Thankful for a Big Rear
by Teasi Cannon
One day not long ago I was
sweeping my kitchen floor in the near trance-like state of La La
Land, when I was jolted to my senses by the precious voice of my
4-year-old nephew saying, “Aunt Teasi, you have a vahwee (very) big
butt.”
I set my broom aside,
smoothed my shirt, and calmly turned to face him. Bright-eyed and
curly-haired, he stood – completely oblivious to the fact that he
had said the words no woman ever wants to hear. And then I let him
have it. I bent down, coming only inches away from his little round
face, and said, “Why…thank you!” Then I smiled big, stood to
grab my broom, and returned unscathed to the task at hand.
A few years ago those
innocently spoken words would have completely obliterated me, and
rather than a thank you,
might have actually incited an immature come-back such as: “Oh,
yeah? Well, you’re short and you talk funny.”
But now, to the glory of
God, moments like that are reminders to me that the miraculous has
happened: I no longer hate my body (especially my back side); in
fact, it has become one of the biggest blessings in my life.
Like most women (really
every woman I’ve ever met), I lived years literally disgusted with
what I saw in the mirror. The territory between my ears felt like
nothing short of a war zone, with battles being fought everywhere:
the bathroom, the grocery store, the bedroom, even church. I could
never silence the ambush-ready community of inner critics (those
hurtful thoughts we all think) that called my head home.
And I missed out on so much: parties I refused to attend because my
pants were too tight, dates with my husband because of a few gained
pounds, quality time with my kids. I know I’m not alone in this.
We women have been lied to
for years. We’ve been told that our value – our very right to be
seen and celebrated - is determined by our waist-to-hip ratio or the
proportions of our facial features, and that’s just not true. Our
value is determined by the only One who really knows it: our God.
After hitting my head hard
on the floor of my personal pit of despair, I slowly began my journey
toward believing that. One inch at a time of healing, truth, and
righteous anger led me to a life-saving realization: All those years
I was desperate to change how I looked, God was desperate to change
how I see. And He did.
Truth is, if God can make
a prostitute the great grandmother of the Messiah, turn water into
wine, and make blind men see; don’t you think He can turn a big
bottom – or a big nose - or bird-thin legs – or whatever it is
you hate – into a blessing. He did it for me, and I’m so
ridiculously happy about the journey that I wrote a book about it.
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