A recent Sunday, my pastor preached on this topic and I found myself weeping at the alter and having such a strong desire to blog about it!
For much of my life, I have felt SO fat and ugly. When I was young, I went to Taiwan with my mom for my grandfather’s funeral and came back MUCH heavier. Everyone there just kept feeding me and feeding me and I didn’t know to say “no.” That was the beginning of a lifelong struggle with overeating, weight, and body image. As time has gone on, I have had ups and downs but deep down, I constantly struggle with feelings of inadequacy and shame.
I remember from a young age being told I needed to lose weight; being told I had a hump on my back and having my parents being seriously surprised when I was not diagnosed with scoliosis because they thought the “hump” on my back was that bad; and the multiple times my parents stayed silent when our extended family called me fat, told me I needed to lose weight, and sheer surprise that I wanted to be a doctor (because clearly, someone as huge as me could never achieve such dreams).
Here in America, I am counted as average. At my heaviest I was 184 pounds which, on a 5’2″ frame is a lot, but I have lost MANY pounds since then. This deep seated feeling of being fat has stayed with me though. As the preacher continued talking about how we need allow Jesus to rip the labels off our life and replace it with His promises, I couldn’t help but see that my label was “fat and ugly.”
As some of you may have read- I might soon be embarking on a new relationship (or not? I’ll find out tomorrow what direction the guy has chosen after calling a week to just step back, pray, fast, and see what God wants- although he has openly told a group that we both are in on Facebook that he would marry me if I would say yes) and I can see that God is laying out various steps in my life to prepare me for a relationship- whether with him or someone else.
In the mean time, God has been using others to call me beautiful. Even my aunt told my mom the other day that I look so pretty now. I think there is something to be said of learning to just place my life in God’s hands and knowing intently that I am His and His alone. Of knowing that boys may come and boys may go, but my Jesus stays with me forever and loves me and calls me beautiful every day. I may not always hear it audibly from someone, but I feel Him say it. Lately though, it has been nice to have Him bring people into my life to tell me often- guys or girls, stranger or friend- God has been telling me I am beautiful. He has been ripping that label off day by day and is waiting to just place His label- “BEAUTIFUL AND LOVED” on me.
Dear reader,
You are loved today. God wants to take every bad, horrible, wrong label on you today and rip it off and put His own on! It may hurt during the process but it is worth it! Let Him love you. It was because of love that He came to die for our sins. It was because of love that He allowed those stripes to be ripped on his back so that we might be healed by them. It is because of love that we can have a new life in Him.
Let Him love you as I have been letting Him love me,
Rebekah M.
Being Rebekah 
I love this! I could have written it myself. lol. And I love you!! 🙂
I’m glad that you’re letting God rip the same label off you! I know that you’ve struggled with this same problem and it always hurts my heart that you don’t see your own beauty, but clearly, I have the same problem! God though- He is better and stronger than that. He loves us all SO very much and yes, Rebekah L- you are beautiful and one day a man will see that 🙂 In HIS timing 🙂
This was exactly what I needed to read today. It was an answer to my morning prayer and mediation. Thank you!
I’m so glad tina!! 🙂 God is SO good and His timing is amazing! I have had this in my “drafts” folder for over a week now! Praise God that He knows when to lead who to what and where!!! May God bless you with His label and may you learn to wear it proudly! YOU ARE LOVED! 🙂 YOU ARE BEAUTIFULLY LOVED BY JESUS 🙂 God bless you my friend! 🙂
You know i hav been thinking about this blog post u hav written. The beauty of ur blogs is I hav no idea what u look like. l can hear u talk about ur shame re ur weight, but I dont see ur weight. When I read ur blogs the only thing I can see is a beautiful woman of God. Who has a heart of compassion, a desire for excellence in God. I love ur genuine passion for the Lord. When shame tells u ur ‘fat’, please remind it what God sees. He sees his beautiful princess that wants to do His will. He values ur existance and loves the core of who u r. He can see past ur failins n see u. He is smitten with u – there is no one that loves like our God!
Thank you SO much for those words! I’m tearing up here reading them. So true but hard to remember some times… again, thank you so much for your words! God bless you!
Isaiah 53:4 (NASB)
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Matthew 8:16b-17 (NASB)
He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”
How incredible is it, not only that Jesus tears away our frailties and labels, and gives new life… but that He Himself takes them onto(into) Himself… replacing them, transfusing us, with His Own life, spirit, perfection?
What wondrous love is this, O my soul?
Having gained back half of my hard-won weight loss from last year, I definitely needed to hear this message. Thank you, O pink one (that’s what I know about your appearance. ;)), since you don’t have a picture of yourself on here. Maybe if things with the “boy” turn out we’ll see a photo of the two of you? (hint, hint ;))
\o/