“I look to You...”
Amy Perry's testimony and recording of "I Look to You" is the perfect spiritual message for prefacing this post. The song starts at 3 minutes and 40 seconds. But I hope you will take a moment to listen to her telling of its story.
I was never a "chubby" girl. Well, not until my sixteenth summer.
Growing up, there was never any extra food on the table. As one of eight children and ten people in our household, we were just grateful to get a first serving. Seconds were not in our meal vocabulary.
But that summer, I went to work at a beautiful inn on the shores of Lake Champlain. We weren't paid much for the 60 hour weeks we worked, but we could have all the food we wanted. And I wanted it all. Sticky buns in every stage of their development -- raw dough, raw dough filled with cinnamon and sugar rising under linen cloths, baked, frosted, warm, cold, stale -- I wasn't picky.
And that was just before breakfast. Our long days of cleaning rooms, chopping vegetables, waiting on tables, and teaching water skiing, ended well-after 10:30 each night in the kitchen. Ten girls with tablespoons, sitting on the kitchen counter, a huge tub of ice cream in the middle. Laughing, talking about boys, and eating as much ice cream as we wanted -- for me, it was a heavenly sense of belonging.
By the end of that summer, I barely fit into my bathing suit or any of the polyester waitress uniforms we'd been given. But what the heck, I'd enjoyed the time of my life. As a group of girls we'd had a great summer and our bodies had served us well. I'd always been a tiny, petite girl. But after that summer, I was just short -- well, short and chubby. It wasn't something I was worried about.
And until my parents came to pick me up at the end of the summer, I'd never realized how invested they were in my looks. But their reaction was instantaneous. My mom took one look at me and burst into tears -- and her tears continued. Every time she looked into the back seat of the station wagon on the long trip home, she'd lose it.
My dad's reaction was less immediate, but just as imprinting. Once we got home he brought me an egg salad sandwich, on soft white bread, with a pile of potato chips -- one of my favorite meals. He sat across from me as I wolfed it down, and then told me that from that moment forward, I would not put a single piece of food in my mouth, that he hadn't prepared, until I had lost the weight.
It didn't take long on a his mandatory diet of carrot sticks, hard-boiled eggs, and whatever was being harvested from the garden that fall. I was an obedient child, and by Thanksgiving I was back to "normal." My mom was happy. My dad was proud of me once more. And I could fit into my younger sister's skirts again. It was like the nightmare was over. But it was just beginning.
I had a new enemy -- my body. It could betray me. It could entrap me. It could make me feel ashamed and ugly. It could make my parents distance themselves from me. I hated it. I would continue to secretly hate it for decades.
But I don't hate it anymore. So, what has changed. Oh my gosh, so much.
First, I have daughters that I love. And even though I never outright told them that I hated my body, it was in everything I did. Not eating, dressing it in baggy sack-like clothing, filling it with equal parts of M&Ms and Diet Coke - in massive quantities -- you name it. None of it good.
And yes, when it turned its discomfort on me, I dutifully prayed for it. But it was not with a genuine love for its function, beauty, grace, and usefulness. It was like putting cheap oil in your reliable old car, and then kicking the fender as you got in, swearing and complaining that it wasn't a Lamborghini.
I had a body, but I secretly hated it. That had to change if I loved my daughters.
Secondly, I started to see the hypocrisy of expecting my body be a faithful servant, while I was still refusing to lovingly feed or care for it. It took years of self-examination, self-compassion, and self-forgiveness to realize I was worthy of a healthy relationship with my body.
But it was Mary Baker Eddy's statement from Miscellaneous Writings that really brought me up short:
"The body is the servant of Mind"
With her capitalization of the word "Mind" she reminds us that she is referring to God - and not the human mind. And because Mind is one of the synonymous terms for God it also implied that the body was the servant of Principle, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. Therefore, in its highest spiritual signification, the body is the servant of Love - of God. The servant of Truth. The servant of Soul. And I was treating Love's servant like a hated slave, not a faithful servant in the household - the consciousness - of divine Love. I wasn't honoring its gifts of grace.
Today, my relationship with the concept of body is healthy, appreciative, and grateful. Yes, I have a body -- but I am not my body. With its help, I serve God. But it does not define me. Everyday I look in the mirror and say, "Thank you for all that you will do today to help me express affection, strength, usefulness, flexibility, cooperation, joy."
And when I hold my daughters and grandchildren close, I whisper a prayer of gratitude for this beautiful, obedient, graceful servant -- its arms filled with Love.
offered with Love,
Cate
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