Reflections and STRIPES!

I am bursting! I have rarely worn stripes...or if I did I felt like a giant sign was hanging around my neck saying, "LOOK, look how big this girl is and look at these stripes making her bigger." The funny thing is that I probably felt this way even when I was close to this size in college, but SOMETHING in me has changed. More than just my size.

STRIPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now after losing 54 (yes I lost one more last week) pounds I finally feel comfortable (REALLY...it just seems sooo strange typing this) in stripes. CUTE even. I had no idea I could look at a striped shirt and say..."Hello, I think you might be my new favorite!"

There are so many things I want to write down and reflect on here and there. I want to write about it in my journal but that is mostly for prayers and spirituality, and now this which is wound so tightly to my spiritual life has really revealed what I had lost somewhere in there. Not just an understanding of myself but a realization of what I am made for in this world and the next. We are made for God of course, but also made to move toward that which think we cannot be...toward perfection. I of myself will never be perfection, but Christ in me...acting within can perfect me in places I didn't even know I had to dig up and place at the foot of the cross. AND there staring up at Him pouring His life over me I realize how much I miss and how much I need. Christ my life giving me life again and again and making up for all I lack.
Perfection.
I've always been a perfectionist, and perhaps that's where this calling speaks so strongly to my heart. It feels right to me. It is right to seek what is true, what is perfect, what is holy. Oh dear brothers and sisters in Christ let us strive after it until all that we are and do and say reflects HIM who is perfect.
And somehow this weightloss process has stripped away, not just pounds, but misconceptions about WHO I am and WHAT has kept me from seeking HIS PERFECT LIFE. For some reason the eating and laziness were the things that tore me from HIS ARMS and left me empty inside and out. And now, the less I eat, the more I exercise and care for myself and my family in a healthy and active way...the more I see clearly Christ's plan for my life. And, dear friends, for that...I am a; fall on my knees and cry, kind of grateful.