Goodbye Bathroom Scale

Have you ever stepped on your bathroom scale and felt tempted to chuck the thing out the window? That is precisely where I was last week. And while I didn’t actually throw it out the window, I did remove it from my sight. My scale no longer lives in the bathroom. It is no longer in plain view. It can no longer stare me down every day.

This scale and I have a long history of discord. Since my freshman year of college, twenty five rapidly passing years ago, I have perpetually struggled with weight, eating habits, body image, and anything else in that general category.

During the past year, I have felt more in control of this challenge than ever before. Not perfect. Not all figured out. But better. So much better. I have started to find freedom from the emotional weight that sits right there next to the physical weight—side by side, like a couple of Reese’s cups (preferably frozen).

What I have discovered, as I move to a new place of strength and peace, is that I give entirely too much power to the numbers looking up at me from the scale. It might as well say, “You rock,” or “You stink.” And either way, I believe it. Even if I’ve had a great week, making smart choices and feeling good, I am consistently thrown if the scale disagrees. Emotionally thrown, but sometimes even physically thrown, allowing myself to get off track and fall back into bad habits.

How about you? Is there anything in your life that can similarly toss you around? An external measure that overpowers an internal truth?

All around us, external cues sparkle and shine; they draw us in and tempt us to look to them for validation of our success…or even our worth. The “I’ll be good enough if” scenario. If I weigh less. If I make the team. If that person likes me. If I get more followers on Facebook. If I get the job. If I have a fancy title. If I get into the best college. If I earn more. If I get married. If I drive an awesome car. If. If. If.

We can quickly discard our inner value, our inner beauty, and look to the outside world to build us up and confirm that we are okay. That we are enough.

Ephesians 1:4 tells us that ” Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes.”

Without fault in His eyes.

Don’t you love that?

The truth is, there is nothing on the outside that can make us “enough.” Because we are already there! In God’s eyes, we are just right. And He is a remarkably reliable source. The next step is to see ourselves as God sees us. And to see others as God sees them. Sounds liberating. It’s a great way to invite more peace into our hearts and into our relationships.

When we begin with our worth and value already in place, all of our striving to be our best self is because we are good and loved and enough. Not so that we will be good and loved and enough.

I’m going to keep that scale out of sight for a while, focusing on health and happiness, not on a number—a number that will change, fluctuate, and always fall short. I hope you’ll join me this week in a celebration of the unchanging. The unwavering. The measures in our lives that come from within, providing lasting peace. Lasting fulfillment.

Do not let your beauty come from the outside…Your beauty should come from the inside. It should come from the heart. This is the kind that lasts. 1 Peter 3:3-4 (NLV).