To me, the opposite is true. I think that our great effort to survive these battles are perfect. Notice that I didn’t say how we showed up for that battle or how we fought the battle. It was our great effort to survive that is perfect.

I chose the image of the sunflower above because it is not a sunflower that you would choose to pick for a flower arrangement. This sunflower seems imperfect. Maybe it just grew that way. Maybe it there are strong winds where it grows, and its petals get a beating most days. It is still a beautiful sunflower. It still serves its purpose to that bee.

A long time ago, I was talking with a woman that had four young children and had a surprise pregnancy while she currently had a young baby. She was frustrated as her body was not yet fully recovered from her last pregnancy. She was exhausted from the changes her body was going through for the last several years of bearing children and caring for them. She said in her frustration, “this baby better not give me stretch marks”. I wished that I could have shown her how beautiful it is to be able to have those stretch marks.

I was so glad for the stretch marks that I got to experience with the pregnancy of my son. They meant that I was able to have the blessing of carrying him that I desired so much for. Yes, stretch marks are not beautiful, but for me, they tell a story. A beautiful story of a woman with a strong desire. An answered prayer. An enduring of the hardship of a body growing and changing to bring life into the world.

I am a small woman. I was an even tinier woman before my pregnancy. Recently I was purging my closet of things I haven’t worn in a long time. I still had a pair of jeans in my closet of my pre-mom days. I loved those jeans. I longed to fit into them again. I held onto them with the hope that one day, I would wear them again. Having these jeans in my closet over the years never really served me.

While they were a reminder of wonderful years gone by, they were also an unrealistic expectation that I was putting on myself. Every time I looked at them, the happy memories became less and less and the frustration with my current body took over. The jeans that once brought me happiness now only brought me frustration and despair with my current body.

I could not see how beautiful my current body is now. This body that gets me everywhere that I need to be each day. This body that has gone through the process of creating another body and giving birth to bring that wonderful child of God into the world. This body has seen disease and endured many years of stress and change.

My skin has stretched to accommodate the growing of that tiny baby, the stressful times when I didn’t eat and exercise like I should, the inflammation from my autoimmune disease, and my inability to care for myself when I have been caring for others.

It is easy to look in the mirror when I am in survival mode and getting kids to and from big doctor appointments and not eating the best or exercising how I should or being the target of a child’s frustration and hurt. When I look in the mirror, I see an exhausted woman that seems to have aged a decade overnight. She doesn’t seem pretty to me. She is kind of scary looking honestly. Not a big fan of her.

You know when I do see the beauty in me? In the random photos my kids take of me interacting with them. That woman seems happy. I like her smile. She has a light in her eyes that draws me to her. When this woman shares her testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, or her love of Heavenly Father, she is beautiful.

Our beauty on the outside is always changing. The real beauty comes from inside of us. The beauty shines brightly when we step away from the mirror and from ourselves in general and go to serve and uplift others. That inner beauty shines so bright that it overtakes the outer beauty and makes it shine brighter.

When I was trying to find a picture of me for this website, I kept coming back to the photo I chose. A sweet friend took of me at church one day. I was trying to edit out the children in the background and I used a filter. You know what it did? It took my freckles away.

I was shocked. I used to hate my freckles growing up. Sometime in my adult years, I made the decision to love them. Every summer when the sun kisses my face, I get an explosion of freckles. The die away in the winter and every year it is the same. It is a fun thing for me to enjoy.

This filter took my precious freckles away. Oh, how my younger self would have loved that filter. However, this is not how I think about my freckles today. Each freckle I have means a day outside with nature, a possible adventure I took with my children, or a day at the pool. Each freckle magically shows up and gets to spend the summer with me.

I love my freckles now. But I didn’t once upon a time. What do you hate about yourself that you might possibly love if you changed the way you thought about it? Our differences make us beautiful. Embrace them. They are lovely.

Have you ever asked a friend or your spouse how an outfit looks on you? You really want to wear it, but the way it fits makes you uncertain. They tell you that it looks good, but then you end up changing it anyways. I do this a lot.

I was talking with a dear friend about this yesterday. We were discussing how we both do this. For me, it is usually because I am not comfortable with how the item is fitting and I am seeing the little flaws in my body that show through the clothing.

My friend said that the person can’t see the imperfections that we notice because to the other person, they are not imperfections. If only we could see ourselves the way they see us. You know what this reminds me of?

God sees all of our struggles and imperfections. He loves us anyways. He also sees the great effort that we put forth. He sees what we can become. He cheers us on. He is grateful for each stretch mark because they brought His children into the world to be taught loved and cared for by you. The stretch marks are there because you put those children’s needs before yours. Even those children that He needs you to serve. He sees that love and He is grateful for it.

A lot of my stretch marks came from fostering and from parenting my adopted children. You will stress eat. You will not be able to care for yourself when parenting and serving them. Their needs will be bigger than yours at times. Do not think that because you did not carry a child in your womb that your body will not stretch and grow. As will you grow in your love for them.