Because We All Can Be A Success Story….

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” Her life changed the day she learned that she was just as valuable as everyone else. ~Unknown. “

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   See that first girl?

   Now the second?

    The difference between her is eighty pounds and a lifetime of obstacles overcome.

   Most people are going to wonder why the pictures are backwards. Most scroll through social media to find the after pictures smaller than the before…but not this one. 

Yet it is still a success story.

   In a society where worth is based on outward appearance…where you are judged by the size of your pants or the shape of your breasts… we are losing the ability to see the actual person. As you browse through social media and success story after success story pops up in your news feed you can’t help but question your capabilities and feel inadequate for not being in that same place. For not being “there” yet.

We’ve all been there at some point.

    This week as I looked in the mirror at my “failure” of a body I could not help but also think just what this body has accomplished, the beautiful little people this body has brought in to this world, and the places this body has been.

   I have spent many times putting my life and my happiness on hold….waiting until I could lose that next twenty pounds.

    I have avoided wearing the newest clothes because my arms or legs needed to be covered, or because I was going to wait until my body was the right size.

   I diminished my job as a wife, mother, and friend…allowing myself to think that minus fifty pounds would fix my marriage or fill my voids.

   I let my love handle dictate which functions I attended, and my cellulite to forbid me from swimming with my children.

   My wedding day picture hangs on my wall not as a reminder of the beauty of marrying my best friend and becoming one before God, but instead as a symbol of when I was once good enough.

This has to stop.

Our self worth is NOT in our body size.

   Our sense of what it is to be a loving, valuable, strong woman and mother is not dictated by the size of our pants.

   That lighter girl in the first picture had the same family problems, self doubts, and insecurities….if not more, than the bigger one.

I am in no way defending obesity…but I am defending self-worth.

   So to the woman who isn’t “there” yet…you are here. Live here in the now. You deserve it. you are worth it. Each pound is a life lesson, each scar a battle won.

   Regardless of waist size you are an accomplishment. Your raising warriors, you’re saving lives…impacting lives, you are building careers,  and you are standing courageous in a world that has yet to truly acknowledge the true beauty of a person.

   So the next time you look in that mirror in disgust, or disappointment. Next time you try to step out of a picture with those beautiful little ones. Remember that you are loved by your family, by your friends, and most importantly by a God that cares more about your heart than your dress size.

Embrace life here in the full, while reaching for the future.

…and someday you’ll get there.

You are a success story.

You are enough.

In the right here.

In the right now.

Period.

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16 thoughts on “Because We All Can Be A Success Story….”

  2. I very much needed to read this Sarah, thank you! And I may read it over and over until it finally sinks into my brain.

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  3. Well said.I admire you so much for putting it all out there. I’m not the type of person who can just let the world know how I’m feeling, about anything. On the rare occasion that I do share, I immediately feel like I’ve said too much. This post really hits close to home. As a woman of 46, yikes, I should know better than to fall into the trap of a perfect body image and the false idea that it can fix almost anything. I know it can’t and doesn’t fix anything, and all the images we see in the various forms of media of women with perfect bodies are false illusions. The women in the pictures don’t even look like themselves due to airbrushing, lighting, and all the other smoke and mirrors they use to project an unreachable goal. I identify with not swimming with my child because of insecurities. I love swimming, but I haven’t been seen in a bathing suit since I was probably 16. The only times I’ve worn one in the past 30 years have been when sun tanning in my back yard, with fingers crossed that no one would show up unexpectedly. Having said that, I haven’t worn one in over 10 years. I have 10 – 15 pounds that I want to lose, just in order to be able to wear and be comfortable in certain clothes, never mind what it would take for me to don a bathing suit without covering up with a sarong. In all honesty, I’m just throwing numbers around because I haven’t stepped on a scale in probably 2 years. I just know that I don’t like what I see in the mirror and I’ve been trying for 5 months to lose weight, the correct, albeit, slow way. I have lost some, but not enough to make me want to rush out and buy a bathing suit to enjoy something I love and miss doing. I think it’s outrageous that we as woman feel like we have to live up to some twisted idea that society has about beauty. There is so much pressure placed on young women to look a certain way and unfortunately, in a lot of cases, we carry that into adulthood. It’s a difficult concept to shake and it so doesn’t have anything to do with who we are on the inside or what our worth is.

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  6. What a great reminder for me! I always been a “big boned” and chubby girl. After dealing having ulcerative colitis and having emergency surgery done because I became septic, due to colitis. I lost a lot of weight and after recuperating from all of this, kept off the weight. I walked all the time, watched what I ate.. after a while I became tired of trying to keep it up. So I slowly gained back the weight. I think I had a burn out. It’s tough for a person to keep up with the media, publicity and what the world expect from you to be labeled as successful person. Whether I’m thin or round around the edges. I’m still the same person, with dreams and aspirations. But I don’t need to look like barbie either to be loved and appreciated.

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  7. We (especially women) are pretty tough on ourselves in many situations. This is an excellent post and I very much enjoy your writing about real life. Take care & thanks for sharing.

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