Enjoyment means looking in the right mirror

There are days that I get up and look in the mirror and think, “ugh.” I look at my cheeks and think about how if I smile too big I look like a chipmunk. I silently curse myself for eating a second helping at dinner the night before when I realize my pants are fitting a little more snug than they did before. I try and convince myself that I have time to exercise during the small window of  nap time, but I’m just so tired I can’t bring myself to do it. I go to bed telling myself I’ll eat less, exercise more, and feel better tomorrow. Then I do the same thing the next day.

On the good days, I realize that I’m incredibly hard on myself. I’ve been pregnant eight times and given birth to three children in the past nine years. I’ve been on several different types of birth controls to prevent pregnancy and progesterone to keep me pregnant. Should I really be surprised by the fact that I might not be a size 2…or even a size 6?

I could take this all spiritual on you and give you (and myself) a pep talk about how we’re “fearfully and wonderfully made” and how God loves us for who we are and isn’t concerned with our appearances. I could talk about how physical appearances doesn’t matter in the race towards our heavenly goal. I could quote scriptures to back myself up and make us all feel bad for feeling bad about ourselves.

I’m not going to do that though because you’ve heard it.

More than once I’ve struggled in front of the mirror, trying to get ready for church. My hair doesn’t do what I want and my clothes don’t fit the way I want them to fit. More than once, Samuel has walked in and said, “Mommy, you’re so pretty.” He smiles when I wear my sparkly shirt because it looks like a dance party in the light.

My boys don’t care what I look like. They think I’m beautiful because they know who I am. They’re not looking at my clothing size, they’re looking at my heart. Someday when I’m gone, I want them to be able to look back at photos and remember all the fun times we had when they were growing up. I don’t want them to search through old photos and realize mom was never in them because she was worried about how she looked.

Enjoying my life means ignoring my bathroom mirror and looking at the three little mirrors God gave me.