Weight a Minute

“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”  -John 7:24

            It’s imbedded in the human nature to do so and we are all guilty of it, you know what I’m referring to, judgment. Yes, we are all entitled to our opinions but I believe that opinions were never intended to hurt others until we got ahold of them. At our annual “Taco Tuesday on a Monday” the other day we somehow got on to the topic lying (which has nothing to do with post…at the moment) and how when women ask their significant other or just a male friend the “does this make me look fat” question. Most men will either avoid this question or will say no even if it totally makes your hips look the size of Texas! But aren’t girls just as guilty to do this to each other to make themselves look better? Or even better, we do this to ourselves.

            I thought back to my senior year of high school (which wasn’t that long ago) earlier this week. I was scanning through pictures from my mother’s wedding, at the time I thought I looked awesome but after looking back I was probably the heaviest I had ever been. Did it really matter that I didn’t look as good as I thought? For granted that I had heart surgery only six months prior which caused me to bloat, majorly. I had gained 3 dress sizes in the 6 months. But was I as happy as I thought I was in those pictures, or was that just a front?

            The summer after that proved what I already knew, I wasn’t happy, I just told myself that I was. And there was no one specific thing that made me feel that way, I just was. With the stress of college approaching and the fear of not fitting in I did as many girls my age would have done; I took the weight matter into my own hands. There were days that I didn’t eat or if I did eat it never made it through my system. It didn’t make me feel better but I thought at the time it would. Some of my closest friends started noticing this at a children’s camp that our church was helping at. I was not myself. I was pail, tired, depressed, and frankly I didn’t care about anything except for myself. With the help from some amazing friends I was able to turn myself around before anything majorly bad happened to me.

            After watching a documentary today, that was so closely related to my devotional this morning, I was so glad that I had those friends that were there during my time of need. If not I could have been just another headstone in a cemetery with grieving parents asking what could have possibly went wrong. I could have been just like so many other people with untold stories of triumph and failures. I might be breaching 6 foot but I'm a far cry from model material, and I'm totally okay with that! That’s why with this blog I want to be able to tell about the amazing parts of life but also the ugly, and also hear many of your stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly. We all have them so feel free to share your stories; you never know who might need it. (: