There we sat snuggled in and playing a roaring game of cards (the game Speed in fact). My husband in his sweet way looks up and says, “You’re so beautiful.” Immediately, my self conscious way pips up and points out the leftover baby flub on my tummy as I emphasize the fat by holding between my finger tips. As if he wasn’t fully aware of the way my body has changed and grown over the years and the effects of birthing three babies? In a laughing insecure way I respond, “but this isn’t very attractive.”
My husbands instant reply struck me to the quick: “The only thing I find unattractive about you is your lack of confidence in yourself.”
Wow. My heart was instantly convicted. The only thing my hubby, and I might just venture most men out there, find unattractive about us as women is when we speak negatively about ourselves. It only makes us unattractive to our men. We need to let go of the silly notions about image and appearance. Your man loves you for who you are not based upon how skinny or fit you are. He loves you with all your quirks and baby flub, just like our Heavenly Father.
I look at my numerous stretch marks and say, “yuck”, but my husband looks at them and sees beauty. These are the marks that brought his children into the world. These are the scars that brought forth precious life. I exchanged temporary physical perfection with eternal precious little souls. I imagine these stretch marks as a permanent kiss offered for my child.
When we speak negatively about ourselves, we ultimately mock our Creator. He who has fashioned and designed you unique and imprints “beautiful” all over you. When we look at ourselves in frustration and despair, we are doubting His goodness and that His ways are perfect.
Sisters, make yourself beautiful for your man and others by cutting out the critical attitude about yourself. Embrace the way God has beautifully created you to be. You are beautiful and precious in His sight. Embrace your appearance, your specific gifts, your style, and seek to use it for His glory in bringing life into your spear of influence.
And remember…the only thing unattractive about you is when you speak negatively about yourself. I’m letting go of the crap (for that is what it really is) and embracing my design.
Thank you – I love your blog already. Great post
I live this post. I read it months ago and never forgot it. I guess your words really hit home with me. Thank you so much for sharing.
Love this post! I’ve added your blog to my blog reader. Thanks!
Such a great post!!
Thank you for the post! God really convicted me through this. I delivered my second baby a month ago, and this time my recovery isn’t as fast as last time (a good thing because I need to eat up to keep myself healthy while nursing). I have been complaining (almost everyday) to my hubby my flab…
My hubby is very encouraging every time I say that, but I need to be aware of how unattractive that is to complain and how sinful I am to not be satisfied with the Lord first. Thank you for the post again!
I believe we all have moments when we feel this way about our bodies. Especially after having children. What an interesting article. I have had this moment with my husband and he reassured me I am beautiful. When I lost the weight, I know I did it for myself. Thank you for the encouragement.
This was a beautiful reminder. My husband says the very same thing to me but it is hardest thing to look past my own imperfections and accept his love for me as I am. It is causing me to look at how I receive the love from my Heavenly Father. Do I really trust His love for me as well? Or do I act as those it is based on conditions that I perceive are necessary?
Thanks for this post! Looking forward to reading your thoughts in the future!
I think God is whispering something to me. My friend at http://www.findingbalance.com just started a campaign called “more than a number” (>#) about the same thing and the story you shared above happens in this house almost monthly – except my flab is from twice as many children. Thanks for such a sweet reminder of what God wants us to remember as wives and as His children.
You ARE Beautiful. Without a doubt
http://you-are-beautiful.com/
Lucky for you. My husband is very superficial and his love for me is directly related to my body and weight. He constantly points out my flab and comments negatively about the 15 pounds I still need to lose after giving birth to our second son 7 months ago. He withholds love from me if he sees me eating something unhealthy and he points out to me all the other women he wishes I looked like.
Just wanted to add to Lara’s voice here both for her and myself and any others reading this blog who do not have the blessing of a husband like Lindsey and many of these other commenters describe. It is a deep wound to be told by your husband in his words and his actions that you are not enough as you are and specifically that you are not beautiful. Infidelity is one of the most painful things we as women go through. I think in our cases it is even more important that we remember the message of this post. We must not absorb those untrue messages and we must not speak negatively about ourselves. Lara, your strength in the midst of the heartbreak you are experiencing is beautiful. Your frailty on the days you don’t feel strong is beautiful. Your body as a mom is beautiful. Praise God that He made our beauty and defines it. And especially, thank you God that you are enough for us when we don’t have anyone else to tell us we are beautiful.
Thank you for this. It’s a much needed reminder and made me tear up a little. God bless you!
Thank you so much for posting this! It has me all choked up. I am so struggling with feeling beautiful. I recently gave birth to big baby girl (over 9 lbs!), and gained *gulp* 60 pounds during the pregnancy. I have a LONG way to go before I feel like “me”. To add insult to injury, my husband cheated on me when our daughter was 2 months old, because I had “gained too much weight”.
All of that is to say that I really needed to hear this today! Thank you so much. I believe that God places people in our path to minister and speak to us, and you have done that today.
A beautiful woman is one who loves the Lord, and loves others. Thanks for helping me put everything in perspective!
Lara! I commend you and send you a big hug. I’m not a mom, I’m not dealing with hormones and sleepless nights from baby care and trying to figure out what my life will be as a mom…but I feel for you. And when you shared that your husband cheated – I wanted to share with you – what came to mind so quickly – that reflects on HIM and who HE is, not you. He should have been supportive and patient and loving and kind to you. And he wasn’t. And I’m sorry you experienced the very ugly part of human nature. I’m sending you love from a coffee shop in Manhattan. I wish you a bright, happy future. BIG HUG. -Victoria in NYC
That is the worst thing I have heard all day. My heart really goes out to you. What is happening in your marriage now? Are you getting counseling? I feel like other commenters are brushing your husband’s affair off like something you bounce back from but I don’t think it is. That is a huge deal and especially in the midst of having a newborn. Are you ok? How are you seeking help and healing?
Thanks so much for this timely, gentle reminder. I’m so blessed to have a dear husband who regularly, sincerely complements my looks, and I rarely (ok make that never) simply graciously say “thanks sweetheart” and accept it. I snort, or sniff, and look at my born-three-children-in-4.5-years form and think about clothes that won’t fit anymore… shame on me. No, having little ones doesn’t give us a free pass to look slovenly of course, but I MUST get past looking like my own idea of beauty, remember what’s important, and thank God for letting me be the vessel He’s using to bring little ones into the world. And, thank my husband for his complements and then thank God again for a husband who persists in being kind even when I don’t accept it!
I’ve been struggling with adult acne in the last few months and my self-esteem has definitely taken a hit. It’s shown me, however, that I’m horrible at taking a complement. When my husband gives me a compliment I tend to dismiss it. I’m trying really hard not to be dismissive when he compliments me, but it can be hard. I have to remind myself that I’m made in the image and likeness of God! That’s amazing! But it’s hard for me to accept, especially in our fallen world.
This is beautiful!! Thank you!
Thank you, Lindsay, for all the help your perspective provides…and to Colleen Sleadd, too, for what she added. WOW. Loved that. I don’t want to be a “downer” in this rush of positive responses and tearful moments. But I also want to add that having children or being a busy homemaker is NOT a free-pass to just let yourself go and not take care of yourself anymore…and then expect/hope that your husband will still be attracted to you and see your “inner beauty”! HOW MANY WOMEN stop doing their best to keep delighting their husbands’ eyes and use childbearing and busyness as an excuse! Letting yourself go… not exercising self control and discipline… has NOTHING to do with “God’s design” that we should celebrate. It can still be sin and cause our husbands to sin in both thought and deed.
I TOTALLY agree with everything you said about not allowing ourselves to be critical or insecure about things out of our control (like stretch marks and tummy muscles that no longer flatten! ♥) or features we just don’t like (big nose…small breasts…aging bodies that hurt and sag…even handicaps, etc) when we compare to other more “perfect” versions! But I feel so badly for so many husbands I know who had a pretty package for a year or so…and then have to battle all the more with their eyes and passions because their wife has become so NOT WHAT THEY MARRIED! And it wasn’t due to illness or accident (the “worse” in the “for better or for worse”!) Obviously women often have the same problem when their men let themselves go yet still want the wives to be passionate about them. Either way, it’s NOT FAIR or kind or loving or considerate, and sins of gluttony or lack of self-control affect the lives and spiritual walks of our spouses as well as ourselves. Being overweight limits fruitfulness and activities with our spouse and children…causes many illnesses and early death…and often causes needs and temptations in our spouse.
Just a word of caution in all the talk about being “satisfied” with what God gave you and with the affects on our bodies from the gift of childbearing…that it doesn’t become an excuse to stop making healthy choices or seeking to do our best in love to always be the one that delights our husbands’ senses. That’s not being insecure or seeking the illusive “perfection”. Sometimes discontentedness is a good warning that change needs to be made and our guard needs to be up against complacency and wrong attitudes.
Very well said, couldn’t agree more!
Veronica,
Please read over what you wrote and think about it from the perspective of someone who is overweight from medical reasons and not from being complacent or from lack of self control. How would what you said affect them?
Also, I think that if someones mind is wandering away from their spouse that is their problem, regardless of what the other spouse looks like – the Bible is clear about lust and adultery. We can encourage our spouse, but what we do or don’t do does not make them commit adultery.
Thinking that the way we look has something to do with another persons heart is just going to mess up our thinking and help us to think as the world thinks, instead of how God thinks.
I am writing this to encourage whoever might be thinking in this way, to try to think of this from a different angle, because I use to think of things in this way and I learned that it was detrimental to me, my husband, and people that I talked with in this way – it’s worldly thinking, dear sisters.
Seek to honor God with how you dress, and with how you take care of your body, and with how you look at yourself, and your husband.
Remember that it will end up “looking” very different from woman to woman.
I definitely agree that a wife should continue to strive to make herself attractive to her husband but not to make it an idol or a point of stress and contention either. I wish I always had adequate time to properly balance everything I say, but it’s nearly impossible. You can read more about my thoughts on this in our Wife Dressing series. I have found it very helpful to ask my husband and take note of his preferences when it comes to how he likes me to wear my hair, what colors of clothing he likes on me, etc. and this has been extremely helpful for me and the continued growth of our marriage. My hubby loves when I straighten my hair and when I buy purple clothing items. That’s his personal preference and I love to dress accordingly. Its just one way to show that I love him. Hubby’s certainly appreciate when their wives make an effort to make themselves looked well kept. My husband always expresses appreciation when I dress up for him for a date night or when I deliberately chose not to wear sweat pants all day long. In fact, I don’t even own a pair so I can’t make an excuse.
No one causes someone else to sin. We can tempt, we can cause the ‘near occasion of sin’, (both are wrong and sins in and of themselves) but the actual sin is one’s own choice and for that no one else is responsible. Just because I may be overweight for whatever reason, if my husband chooses to sleep with someone else, that is HIS SIN and his alone.
My fat did not force him to do anything.
Yes, maybe because of my weight he feels less attracted to me, but it’s HIS choice to sleep with someone thinner and therefore it’s HIS sin, NOT mine. He had many choices on his road to Perdition. He could have gotten in the kitchen and helped make healthier meals, gently,creatively and LOVINGLY asked me to take a walk with him after dinner (NOT to loose weight, but to be together), he could have tried to come up with some fun family activities that are more active and therefore burn more calories, he could have asked to start some fun new family fitness craze!
Maybe, just maybe, instead of trying to find a skinny chick to sleep with, he could have taken care of the kids for a while (WITH A SMILE!) so I could take a nap! We all know that when you are sleep deprived, loosing weight is a loosing battle.
Instead…he went and ‘burned his calories elsewhere’. That’s HIS choice…don’t blame it on anyone but him. That is HIS self-absorbed, disgusting, immoral choice.
Sometimes, men just need to realize that their wife will not look 22 forever. Neither will they! If my husband’s hair falls out, I don’t get a free token to have an affair because I like guys with hair! My DH doesn’t look like he did 25 years ago, neither do I. I don’t like how I look now, but I have more important things to do….like feed them a healthy diet, homeschool two kids with special needs, and another who is gifted, run a not for profit organization, and and and and…..
There are more important things than how we look!
This is so true. My husband used to get so furious and hurt over my negative body comments, I had to learn to hold my tongue. I’m grateful for that…although I don’t always feel attractive, my DH helped me practice not criticizing myself aloud and as a result, I don’t think about things like that nearly so often.
Reading this post and the comments to follow have caused me to be all teary. I just cant tell you how timely this is for me.. 6 months into expecting #2 I am feeling larger than I remember with our first but somehow weigh less?? I worry about selfish things like how I will look after this pregnancy.. Will I be bigger than the last? Will I get stretch marks this time? Etc.. The enemy really likes to plant those seeds of destruction in our minds even when our husbands beg to differ.. Thank you everyone for how encouraging you are! This sister needed it. I’m learning that many things in our walk with Christ Are just conditions of our heart. And God has blessed me with a wonderful husband who is a wonderful reflection of how Christ sees his bride. I am foreer grateful or the blessing & reminder God gives me!
This post was such a blessing to me today! I cried reading it, its the absolute truth. My husband loves me and thinks I’m so attractive, but if I keep telling him how unattractive I am, one day he might start believing me! Thank you for the encouragement!
What a wonderful post! I’ll admit, it has been a LONG time (maybe since our wedding day, almost 5 years ago) since my husband has called me beautiful or anything similar, but I too struggle with insecurities about my appearance. I know I portray this, which is frustrating to me because I have 2 small girls (with another on the way!) and my hope for them is for them to be confident & to rejoice in the true beauty that God has given them & they need to see this from their mother. I really have to repeat in my head that God made each & every one of us in HIS image & likeness!!
“…I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made”
Living in Latin America for 3 years has definitely changed my perspective! After having 5 children in 7 years and seeing some permanent forehead lines and the usual stretched-out, wrinkly stomach, I have to work to be confident sometimes. But here in Paraguay where I live, it doesn’t matter what the woman looks like or where she bulges, she does the absolute best she can with what she has, she’s confident of it, and she looks good! I realized after a while that the only unattractive women here are the ones who act like they are or say they are…God really did a good job making us attractive to our husbands, ladies! Whenever I feel subpar about myself, I try to remember what my husband told me when I complained about my looks: “I feel like you are saying I have bad taste! This reflects on me personally.” I’d rather believe him when he says that I am the most beautiful woman in the world
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Wow! I read this and it brought tears to my eyes.
Thank you.
Wonderful post. Thank you for your continued encouragement and sharing your heart and wisdom.
Poohy, I think you are beautiful too…
Love you so much Papa!
So true Lindsay! I wrote something on this same topic a month or two ago. I have never struggled with extra pounds or many stretch marks on the tummy but that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle to be content with the way God has made me! If you get a chance, read my story. I have always been thin but I struggled big time with comments I have gotten growing up. We girls seem to think, well if i was just a little thinner or looked like so & so, then maybe I would be content. Obviously just a lie of Satans we need to battle against believing. But, I want you to know that thin girls struggle too!
http://www.whispersofjoy.com/1/post/2012/07/guest-post-beautiful-you.html
What a blessing, Lindsay. SO grateful that my husband has found me beautiful through all the seasons of life. (I just asked him today if he minded my currently unshaven armpits and he responded that I was so beautiful he didn’t even notice!)
Sadly, though, I felt I had to share the fact that there are some men out there (who profess to be saved even) that do not unconditionally love their wives’ ever-fluctuating bodies. I know a woman who is flat-out criticized by her husband (sometimes in front of the children) that she is too fat and he finds her unattractive. And she has birthed his babies and has still managed to maintain about a size 8-10! I’m disgusted every time I think about how his insensitive comments devastate her perception of herself. At the same time, though, it makes me even more grateful for the wonderful man God has blessed me with, and his steadfast love for me. Let’s thank our husbands for loving us through thick and thin (literally and figuratively!) and start seeing ourselves the way they (and our Saviour) see us.
This post hit me right in the heart being 2 mo. postpartum from baby #2. Baby #1 is only 16 mo. old and I have been pregnant 18 out of the 27 months I’ve been married. I have sometimes assumed my husband has had to try really hard to get past some of the ways my body has changed even though he has been so supportive and encouraging. I recently inquired how he is able to see all the imperfections in such a positive light and he explained how attractive the fact that I carried and bore his children is to him. I have a feeling that is the case for many men. Praise God for our godly men who lead us to seeing things through the lens of the Gospel. There is beauty in brokenness and sacrifice!
Thank you for your positive post. I have four precious souls who call me Momma, my youngest is 5 months, and my body is far from what it used to be before babies, when I worked out 6 times a week and ran 30+ miles a week. The only workout I get now is walking with the kids to the library or carrying the little ones around. As for running… well, I run from dawn till dusk but it’s to cook meals, wipe up spills, dry tears, kiss boo boos, and teach my little blessings here at home.
Sometimes I stop and see myself in the mirror and want to cry but then I am reminded… my body tells a story, a story of love. I’ve earned these stretch marks, they are a trophy for hours and hours of labor. I do not want my children, especially my daughter, to see me despair over not having a perfect body. I thank God for the body I do have, one that has been able to bring children into this world, one that is capable of movement and is not confined to a wheelchair, one that does not have to go in for chemo treatments on a regular basis or be attached to a dialysis machine. I am blessed, I just needed to be reminded of that. Thank you.
So I read this post as I nursed baby #4, in 5 yrs, to bed. I ran in to where my husband was (bless his precious heart) folding laundry and quoted what your husband said. I asked him if it was true of me as well. He said absolutely!! I don’t know why, but I feel a weight that has just slid off my shoulders.
Thanks so much for sharing this post!! Praising God for your husband’s ability to articulate his thoughts in such a way!! God bless you both!!
You go girl! Love your response!
Your conversation with your husband sounds exactly like a conversation my husband and I have all the time. After my second child was born last year, my stomach muscles were permanently pulled apart and my dr told me i have diastis recti, so I still look about 3-4 months pregnant. I love how you wrote, “I exchanged temporary physical perfection with eternal precious little souls”. I am going to write this down and post it on my bathroom mirror. Thank you!
This is so true!
Thank you for sharing! Great post! I struggle with the same thing… finding my hope and my confidence in my body rather than the trusting that this is where God has my body at this time. I’m thankful for a husband who finds me beautiful the way I am! Such a blessing
Thank-you.
You are so right! I just had my third three months ago and am trying not to despise the few extra pounds that seem to be sticking. My hubby continues to tell me he thinks I look great and I can’t seem to believe him. Why are we trying to please ourselves instead of being happy that our husbands still find us beautiful? Thanks for this wonderful reminder!!!
Thank you for this post! It really spoke to my heart . . . How often I’ve replied to my husband’s “You are beautiful” remarks with, “Well, look at this, this isn’t attractive.” By God’s grace, I will rid my thoughts and words of this lack of self acceptance and replace it with God’s truth that I am beautiful, even after three babies!!
Have you read Loving the Little Years? It’s by Nancy Wilson’s daughter-I forget her name…
Anyway, she has a segment in there on something her husband said to her as well. She had just had a baby before Easter and he left a note on the closet door Sunday morning (when we all want to look extra special!) and said that there was no better way to celebrate that day than with a body that had been beautifully used and broken on behalf of another. [Just what our Lord did for us and we will get new bodies, but His will have the scars for all eternity.] She continues with the encouragement to USE your body in service to the Lord. We are living sacrifices and we should keep ourselves in working order, but we aren’t a museum. Who wants to end their days with a perfect body? Wouldn’t we rather have poured everything out? I have stretch marks more places than I thought possible, but when I acknowledge the sacrifice God has called me to, I know that that is what’s beautiful.
This almost made me cry. I just had twin girls and my stomach, in my words, is destroyed. My husband tells me that he thinks my belly is beautiful in its new form, but I don’t really listen for whatever reason. Thanks for the post in giving me perspective and helping me hear what he is saying
I am right there with you in not being confident in my body. I have always had issues with self-image. I have birthed two babies and some days I appreciate my body that helped create those two amazing girls and some days I don’t. I try to remember that when I curse my body I am cursing the wonderful creation that God purposefully made me to be. I stumbled upon the video in this link this last Mother’s Day. tI gave me a new perspective on my body post pregnancy.
http://www.parenting.com/blogs/natural-parenting/taylor-newman/birth-markings-and-bellies-after-babies
Thank you so much for this very timely post! It’s just what I needed to be reminded of today!!! Blessings!
WOW. Right on, sister! This is exactly the same thing my husband said to me the other day… it’s when I’m CONFIDENT (ie. when my confidence comes from the knowledge of who I am to my Loving Father, in all He created me to be…) that I am most beautiful…which means that could be EVERY DAY that I am most beautiful, if I just CHOSE to rest in the beauty God gave me.
Our bodies represent our lives here on earth, and I’m with you, when I choose to see my stretchmarks and whatever else as an indication of greater beauties (children) that have been created, I am able to let go of my doubts about my body. So let’s go sisters, in CONFIDENCE, and thank God for the healthy, able bodies He’s created (and while we’re at it: brush out our beautiful hair, wear our pretty clothing God has provided us with, put healthy food in our bodies), and be an example to ourselves, the women around us, and our daughters of the TRUE beauty found only in the One who created us!
Thank you Lindsay for this post! God is speaking to me on this and patiently waiting for me to understand and live it out…
I struggle with this self-deprecation, too. And my husband says in frustration, “Don’t talk bad about my wife!” Thanks for this encouragement.
haha, Kristen — that’s exactly what my husband says!! From reading through the comments, it sounds like a lot of us have wonderful husbands that appreciate *true* beauty even when we’re being too hard on ourselves. Great post, Lindsay!
I am always amazed at how my dear husband really views my (very changed) body. He thinks it’s wonderful! I don’t understand it, but I am so grateful.
What you’ve written is right on.
Another thing that stops my bad-mouthing is the (obviously negative) influence it must have on my children. To imagine that it wouldn’t influence them would be naive, indeed. How awful to think that my selfish comments could potentially negatively shape my daughter’s view of her own body! And if those comments even remotely contribute to a lifetime of struggle with image issues or even eating disorders? Shame on me! God help us.
Dear Lindsay, I love this post! You are so right, and your husband is definitely speaking for most men. Did you notice men never would say things like that to us? We need to be feminine, charming, happy , and not nagging – and the true beauty will shine through all that fat and muffin tops. Love your work, Lindsay, you are a big help to us and an inspiration.
Yeah!