Lifestyle
Faith, Mental Health, Mindfulness
I love to move around and feel truly comfortable in my swimsuit.
I’m spending most of my time these days, re-applying sunscreen on my squirmy (but totally adorable) one-year-old, cleaning popsicle off of sweet sticky fingers, or splashing around in the pool pretending to be Audri’s “secret mermaid friend”.
Long gone are the days of lounging poolside with silence and a good book – and the beautiful uncomfortable swimsuit that went with it.
I overheard a woman at the waterpark talking to her friend about how “awful these removable swimsuit padding cups are.” She went on and on about how “they get messed up in the laundry” and that she “has to re-adjust when they get wet while swimming.” I laughed out loud because it’s true. I quit purchasing swimsuits with those in them last year and haven’t regretted it!
I recently ordered this swimsuit because it’s a one-piece, it had a ruffle sleeve, it looked classic and feminine, it wasn’t too revealing, and the swimsuit is lined.
Before you go, I wanted to quickly talk about body image.
This is one of the most popular insecurities I hear about from readers and friends. Every single person on planet Earth has insecurities.
I am insecure about a lot of things, but I try my hardest not to let them get the best of me. Just a few weeks ago, a close friend of mine and I almost had a falling out due to our insecurities that we’d never shared. We talked (through many tears) and reminded ourselves that Satan is always trying to steal our joy, destroy our relationships, and cause friction in our homes and places of work.
We all have a desire to feel valuable and understood and loved. And that’s a beautiful thing, my friend. It’s part of being a human. We just have to remind ourselves that our true, true, true, true, true, (I’m going to keep saying it until you believe it) TRUE confidence and value is based on a rubric that comes from God’s standard and perspective – which is vastly different than what the world expects of us. ONLY God gets to decide how beautiful and lovely and worthy we are. He thinks you and I are flawless and righteous and blameless and perfectly made – not because of what we can accomplish in a day, how put together we are, how much money we make, or what we look like – but because of his love and choice to make us valuable to him.
We shouldn’t take that lightly…
Comparing yourself to another woman is never a fair or accurate parallel, because there are thousands and thousands of factors that make people unique. So stop comparing. Quit looking at someone else’s body to shame yourself while you binge eat or starve yourself. Quit looking at someone else’s body to judge or criticize them to make yourself feel better. More importantly, begin to think of yourself LESS. Watch how happy you become when you think about and serve others before yourself. I wrote a detailed blog post called How To Stop Comparing Myself To Others if you want to check it out. Love you. So Does God.
4 Comments
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Jennifer
Thank you for sharing this beautiful post! I have always compared myself to other women who are tall, thin, have beautiful hair and skin. I have always struggled with my weight and wished I could wear cute swim suits but I wasn’t able to. I have to keep reminding myself that God made me and loves me.
VeiledFree
You are very welcome. Thank you for your vulnerability, Jennifer. Your value is in the Lord. A cute swim suit or nice body will fade away but a pure heart is worth gold in God’s eyes.
Diane Krause
Wonderful post…yes, our body image…it’s so important to be good to ourselves! I do love this swimsuit…good find! 🙂
VeiledFree
Yes, be kind to yourself girl, you are wonderfully made!!