Today’s post is from guest-blogger Kristi Scorza Sobieski. I met Kris at a local authors group meeting and was so encouraged by her. You can read more of her thoughts at her blog, Planted Oak. How will you wear HOPE?

M with open-handed offering tells me i am beautiful.

i smile pretend acceptance, hoping he can’t see a turning-against-and-into-myself cringe.   in the way is weight gained  from swallowing food’s false comfort and i cannot accept the gift of his truth.

because beauty surely requires whole.  this body has been stretched to scarring and i cannot see past the parts of me that no longer match my past pictures-in-frame beauty.  beauty worn with the ease of someone who has always been able to see something in the mirror i can be friends with. but now this body feels misspent and lacking in the letters to make up b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

i take his words and pretend to swallow.  finding a door to close,  tears come hot.  i look at what is M’s to give and cannot believe it is mine to receive.  i take his words and crumple them up in soft, accepting tissues. along with love for myself they are left thrown away.

but truth’s nudge is wet-nose-pet-me-insistent and two days later i am digging through the discard pile for M’s words.  they don’t belong there. because his love has the same heart in better or worse. his seeing me beautiful is birthed from promises kept and love’s choosing.

promises made to me are mine to wear.

i slip you’re beautiful on and it is an awkward fit.  i keep putting it on. i brush teeth and same remember daily how he sees me. who i am to him. it is beginning to feel like i am worth the wearing.

and hope? it is the same.

given by a god who keeps promises. who plans good.

open-handed hope, it is his to give.  mine to daily slip on until i feel the truth fit of it.

for i know the plans that i have for you, declares the lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.

jeremiah 29.11

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kris scorza-sobieski

people lover. writer. encourager. wife. mom. missionary kid from png. kris blogs at plantedoak.com  sharing glimpses of god in the everyday…

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