for answers as to why this happened I have had a crisis of faith. I started to doubt that God really loves me and that He wants me to be a mother. Everyday I feel like I am being slapped in the face with my reality and all I can do is ask why. People ask me about having kids all the time and it is so tough. I have spent countless nights crying to Nathan not knowing why we can't just "have kids". I wish it were that easy, but it just isn't. Adoption is a long process and for some reason I feel a calling to do foster care. I really want to be a good mom for any kids that need a mom, no matter how long they need me for. This is so hard because I don't know if I will ever have one that is only mine.

I guess all I am trying to say is that life is hard. It is easy to scroll the pages of Instagram and see people getting exactly what you want. It is easy to ask the Lord for everything you don't have instead of thanking Him for everything you do have. As I sit here tonight I look at my husband and realize that he might be the only family I get to have. Our pictures look small and our house feels quiet. We are working for degrees and very often go days without spending quality time together. It is hard to imagine that this is my life. This might be all I get. But then I think why isn't this enough? My life, my husband, my family is enough. If this is all I get than I will be grateful for what I got. Just know that you have and are enough. Count all the things you have and forget about all the things you don't have. I may never be a mom but I get to be a wife and a daughter and a friend and a sister. I know that I want to be the best one I can be. Doesn't mean I don't have days that I scream and cry and get angry. I can be mad but then I have to pick myself up and live the life I have been given.