Stretchmarks

My husband and I have been running every night. We've been coming home and lifting weights. We've been eating healthily and have been successful in staying focused on our program. We are slowly but surely seeing and feeling the results which is a phenomenal reward for our hard work. However, last night, we were checking ourselves out in our closet mirror (don't pretend you don't do the same after a work out...you flex as if you'll actually see an instantaneous result from that very days efforts! haha). I started to complain to my husband, "When the heck did I get hips??" Definitely, I have born a child. Just ask my backside. "No matter how many crunches I do, the stretchmarks will always remain." (Unless one day in the distant future I go under the knife for a tummy tuck.) As he empathized and gave me the typical sweet husband responses of, "I think you're beautiful..." etc., (I love him so much, by the way)... I responded still somewhat negatively with, "You're lucky that you're a guy, because your body is not permanantly changed just from becoming a father!" He, however begged to differ and pointed as his belly saying, "My body has changed since becoming a dad; problem is, I had complete control. You didn't." (Again, I love him so.)

Anyway, as I said the words, "You're lucky" I instantaneously felt guilty...truly, the joy of conceiving, carrying and bearing a child, is my most cherished accomplishment, some of my fondest memories, a divine gift...and something I do actually look forward to doing again a few more times. And I thought of my stretchmarks finally as the "stripes of honor" that people joke about. But, this time, to me it didn't feel like a joke. And I started to think of why I got stretch marks. Well, I did gain a little over what I needed and I was insanely swollen due to hypertension, but ultimately, stretchmarks come when your body is getting bigger faster than your skin thought you would be. Basically.

Then I started thinking...I hope that my soul has stretchmarks. I know that sounds silly, and utterly impossible since your soul isn't something physical. But, I hope that my soul has stretchmarks, figuratively speaking. As human beings, in our general nature we have a drive inside of us to press forward. This drive motivates us to be better and stronger. To acheive beyond our personal limits and accomplish. At times we are more motivated than others, but generally, none of us get up in the morning and say, "I don't want to do better. I want to be a worse person than I was yesterday." (At least, I hope none of us say that.)

So, everyday, we try to push ourselves just a little bit harder...stretch our bodies, our hearts, our souls to reach beyond the limits. This is where I get my silly notion of hoping that my soul has stretchmarks. I want to feel like I am stretching every day...beyond the capacities that I even thought I could be, therefore creating stretchmarks, a.k.a. stripes of honor. And the state of our souls should matter more than our physical state, because ultimately, one keeps eternally, and one does not.

"Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." ~2 Corinthians 4:16

Everday our bodies get older...the outward man does perish. Deteriorates. Thankfully, its relatively slow, but inevitable nonetheless.

Our soul does not deteriorate, rather it is replenished, renewed, strengthened...STRETCHED!

President Hinckley said, "We can improve, and when all is said and done that's what this is all about: improvement, changing our lives so that we can help people change their lives and be better; building Zion on the earth."

I hope my soul is covered in stretchmarks. I know that if it is, some are self inflicted but many are the product of others helping me to grow. Thank you for that.

Learning to love my physical stretchmarks may be a constant battle...a love/hate relationship if you will. Sometimes (most of the time, to be honest) I will want to to wish them away. But my spiritual stretchmarks, the ones I've earned and hope to earn, I hope that those stay eternally...and continue to multiply. Because we've all earned those ones too, as our "stripes of honor". Each and every one.