Learning to Love my Postpartum Body
Motherhood & Body Positivity
I’d be lying if I said it was easy to stay positive about how I feel towards my body in this postpartum season of my life. Even long before having children, going way way back to my childhood years, I have had a complicated relationship with my body - as I’m sure you may relate with too if you’re reading this. And now after carrying & delivering another baby, I am looking at my reflection in the mirror & staring down at the number on the scale wondering how I can like, let alone love, my body while it looks & feels like this. My skin has been stretched, there are extra pounds here and there, my body feels soft and it is all too easy for shame & even hate to creep in. I hear myself thinking and even speaking out loud very unkind words over my body & I find myself making a plan to punish it in hopes that it will maybe take back the shape of something I can be okay with.
I teeter between clinging to the empty encouragement of people I don’t know online telling me that “I’m perfect just the way I am” & the false idea that if I can have complete control over my body if only I eat perfectly & exercise & have all the right products & do all the right things. Neither of these perspectives bringing me true peace or encouragement.
Now I know all of that sounds so negative. And it is. Very much so. I am being honest here about some of my rawest thoughts as of late…
BUT, I have also been encouraged lately by a few simple truths in regards to my body. They’re not empty compliments & they might not sound like the normal inspirational quotes we pin on Pinterest, but they have lifted me up. They have brought me peace & lifted an impossible weight from my shoulders as I’ve tried to cling tightly to them when my mind trips up & begins to spiral in a negative direction about my body. I hope they’ll encourage you today, too.
Our Bodies Have Limits
I told you these truths wouldn’t look cute on your “Inspirational Quotes” Pinterest board. Ha! But stick with me. Why is it good news that our bodies have limits?
It’s a chance to remember that God is God and we are not.
We live in a culture, in a day and age, that tells us we can transcend our body’s limitations. We can get less sleep, but get by with enough caffeine & grit. We can be 30, but look 20 with the right skin care products, make up, or botox. We can erase our scars & marks & blemishes with creams & lasers & peels. If we don’t like something about our body, we can change it with cosmetic surgery - make it smaller, bigger, firmer, brighter, tighter, etc. If we want to, for a time, we can almost make it look as if we’ve never had a baby, like we’ve never lived a real life.
I’m not throwing shade on any of these things. Currently, I am very thankful for high waisted leggings & my under eye concealer. PRAISE. But at the end of the day, I have to come to grips with the fact that I am a human with a body. A body that ages and changes and stretches. A body with blemishes & scars. A body that doesn’t fit one specific mold.
Yes I want to steward it well & take care of it! But regardless of all that I can do to preserve its youth & beauty, it is a body. I have a body. And I live within the limitations of that body. And even if I did everything within my power to preserve it, it will eventually decay. But I serve a God with no body & no limitations. My body is a reminder & an invitation to come to Him in humbleness & praise His perfection. We serve an incredible GOD. All that I lack is found in Him.
Our Limitless God Took on Limits For Us
Jesus. God’s son. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8 NIV)
The idea that God “took on flesh” has taken on a fresh new meaning in my life. As I stare at my reflection in the mirror & stare also at the limitations of my body, I think about how Jesus took on my limitations so that, ultimately, He could bridge the gap between me & God that I never could have crossed on my own. He took on the form of a man so that He could live & die & defeat death because “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) & because God so loved me. He can relate with all of our body struggles because He too has lived within one. And not only that, but his death & resurrection conquered all of the struggles we will ever face.
By His Wounds We are Healed
As a mother, my body has been scarred by my pregnancies & deliveries. I have both literal scars as well as other physical reminders of how things just aren’t quite the same as they once were before having children. But, what if instead of trying to erase every one of those reminders & instead of seeing them all as a sign of weakness, I viewed them as a sign of love?
Jesus’s body was marred in his torture & crucifixion. He died on the cross as the atonement for our sins. But oh glorious day, the reason that He is God & we are not, is that He defeated death when he rose from the grave! Alive again, but with scars from the nails driven into His hands and with scars from the spear put into His side. And those scars became a display & assurance of His love for us.
When His friend & disciple Thomas was doubting His resurrection & if it was really Him, Jesus said “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” (John 20:27)
What if I followed the example of Christ? What if, instead of seeing my limited body impacted by motherhood, as something to be ashamed & embarrassed of, I instead saw it as a sign of love for my children? What if I spoke kindly over the “scars” because they are a result of what brought me the greatest blessing ever of my children?
Loving my Body in Practice
Easier said than done, of course. But here are a few ways I am trying to love my body on this journey of life & specifically during this postpartum season.
Cling to God’s Word.
Speak kindly.
Ask God for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
Move my body & feed my body good things!
When I see a photo of myself, pick out one thing I like instead of critiquing one thing I don’t.
Overall, not think so much about me! Because “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.” - C.S. Lewis
Thank God for all my body can do. Praising Him for the gift of pregnancy & delivery & all that He has given me the ability to do as a mother.
Share my struggles with friends who will encourage me in truth.
With all this in mind, I believe we can love our bodies every step of the way. I am a constant work in progress. I will never arrive to a perfect body or a perfect way of caring for it. Sometimes I will do a better or worse job of stewarding the body I have, but I can love it in every chapter because it is a gift from God, even in its limitations, because it is a reminder and invitation to depend on HIM.
