Leotards, body image and me.

"Okay Nikki, go grab a leotard and a pair of tights, put them on in the dressing room and meet us in rehearsal room 1."

It was my first day of dance class and very quickly my excitement turned into dread.

"I'm supposed to just wear this, in front of everyone," I thought to myself as I picked up the black leotard and the darkest pair of tights I could find and headed in to the dressing room.

Growing up, I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I wanted to be taller, have straight hair, have a smaller waist and didn't want to be the biggest girl in a leotard in a room filled with ballet dancers.

I started taking dance classes because it was something I had always wanted to do. My best friend was a dancer and if I started taking classes we would be able to do it together. I never really thought about how it would make me feel about my body. Where it should have made me feel strong and capable, it instead led me to thinking that I was the DUFD of the group...the designated, ugly, fat, dancer.

The mind is a powerful place. It can grab hold of your attention, warp your reality and make you to believe that this flesh that you live in, is not just your home but also your worth. That the number on the scale and the size on the dress determines how good you are and how much value you add to the world.

Instead of basking in the joy of being a dancer, I often drowned in the weight of not feeling like I leveled up. Like the dance room was a place I never belonged and dancer was a title that was never meant for me.

Have you ever felt like that? Like your looks disqualified you from fitting in or doing something that you really loved?  A feeling that your mind grabs hold of and instead of replacing it with truth, enforces the lies and cements them as facts.

I haven't taken a dance class in over 5 years but my mind is still often visited by the lies. The lies that I'm not skinny enough, that my body doesn't fit the mold, that I need to work harder and eat less. That I'll never measure up and who I am will never compare to our world's standard of beauty.

The beauty of it all, something that it took me years to learn, is that the world does not determine my worth or what makes me beautiful. The bible says in Psalms 139:14  "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works."

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. When the truth of that statement grabbed a hold of my soul it changed the course of my thoughts. I'm not a dress size or a number on the scale. I'm an educator, a daughter, a writer, a singer, a sister, an aunt and most importantly a fearfully and wonderfully made child of God.

My body is not something that I work against anymore but rather something that I work with. The food I eat is fuel for me to be able to have the energy to impact the lives of student, pour into friendships and relationships and to live a vibrant, Christ focused and joy filled life.

My body doesn't define me. It doesn't determine my worth or the value that I bring to this world and your body doesn't determine your value either. Marvelous are the works of God, every single one of them and that my friend, is truth.

"I will shed all of this skin, down to the very bone beneath it, if that's what it will take for you to come to the realization that appearance is not what makes a human beautiful."

A Christlike grace.

The other day after getting to work, I went outside to get some coffee and when I walked past my car I realized that something was different. There was a scratch on the back left side and the light lens was cracked. I sat there for quite a while confused about what had happened and eventually I reached the conclusion that someone had hit my car while I was home for vacation.

I spent a large part of my morning calling shops in the area trying to find the best place that I could go to get it fixed. I wasn't angry but I was very annoyed that I had to pay for something that I didn't do.

I now needed to take time out of my work day and make phone calls and adjust my monthly budget in order to factor in this unexpected work on my car. Work that needed to be done because of someone else's negligence.  This person's lack of responsibility for their actions resulted in me feeling inconvenienced and like I was being punished for what some random idiot did. 

Most people don't like being blamed or punished for something that they didn't do. If a little kid gets in trouble for a spill that their sibling created they'll scream and cry out about the injustice. As adults we're the same way. We complain, get annoyed and are so bothered when we have to clean up the mess that someone else created. Why am I the one that has to suffer when I didn't even do anything wrong? 

Today I was thinking about my situation and how unfair it all is and then my mind suddenly went to the cross. II Corinthians 5:21 says "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

My perfect and blameless savior became sin for me. Christ knew not sin but he decide to become it and pay the price for it so that I could be made righteous in him. 

I am so humbled by that truth. Humbled and embarrassed actually. Embarrassed that a person like myself, someone that has lied, has taken what doesn't belong to them and has lived the farthest thing from a perfect life could be so upset about paying the price for someone else. 

Christ died on the cross for me. He died for me and he died for you. Christ died for people that would never believe in him. People who will always argue his existence, curse his name and persecute those who love him. He died for the liars, the cheaters, the murderers, the racists, the pedophiles, the lost, the dirty and the marginalized. 

The perfect one, the one who knew no sin, laid down his life so that I could have the chance to find mine. 

Living a life that models the behavior and example that Christ set is a constant struggle for me. I have to die to myself daily. I have to constantly check myself and call myself out on my selfish and 'woe is me' behavior that in no way portrays the image of the father. 

Often when I'm writing I feel like I want to not only present an issue and discuss it but also at the end I want to provide a solution. Today, I have no solutions for you. If I'm being completely transparent and honest I'm sitting here still convicted about my feelings and the only thing that's giving me peace is knowing the sacrifice that Christ made for me. 

I am so blessed. Scratched car, cracked light lens and all...I am tremendously blessed by the sacrifice and the grace of the cross. May I be the type of person that extends that type of grace to those around me. The type of grace that forgives those who will never apologize and pays the price for a debt that I do not owe. The type of grace that though blameless is willing to wear the blame for another. 

The type of grace that models his sacrifice. A Christlike grace.