It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another Meet Me At This Moment for Five Minute Friday post! I spend the last two hours of Thursday chatting it up with a group of authentic and inspiring Five Minute Friday bloggers on Twitter (#FiveMinuteFriday #fmfparty). One minute past midnight EST Friday, Lisa-Jo Baker gives us a single word prompt and we all write a blog post centered around that word. We write for five minutes, and five minutes only! In the words of Lisa, this is “unscripted. unedited. real.” You meet me at this moment in time…my thoughts and opinions, my joys and sorrows, my dilemmas and dreams. And I receive one of the greatest gifts ever…a regular outlet for processing and expressing my thoughts without constantly editing myself. This is my life, my perspective, unfiltered.

The word of the week is GRASP. 

Ready. Set. GO!

I admit, I’ve been having some body image issues lately. My baby is nine months, and I’ve been stuck five pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight for four months.

Last Sunday, getting ready for church, I was possibly at my worst. I stood in the closet, looking for what to wear. I put on a pear of my bigger pants. Even those didn’t fit. This is the problem I’ve had for months. Nothing fits except the leggings. Capri leggings in the summer, and now long leggings for the colder weather. None of the regular pants fit and it is making me crazy. Some say, “oh, just get some different pants,” or “don’t worry, you’ll fit into them soon enough.” But it has really been getting me down that NONE of the pants fit in my closet, and I don’t want to buy all new pants!

So this pair of pants, one of the bigger pair, was my best bet. I put them on and the fat rolled off the side just as I hated with every other pair. I wish I could just be ok with it and wear them that way. But I feel fat and uncomfortable with that fat rolling off the side.

Then I wonder if a shirt will help cover it up. That didn’t help at all. In fact, the shirt highlights the fat even more.

Maybe a double layer will help. The plain sweater, camoflauge it all? Nope. That didn’t do it either. The fat still shows through even with the double layer. I am feeling worse and worse as every layer goes on.

Then I strip it all off and put on the flowy dress with the flowy vest and leggings. And it all feels covered, and nobody can see all of the dilemma I faced in that closet, the tears, the agony, the fight within myself.

I look over at that dress I wore one year ago when I was pregnant. Oh so pretty. Bought that regular dress so I could “wear it after,” but it still doesn’t fit, and that makes me just want to be pregnant all my life so I don’t have to worry about feeling fat anymore.

And then I hear crying from the room next door to that closet. Little baby. I enter, and there is baby standing up in her crib, and I grasp at the beauty I birthed from this body. This body, what I call fat, birthed this being. And enters another being I birthed, my son. From within this fat, came him too. And they are beautiful. And they love. And they are so much more than my fat, my feelings of inadequacy in my own body. And it all makes more sense, and it all puts it in a new light. And I grasp for the truth God speaks to my heart…I feel fat, but I am blessed. And God says I am beautiful.

Stop.

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4

Amy