"Scratches" & Milestones...

This morning when I was brushing my teeth, I was staring into the mirror when light had kind of "glinted" off of something on my shoulder. This caught my attention so I started to inspect my shoulder and saw faint remnants of stretch marks that criss-cross my body. Now a faint pale, they are reminders of where I had once been. I remember when those marks were pink (and sometimes red) as the skin stretched and strained its way to mold itself to my humongous frame of fatness. I recall irritated areas that literally broke apart & wept because it could not hold the weight. Those were painful days for me, painful and embarrassing. And how they itched! The new stretch-marks growing skin felt like ants crawling all over my body.

One summer I remember 2 friends from my neighborhood and myself rode our bikes to my aunt & uncle's house to go swimming. My aunt said we could stop by and go swimming if someone was home and so on one particularly hot day we headed over. I took off my shirt before getting into the pool when one friend commented, "Where'd you get all those scratches?" not realizing they were stretch-marks. My other friend knew what they were and quietly told the other to let it go. I played it off, but that was the last time I took my shirt off in public (if I had the choice to do so).

I posted a status a couple of weeks ago about people or things can do nothing to make a person change but rather the person has to WANT to change. I look back at all the things said, the embarrassing situations, & even the physical signs, and find that none of that had any effect on my own mindset. It wasn't until I wanted to change that change began to happen for me.

Pulling my loose skin tight I can see those stretch-marks, feeling them as they have now become merely ripples and no longer prominent. This morning when I got up I noticed the necklace holding my original wedding band had broke and come loose from around my neck. I put the necklace away until I can get it fixed, while the wedding band sits on the index finger of my right hand. I'll wear it there for a bit and then put it away so I won't lose it. But the stretch-marks will stay with me forever as a constant reminder of where I've come from and how far I've come. They have become a milestone in my life, and now I appreciate them as just that.


I wonder what other areas of my life contain stretch-marks, reminders of where I've come from and how far I've come. I'm sure they are there...


MattyV
www.iweighedmorethanjared.com