He Had a Skinny Mom - I Do Every Day - January 7

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He Had a Skinny Mom
By Ashley Mercier

The first time I saw a picture of my now mother-in-law, I thought, Oh no, she’s skinny. In my experience, guys with skinny moms don’t like … girls like me.

Thankfully, my now-husband proved my theory wrong. But his acceptance of me did little to erase decades of self-image issues. My self-deprecation became a filter for our interactions, especially in the early years.

A new outfit? No-win situation. If he complimented me, I didn’t believe him. If he said nothing, I considered it proof I was undesirable. I consistently overshadowed his actual opinions of me with my own opinions of myself. And in so doing, I showed my husband that his feelings for me didn’t matter.

In marriage, self-preservation defeats connection.

Our unity, our “two become one,” gives my husband license to speak into my soul and redefine who I am. Self-preservation causes me to reject those gentle whispers of love, in turn rejecting him and causing isolation.

The Bible kicks off chapter 1 with Adam isolated, and God coming to the rescue with a beautiful remedy to Adam’s feelings of loneliness, Eve. The three—God, Adam, and Eve—are a completed triad, a relational masterpiece.

In fact, in that same chapter, God gives us the first mirror: “So God created man in His own image” (Genesis 1:27).

I see a lot of things in my bathroom mirror—cinched-tight jeans causing unsightly bulges, under-eye luggage courtesy of late nights. That mirror is the wrong mirror.

Genesis has it right. The mirror of God says I am created to look like Him, to reveal His glory, and my marriage is a reflection of His strength, not our weaknesses.

And that's the reflection I want to see more of in the mirror.

How can you help your spouse feel cherished the way they are?

The Good Stuff: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

Action Points: Find a stunning photo of nature. Make it your home screen or wallpaper so that when you see it, you ponder how the same God who made that waterfall or sunrise or mountain also made you.

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