Journey to Beauty - Part Three: The Victory

Here is the third installment of Megan's journey toward beauty ...

Summer 2011

Summer was here and I had to become a lot more independent than I had been my whole life and it was a challenge. At the same time I was still struggling with insecurities about my weight. Thanks to my dear friend Laura, I read a book she gave me called, How to Find Your Soul Mate Without Losing Your Soul by Jason and Crystalina Everett. I immediately read the chapter titled, “Love Your Body.” It changed my life. In the book Jason says to ask the Lord to give us His eyes so that we may see ourselves as He sees us, because the Lord desires for us to love ourselves as He loves us. He also advises to stand in front of a mirror and to call upon the Lord in prayer and ask Him to show us our beauty and say, “Help me to see what you see, Lord.” Soon after beginning this practice, I cried out to the Lord in prayer one evening, exhausted from the constant battle with my body. I begged the Lord to relieve me of my suffering and to show me my beauty; I just couldn’t see it. I was too tired to keep trying. Once and for all, I let go and laid my suffering at the foot of the Cross. Immediately, I was infused with confidence in my body. I know for a fact that the Lord healed me and He has blessed me with incredible family and friends, strangers, opportunities, and situations in my life that helped bring about this miraculous healing. He helped me to see the lies society feeds me and other women in the world. He gave me the tools to continue striving for acceptance of myself and confidence in my body as it matures. He helped me appreciate my talents, my personality and all that He has given me. Through my suffering and healing He has given me the grace to turn to Him always and to strive for humility, courage, patience, trust and charity, virtues that I had previously rejected.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still human and I’m not perfect. I’m not always pleased with my body and I have many other insecurities. Even after I felt comfortable in my own skin (quite literally), I remember thinking how strange it was that numbers on a scale still mattered and I still thought about how I shouldn’t eat certain things. Sometimes I find myself comparing myself to others as well. Furthermore, I often ask myself, ‘although I’m happy with my body now, would I be if I gained more weight?’ Aside from physical insecurities, it is very hard for me to be vulnerable and to share my emotions with people. I have a lot of pride, so I don’t like to be seen as weak. I constantly have to search for the true meaning of confidence in relation to humility. But in my journey toward beauty the thoughts about my weight don’t consume me as they once did. The healing is continuous, daily, but I have a new confidence because the Lord answered my prayers and helped me to see what He sees. I’m constantly learning over and over again how to trust Him. I’m recognizing how prideful I am and when and where I put up walls. I’m learning how selfish I was and how I still am. But I am also a witness to how the Lord can heal us and how He will rescue us from the corrupt society that tells us that women are not good enough unless they’re anorexically thin, plastic, and photo-shopped. We’ll never be perfect. The only perfect you can be is the perfect you. 

Click here to read Part Four: Afterward