Baby Belly

I have never met a woman who has not, or does not, struggle with dissatisfaction about her body. We all seem to think we have SOMETHING wrong with us. Too tall, too short... too fat, too skinny... hair too straight, or too curly, or just too much of it, or not enough... I wish I had more here, or less...

I met my Shorty just before I turned 17, and we got married two weeks after I graduated from high school. Fourteen months later we were blessed with the first member of our Crew. The other three joined us in quick succession over the next four and a half years. From the time I got married until I had our last baby, I gained 35 pounds. I've lost nearly 30 of those pounds in the last eighteen months, but I still have my "baby belly". I got significant stretch marks-- in fact, I know which set came with which pregnancy! ;) And I do often miss the youthful body that I had before the babies.

Yesterday I read a blog by a dear sister in Christ who struggled with infertility and then with post-baby body image.

These are the lines of a story

I was so encouraged by her perspective, and I began to think about my own struggle over the toll that pregnancy took on my body. I tell my Crew all the time about how wonderfully God made our bodies. About how our nerves SCREAM when we hurt ourselves. About how God put little things in our blood that stick together to make "band-aids" when we cut ourselves. About how God designed women to be able to grow babies in our bellies... but when the girls ask about my stretch marks, I agree that they look funny. Although I always thought that my Mommy's stretch marks were beautiful.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
Psalms 139:13-17

I was praying this morning. "Lord, help me to see even my baby belly as 'wonderfully made'. And please leave my stretch marks on my belly for eternity." That may seem like a bit of an odd prayer. But like my sister said so eloquently, "these are the lines of a story". The story of how God grew each of my little blessings, and used me to do it. And although I don't know much about our glorified bodies, the Bible does say that Jesus still had scars in His hands, feet, and side. After all, Thomas touched them! So maybe-- I hope-- I get to keep my scars too...

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe." Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
John 20:24-29

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
1 Corinthians 15:51-53