Fat hearts

I have always been a bigger girl, since I can remember I have been the biggest of my friends. A situation not helped by long erratic work hours, being on call or worse, post call and then having two children in quick succession. Of course it is also not helped by my love of ice cream and chocolate and not being very self disciplined.

I used to dismiss my friends when they told me of their self image problems.How could they possibly be unhappy with how they look? They are way smaller than me and they are not classified as obese on whatever measure they use. They might need to lose a couple kgs but that is nothing compared to the 20 or so that I need to lose. They don’t get it. They can’t get it. They will never get it.

In the last few months I have realized that this is not true.

My sister and I love the Pitch Perfect movies. At the end of the first movie Fat Amy says ‘even though some of you are pretty thin, you all have fat hearts and that is what matters’.

I have been thinking of those worlds recently. The notion of a fat heart. I think almost all women have one. It is what makes us look at pictures and not like the way we look; it is what prevents us from taking pictures with our kids; it is what makes us feel down about ourselves. It doesn’t matter if you need to lose 5kg and I need to lose 20. It doesn’t matter if you are worried you are going to hit 60 and I know that I will never ever in my life time achieve that. I cannot dismiss your emotions. Because the lies that your fat heart tells you are just as loud as the lies my fat heart tells me; your insecurities are just as deep; your feelings are just are strong and real.

And it doesn’t matter that we know that the inside counts. It doesn’t matter that we know our husbands still find us attractive. It doesn’t matter that we know God says in 1 Peter that our beauty should be that of our inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Our fat hearts drown that out.

Except it does matter. It’s matters because our fat hearts are stopping us from living our lives fully. They are stopping us from having fun with our family, from doing the things we want to do. They are stopping us from going to the beach or for a run or to the gym. Mostly it matters because our hearts are lying. They are lying to us and we have been listening for far too long. We have been listening and allowing them to dictate our lives and drown out all other voices.

So this week, let’s say no. NO to our fat hearts. NO to the lies. NO to dismissing the insecurities and feelings of others. Instead of letting our fat hearts rule let’s give them another voice; let’s take our heart captive and give it something to focus on. Let’s tell our fat hearts Proverbs 31:30 ‘charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised’.

Good luck!!