Female in Motion

Here's my Friday photo! I'm looking forward to a fun weekend, followed by a busy travel week. My Monday blog post was about body image. No matter who you are...young teen, young adult, stay-at-home mommy, busy career lady, married, single, widowed, or anywhere in between, I want you to lean in and listen close: You matter. You are beautiful. Jesus loves you. Your life is significant. No matter what self-talk is spinning around your brain right now, memorize those four truths and meditate on them. Our bodies are temporary. Only our souls are eternal. Spend some time nurturing your soul. When it is mature and fully ripened, we can see ourselves as we really are...precious in His sight. Loving Father, help me to process and absorb the truth. I want to see myself through Your tender eyes. I am Your vessel. In Jesus' holy name, Amen.

 A week from today, I will return to Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Zion, IL, and if all goes well, I will begin my chemotherapy treatment. Within a few days after that, I will lose all my hair. It won't all fall out at once, but when it starts to get sparse, I'm going to shave it off. And I'm okay with that. My body image has not always been so great. When I was a teenager, I had a lot of self-loathing. I thought my legs were so fat, at 105 pounds, that I refused to wear shorts during the summer. Even in my 20's, after my first brush with cancer, I covered the large scar on my right arm on the hottest July days in Kansas. I am 50 years old now, and overweight, scarred, stretch marked, gray haired and wrinkled. Losing weight, gaining weight, short haired or long haired, I am still me. With the last surgery I endured, I lost my right breast to cancer, but I know I have the love of my husband, my family and my Savior. No matter how many body parts I lo...