136

I weigh one hundred and thirty-six pounds. My stomach is the one part of my body I’m most self-conscious of and want to hide (I could mention my upper thighs too but let’s stay focused here).

In 2020 for the first time in my life, I worked out consistently. Multiple times a week, I pushed myself until I shook. I dripped sweat and grew stronger. I also did this yesterday.

But underneath my shirt, I still have a soft pooch—a wrinkled artifact from birthing two kids and surviving double rounds of postpartum depression, anxiety and intrusive thoughts. I

I don’t want a new workout routine or meal planning suggestions. Unsolicited advice about my body, the history it carries and what it’s future could be won’t be listened to. I may very well carry this extra curve of skin into glory. And God won’t love me any less if I do.

Now before someone reads this and tells me I’m not “honoring my temple ( i.e., body) with talk like that, hear me out. I’m all for being healthy, ok? I just don’t believe the Holy Spirit is shaming me into “honoring my body” because it belongs to Him.

I believe He’s loving me into the process of partnering with my Creator to steward ALL my resources for His glory. My spiritual resources. My emotional resources. My mental resources. And yes, my physical resources.

I believe God is for honoring the whole temple I’m currently earth-bound in. This doesn’t just include the soft, dimpled places on my body.

I am more than a body.

>>>>

One night, I was putting my daughter to bed. In-between changing her from day clothes to pajamas, she ended up in front of me wearing only a diaper. Suddenly, she placed her pudgy hands on either side of her pearl-smooth tummy, squishing it together until her skin bunched together to form a hundred peach colored wrinkles.

While looking down at her temporarily transformed stomach she exclaimed: “Just wike mommy!” with a hint of accomplishment in her three year old voice.

She was proud to look like me.

>>>>

Why am I writing about this today? What does a woman who teaches writing and photography have to say about body image? A lot apparently.

I’m still learning this myself but I want fellow writers and photographer to know: it all seeps together.

The confidence I gain by “putting my work out there” bleeds over into getting the guts to publicly share what’s hiding under my shirt and not flinch.

When I make time to hone my writing and photography because I want to honor and steward the gifts God’s given me, I start making time to make healthier choices for my mind and body too.

When I pay attention to the mundane invisible-to-the-public eye moments in motherhood, I start seeing stories everywhere. I see God everywhere.

And when you see God everywhere, you’re just thankful to experience the miracle of His presence through the body you’re in.

All 136 pounds of it.

On Choosing Well

The sun’s last blaze of light is turning our house into a living ember. I’ve got my camera in hand, stoking the heat to life with my lens. Observing, clicking, adjusting. I want to remember what it was like when we were all young and lived in this warmth together. I’m choosing to truly see.

I’m about to lead my family into a busy season.

In April, I’m teaching a brand new workshop for free while simultaneously opening up enrollment to Shadows & Stars for the first time in 2021. It’s such a privilege to get to do this work but, it’s undeniably a lot of work. Mental work. Computer work. Social media work.

There’s also the reality that I’m homeschooling a 1st grader, raising a three year old and the primary cog in keeping the house running while running a business by myself.

If I’m not careful, I allow my intense circumstances to be in the drivers seat (i.e., my attitude). I won’t say it out loud but I’ll think: “If things weren’t so crazy, if there wasn’t so much being asked of me—I wouldn’t be so snappy with the kids and angry at my husband.”

Last week, I picked up The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp—a book I’ve had for years but never finished. Her words bloomed off the page in fragrant truth:

“Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Giving yourself to joy is a choice. Choose well.” - Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way

I get to choose.

By God’s grace, I can decide how I let this upcoming season affect my heart’s attitude. I’m not at the mercy of “busyness”. I'm under the mercy of God.

I will not be able to do everything. But everything God asks of me will also have the grace I need to see it accomplished. Anything falling outside of what God asks of me will simply need to be let go.

I watch the light as it braids tendrils of stardust into her hair and feel a release.

Photography is (mostly) about paying attention to light. Where it’s coming from, where it lands. If you don’t know how to observe light, your photography will suffer for it.

Life is (mostly) about paying attention to God—the Source of my soul’s light. If I don’t choose to observe—hunt for—Him in life, my days will suffer for it.

What am I paying attention to?

Jonathan is doing school at 5pm with Behr. Both my boys are sprawled out on the couch. Jonathan looks up with a rainbow prism caressing his face—The promise-artifact of God resting on the one who promised himself to me nearly a decade ago. Glory.

I’ve got tasks to tackle and emails to write. There are social media posts to plan and schedules to nail down. My to-do list have to-do lists. Big Projects don’t happen with out Big Planning. But if I’m not vigilant, I can plan Joy right out of my days.

The sun speckles across our smooshed together faces. The house is amber glass. She laughs without fear. May a spark of her always be this free, this unafraid to revel in joy. Her name means ‘light’.

A free mini-work shop. A new six-week round of live classes and coaching. Another Spring spent equipping women to thrive in both motherhood and artistry. I want to steward this time well. I want to tenaciously go after my work both in and outside the home. I want to lead the charge of claiming victory and take indulgent naps afterwards. I want to play well and work well. I want to choose well.

The sun is now tracing the hem of the horizon in golden swaths—getting ready to stitch the sky shut. A few unruly beams bounce off my plants and splash in through the dirty kitchen window.

The coming weeks will get busy, no doubt. But I don’t have to swallow down stress with it. I can choose to show up every day as best I can and let God’s grace fill in the gaps. It’s contrary to what the world would say, but the success of my business isn’t entirely up to me. I don’t have to carry that weight. I just have to ask God where I need to show up and then, watch Him work.

I ask Jonathan to grab my hand for a picture. I want to capture what it feels like to constantly be reaching for each other is a swirl of sleepless nights, snack orders and tiny hearts that needs us so much. I don’t want to forget that—somehow—we always found each other.

What if intense circumstances aren’t forcing me into stress but giving me an opportunity to choose God’s peace in the storm of them? What if I entered into whatever 2021 keeps asking of me and believed there was already enough grace available for me to navigate it?

Later, he gives me a kiss right before the sun makes her trek to waken the Southern Hemisphere. Suddenly, I’m kindling—snapping alive at the feel of his skin against mine, the warmth of being fully known and still loved.

The fistfuls of holy God tucks into each moment—I’m choosing to fully see them and meet with God wherever He wants to meet with me.

Doomsday Bunkers + Yellow Flowers

I’m tapping away at my laptop again. Scout is asleep. Behr is supposed to be, but keeps poking his head out the door because, “I can’t close my eyes.”

I wish I could close mine.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I never do when Jonathan works night shift. I sleep lightly with my glasses on his pillow in case I have to jump up and defend the children from intruders. This has never happened. But my worst-case-scenario brain is always prepared for, well, the worst.

It’s 14 days until the time changes and 20 before Spring arrives. My brain automatically starts preparing for the onslaught of thunderstorms and sleepless nights that accompany the change of season. I feel my body tensing up already from the lack of sleep and increased anxiety as a result.

Instead of looking forward to Spring, I’m already battening down the hatches and hunkering down.

>>>

Four days ago Jonathan spotted something bright yellow in the yard. I was shocked. Was that a pansy? In February?!

Jonathan took Behr out to check and, against all odds, that’s exactly what it was. A butter colored pansy popping right out of the frozen dirt, undaunted.

I planted those pansies last Fall. I don’t even like pansies but they were a gift. Our family had eaten out at Cracker Barrel and while Jonathan paid for our meal, I took the kids out on the porch to keep them from begging for toys.

While we waited for Jonathan to join us, we watched a group of landscapers working the mulch beds out front. One burly man was planting flowers in the dirt right next to us. I pointed their yellow petals out to Scout. Before I knew what was happening, the man stood up and offered me a half a tray of unplanted pansies. He didn’t even speak the same language as me, but the gesture was clear. He wanted me to take them home. “Are you sure?” I asked. He nodded. I obliged.

And now, it looks like speck of sunlight got snagged in the dead grass in our front yard; a golden thumbprint from our planet’s nearest star.

Seeing that flower is like God tapping on the door of my mental doomsday bunker and saying, “I know you’re scared but, did you forget about the flowers?”

Why, yes. Yes, I did.

I forgot living Shadowlands means the impossibly hard mingles with the undeniably good. I forgot that sometimes the good is very good because we know exactly what very bad feels like and the contrast makes us all the more grateful.

>>>

Both my children are now asleep. Jonathan will sneak in the house at 6:30am and fall asleep next to me right when Scout wakes up. I’ll most likely start the day exhausted and in need of the Lord’s grace.

Every day moves us closer to Spring and all the rough transition that comes with it.

And every day, more flowers will come.