Wednesday...you know what that means, right?

It means my last official Weigh-in Wednesday post at the Sisterhood!  You read it right.  I'm done with weighing myself.  I shared a little yesterday about my life changing weekend, and I wanted to explain it a little more today.

I borrowed the following from Lora, who borrowed it from from the Stuff Christians Like blog. 

...the day my 5-year old got a scrape on her face playing in the front yard. I rushed in the house and returned with a princess bandage. As I bent down to apply it to her forehead, her eyes filled up with tears and she shrunk back from me.


“What’s wrong?” I asked.

"I don’t want to wear that band-aid.” She replied.

“Why? You have a cut, you need a band-aid.” I said.

“I’ll look silly.” She answered.

Other than her sister and her mom, there was no one else in the yard. None of her friends were over, cars were not streaming passed our house and watching us play, the world was pretty empty at that moment. But for the first time I can remember, she felt shame. She had discovered shame. Somewhere, some how, this little 5 year old had learned to be afraid of looking silly. If I was smarter, if I had been better prepared for the transition from little toddler to little girl, I might have asked her this:

“Who told you that you were silly?”

I didn’t though. That question didn’t bloom in my head until much later and I didn’t understand it until I saw God ask a similar question in Genesis 3:11. To me, this is one of the saddest and most profoundly beautiful verses in the entire Bible. Adam and Eve have fallen. The apple is a core. The snake has spoken. The dream appears crushed. As they hide from God under clothes they’ve hastily sewn together, He appears and asks them a simple question:

“Who told you that you were naked?”

There is hurt in God’s voice as He asks this question, but there is also a deep sadness, the sense of a father holding a daughter that has for the first time ever, wrapped herself in shame.

Who told you that you were not enough?

Who told you that I didn’t love you?

Who told you that there was something outside of me you needed?

Who told you that you were ugly?

Who told you that your dream was foolish?

Who told you that you would never have a child?

Who told you that you would never be a father?

Who told you that you weren’t a good mother?

Who told you that without a job you aren’t worth anything?

Who told you that you’ll never know love again?

Who told you that this was all there is?

Who told you that you were naked?

I don’t know when you discovered shame. I don’t know when you discovered that there were people that might think you are silly or dumb or not a good writer or a husband or a friend. I don’t know what lies you’ve been told by other people or maybe even by yourself.

But in response to what you are hearing from everyone else, God is still asking the question, “Who told you that you were naked?”

And He’s still asking us that question because we are not.

In Christ we are not worthless.

In Christ we are not hopeless.

In Christ we are not dumb or ugly or forgotten.

In Christ we are not naked.

Isaiah 61:10 it says:

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.

The world may try to tell you a thousand different things today. You might close this post and hear a million declarations of what you are or who you’ll always be, but know this.

As unbelievable as it sounds and as much as I never expected to type this sentence on this blog:

You are not naked.

What do I think when I read this?

Who told you that your legs were fat?

Who told you that your 5K time wasn't fast enough?

Who told you that you needed to weigh 120?

I have spent the last year focusing on myself and its time for that to change.  God doesn't care what I weigh, how quickly I run, or what my thigh measurement is. 

He does care that I'm healthy, but that's never something that's been called in to question for me.

What could I accomplish for His kingdom, if I put half the energy into living for Him that I put into tracking calories consumed, burned, weight fluctionations?
This past year I've spent a lot of time learning how to train and how to eat healthy.  I'm not throwing that under the bus.  I'm going to continue my training - I'm just losing the tracking.
 
I mentioned yesterday about my revolutionary 12 minute mile run.  Here's how it changed my life - I ran, I know I gave it my all, and even though the statistics weren't all that good, I enjoyed every minute of it.
 
Starting today, I am not weighing myself.  Comparing my body to others.  Comparing my training to others.
 
So no more Daily Plate or Daily Mile for me.  But yall know that I can't say goodbye to the Sisterhood!  I'll still be around - I hope to do Wednesday posts about my training or race reports and still link up with you all (assuming that's okay). 
 
I'll also be sporting this fancy button from now on -
 

 
Am I scared that I'll gain those 15 pound back?  Of course.  I also know that is completely illogical - I weighed almost 140 pounds because I ate fast food every day for lunch (it got boring and expensive, I'm not going back to that life) and being inactive (I got lethargic & unhappy, I'm not going back to that life). 
 
Over the past year I've changed, and for the better.  Now its time to stop obsessing and move on to the next big adventure!