To say I have struggled with my weight since I became a mom would be a lie. It didn’t even start when I became a model. Nope. I have struggled with my weight since the first ounce I gained when hitting puberty. Before then, people in my life knew me as a rack of bones who ate like a bird. It was funny to them how little I ate. So funny in fact, they brought tables full of our friends and family into jokes about it on special occasions. The truth? I hadn’t found anything I liked to eat yet. Don’t worry–I definitely found food I like. When I did, I also found out what people thought about and liked about me.

My struggle was never with my weight.

As I watered my garden the other morning, I called out to my daughters to come see a cute, fat caterpillar I found. We treasured the mere sight of it. A full and bright green body with yellow and black bands of color striping every segment as it velcroed itself to the shoot of a parsley plant and fattened up on the leaves. We were sure it was the caterpillar of a monarch butterfly and got all excited we could identify it on our own. I even had an instagram caption ready for the posting, “Now I know why monarch butterflies are a breath of fresh air. Because they eat so much parsley!”

But after a little googling, I discovered it was a black swallowtail caterpillar, not a monarch. And it is well argued that eating parsley doesn’t freshen breath. This little caterpillar taught me more lessons about things not being what they seem. Which is especially true if the reader isn’t well educated about the subject matter and operates from a place of presumption.

Why do caterpillars get to be fat and cute?

I watered longer than normal and looked closer. It snacked away and posed for photos with its fat physique in all its glory. All that snacking made me hungry. Then I started contemplating the smart food choices I didn’t want to make for lunch and I thought, “Why do caterpillars get to eat all day and still be fat and cute?”

And the old familiar pang of jealousy rose up. For an insect! What in tarnation?! This is what beauty culture and diet culture do to us. This is what a steady diet of celebrity culture and fashion magazines does to our brains. Obsession with thinness rewires us to focus on the fat in everything. It has taken me decades to learn my struggle was never with my weight or fat or food. My fight was, and is, for who I am.

How could you let yourself go?

Our culture has a repulsion to fat and fatness. Its obsession with staving off fat is so beyond toxic that it turns a blind eye to those starving and wasting away. You will never pick up a women’s health magazine because the headlines on the cover page warn our culture that we might be skipping too many meals, that we might be taking our work out routines too far, that we are losing our focus on what actually brings happiness by pursuing the feeling of happy. Those magazines don’t exist. And if someone were to try and compete on the newsstands with headlines of Scripture to help with women’s health, it wouldn’t sell near as many as those with costly, empty promises. Whose words are you buying?

Our culture shames women when we gain weight with, “How could you let yourself go?” Then if offers to help us find ourselves again with anti-wrinkle creams, injections, suntans, and self-care and skin-care routines paired with a bottle or two of wine. Yet God’s grace is free. His grace is the only thing that actually changes us from the inside out, no matter what our insides or outsides do look like or will look like. That Jesus laid His life down at the greatest cost to himself in order to set us free seems too good to be true to, especially to a world trained to believe we have to buy our happiness.

God doesn’t teach us to remodel ourselves.

Our culture encourages elective surgeries that financially extend ourselves beyond our means to risk our actual lives in order to emerge from the operating room as a slimmer, svelter, “better” remodeled version of ourselves. And yet, all that risk doesn’t make our innermost being any better. Remodeling ourselves perpetuates the lies that we need to look different to feel better. And it continues to silence our need to actually remove the things that kill us from the inside out. God doesn’t teach us to remodel ourselves; He teaches us to remove sin from ourselves.

At its worst, our culture teaches us that we have to compromise our hearts and our marital beds to entice our spouses to stay in them. Yup. I said what I said. We know those who claim Christianity also lure their spouses to spice things up in ways that tear the relationship down. And it destroys more than the trust and intimacy of the marriage. One hit of pleasure by watching an online video exploits underage girls and heaps trauma and pain onto them before they even begin building a life, just so people can fool themselves into thinking their life was better for 15 minutes. Only to be empty again on minute sixteen and compulsed to start the cycle all over again.

I know what you’re probably thinking. “Wait, what? How did we get from talking about a cute and fat caterpillar to meddling in my bedroom secrets?” That’s how fast we get taken for a ride when we’re not paying attention.

How did we get here from there?

When people started commenting on how much I ate or how I my body was developing and filling out, they let me know they were watching and scrutinizing the appearance of my body on a regular basis. These were not the same people who taught me how to eat well, to exercise at a healthy level, or to give myself grace when I make mistakes. Yet, I let their opinions take my relationship with my body for a ride.

When I was at the required size for my work and people started telling me to arch my back more or raise my chest higher, they let me know it looks better and sells better when I use my body to remind people of sex. These were not the same people who taught me about work ethic, or how to file my taxes honestly, or how to use things like my smile to bring joy to the world around me. But of course, I let their plans for my body take my career for a ride.

When I couldn’t lose the weight after I became a mom, people told me I needed to restrict my diet and work out and go shopping in order to look good and keep my marriage intact. These were not the same people who told me I need to be honest with my husband about where I spend my money, that I need to have him and only him on my “list,” that I should lift him up with my words instead of tear him down. And I let their advice take our marriage for a ride.

What part of yourself have you let go?

When we gain weight and they say we let ourselves go, they’re partly right. But we, as Christian women who want to honor our God’s design for our bodies, would go about regaining ourselves differently than they would. They would look to everything outside of our Creator to find what they are made for–the number on the scale, body fat percentage, body fat loss, muscle gain, lash or hair extensions, designer clothes, handbags, jewelry, luxury cars. We look within Him to find what He made us for.

Letting go of our Creator’s truths in exchange for our truth, rejecting His plans for our lives in pursuit of what we want in our lives, and neglecting the body He’s given us here on earth–that is how we truly let ourselves go.

We must regrasp our relationship with our Creator

to know what we are created for.

God doesn’t make us better, He makes us new. He removes all the things that keep us from living in Him. He gives us new eyes to see, new ears to hear, and new minds that want to care for the one body we have.

Whatever it is we have taken on that we know we must let go of–bitterness, rage, trauma, spiritual abuse, physical scars, shame, fear–let’s agree with the life of the caterpillar. And be transformed. A caterpillar’s purpose in life is to eat {Psalm 34:8}. But then it goes into hiding, tucked away in a chrysalis {Mark 6:31}. And the new butterfly sloughs away its old self with each first bat of its wings {Ephesians 4:22-24}. Then it defies death and floats and flutters in all of its glory and drinks the nectar of life to the full {John 10:10}.

Find yourself in Him.

Caterpillars get to be fat and cute. It’s true. But if they’re living out the greater purposes for their lives and not lingering in their current state, they don’t stay there; they grow.

The caterpillar couldn’t transform into a butterfly who gives life to the world if it stayed in its past state, storing away earthly treasures all day {Matthew 6:19}. It had to submit to God’s plans for its life {Proverbs 3:5-6} and let its previous purpose fall away to the past {Philippians 3:7} to pursue its future {Philippians 3:14}. Caterpillars stock up before they go into hiding and emerge a butterfly. Maybe we can take all of the treasure we have stored up on earth and go into hiding with God. Let Him speak to us and heal us. Then we can emerge transformed into a glorious reflection of His creation.

Love,

Amanda

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