You Knit Me in My Mother’s Womb

Dear Reader,

All of my life I have struggled with an unhealthy body image. Specifically, I have struggled with my weight. Throughout my life I have either eaten too much or too little and my weight has reflected this. While this might not be a big deal for some, this greatly affects my body image my emotions, and the way I perceive myself; I know there are others out there that feel the same way too. After my psychiatric hospitalization in 2021, I put on weight in a very unhealthy way in a short period of time. I was eating away my emotions, my fear, my nervousness, my sadness, my trauma. I just did not want to feel and was emotionally and spiritually paralyzed. Once the weight was on, I tried looking for the right exercise or nutrition program, but none of them seemed to work. I began to believe that I was the one that was broken.

One night, I remembered a Psalm of David. A psalm in which David acknowledges to the Lord that He knit him in his mother’s womb and created his inmost being (Psalm 139:13). Like David, I was reminded that God knew me since before I knew myself. He choose everything about me, including the body that He gifted me with. Knowing that my body was a gift, and a temple of the holy spirit here on earth (Corinthians 6:19-20), I was encouraged to want to respect my body, and to give it permission to reach its own balance and homeostasis. Everyday is a new beginning for me, and while I don’t have this all down, I don’t feel the pressure to have the perfect body anymore, but rather the body that God intended me to have: balanced and nourished to the best of my socio-economic ability. I have learned that God chose everything about my being. He made us in His image and likeness and he sees us as His beautiful creations. I hope that we can all learn to see ourselves as such and rather than focusing on a physical outcome, we can focus on seeing our bodies as gifts that are to be taken care of to the best of our ability. I pray that we can continue on our journey, with God’s help, but first and foremost see ourselves as we truly are, beautifully and wonderfully created.

Cristy