playing small

David took pictures of Milo & me the other day. And, when I uploaded them to our computer, I remembered why I never take pictures of myself anymore.

For one, the day that David took these pictures, I had a gigantic pimple.

But a pimple is temporary. The short, post-baby hairs that are growing at my part feel like they will be around forever. (Nobody tells you when you are pregnant that one of the side effects of giving birth is losing all the hair you didn't lose when you were pregnant and then dealing with the new, fuzzy hair that grows in its place.)

And then, of course, there is the post-baby baby belly that refuses to leave. Despite my running and my denying myself cupcakes (and the fact that my baby is almost nine months old), my midsection feels forever marked by the fact that I grew and birthed a baby.

All this to say, I had no intention of posting the pictures David took.

But then two things happened.

One, I couldn't get over how much these pictures seemed to capture the love I feel for my son. The joy I feel when I am with him. And, I believe, there is evidence in these pictures of how much my son loves me.

I realized that I need more pictures of the two of us. We have thousands (literally THOUSANDS) of pictures of Milo at every stage in his young life. And we have tons of pictures of him with the people who love him. And only a few pictures of Milo with his mama.

He is growing up fast. This must be remedied.

The other thing that happened is I was reading my Lenten book.

And I came across this quote from Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I love my son.

I want him to grow up believing he has the glory of God within him.

I want him to know he is loved.

Do I believe he's smart? Yes. Sweet? Yes. Funny? Yes. Kind? Yes. Talented? Yes.

Is that why I love him?

No.

I love him because he is Milo.

And this, I believe, is the way God loves us. Simply because we are.

And, if I want my son to believe in God's love and if I want him to believe God's goodness is inside him...

I have to believe it about myself.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

So, here are the pictures of me and my son...

I am brilliant.

I am gorgeous.

I am talented.

I am fabulous.

I am a child of God.

And so are you.

I'm back! ...sort of

Some of you may remember last September when I trained for and ran my first 10K. I was slow, but I ran the whole time without walking or stopping. Last September I was the healthiest I've ever been.

And then I got pregnant.

And I stopped running.

And I gained 48 pounds.

But on Tuesday I had my postpartum checkup and the doctor gave me the "go ahead" for exercise. So, this morning I put on my too-tight running clothes and dusted off nearly a year's worth of dust and dog hair from our treadmill.

And I "ran." I use the term loosely because it took me 17 minutes to run/walk one mile. My pelvic area hurt, places jiggled that never jiggled before, and my lungs felt like they were on fire. I felt like I was going to die.

But then I remembered that I pushed a nearly nine-pound baby out of my body for over 3 hours. And I pushed myself a little harder.

It wasn't pretty, but I did it. I ran. And, with any luck and a lot of sweat, I'll be back at my pre-baby running level soon.