Abundance

I examined my naked body this morning. Laying in a hot bath, I lifted my arms, pointed my legs, ran my fingers across my skin, across the lines and curves that are my body. Instead of sizing it up, I encouraged myself to see its beauty. It felt beautiful.

I was thinking about all the places childbirth has changed me. The jagged marks of stretching on my stomach, my swayed back, my legs, the long, crooked scar between my hips. Instead of imperfections and flaws, I saw them for what they were, those marks. Proof of sacrifice. Proof of endurance, of pain once felt. Proof of the miracle that is conception, pregnancy, delivering, and the vast life beyond that begins the moment you hear that tiny, precious cry. It’s all precisely miraculous.

What a physical, mental, emotional privilege it is to be a woman. To see the beautiful fruit of your sacrifice, your labor, as it were, alive and healthy before your eyes.

Kahlil Gibran said “We choose our joys and sorrows, long before we experience them.” I’ve loved those words for oh, so long. They applied to my life so many times.

I have two of my own little Joys, running around this house. I chose them. They are the best thing to come from my abundant, beautiful, scarred body. I would never change one thing.