From the countless magazine covers plastered with waif models to web ads oozing with the next revolutionary weight-loss hack, it’s hard to get away from the cultural narrative that screams “skinny is BETTER” especially when you are dealing with a postpartum body!

Reportedly, “a total of 75 percent of all American women endorse some unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies”…and those are just the ones who admitted to it in a survey!

If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ve ALL probably had those thoughts at some point in our lives. In this era of Photoshopped thighs and girls contracting every-eating-disorder-under-the-sun, it’s become quite the trend to champion body-positive thoughts and self-acceptance through social media.

You’ve all seen the memes.“I’m so Flaw-some”…Those quotes look all adorable when packaged in their Pinterest-perfect graphics, but to what degree do we actually believe them?

Particularly after having children, it’s not uncommon for a woman’s body confidence to plummet to an all-time low because of your postpartum body. Your tight abs are replaced with post-baby flab and your once supple skin now bears the marks of tiger-striped stretch marks.

How’s that for feeling attractive?… Particularly when it comes to pleasing the man who fell in love with the once-upon-a-Barbie-bod version of you. Well for Mum on the Run, Laura Mazza, that’s something she’s finally starting to be at peace with after warring for years over her fading looks.

But it’s her husband’s response to her anxieties about “the physique he didn’t fall in love with” that’s the most wonderful. Laura bares her heart in a viral Facebook post about the lovely man who looks past her postpartum body full of stretch marks and directly into the spirit of the woman who bore his children:

“This isn’t the body you fell in love with,” I explained. The physique he fell in love with was toned and muscled, and there were no stretch marks on my abdomen, boobs, or gut from muscle separation.

He fell in love with a figure that could fit into tight jeans, that could stroll into a store, grab any size, and walk out knowing it fit. This physique can no longer shop at those stores and prefers to wear leggings. His body remained the same, but my body had transformed in every manner. It’s not right…

“This isn’t the body you fell in love with,” I said as I stood in front of him, fatigued and devastated. Tears welled in my eyes. “You’re right,” he said. It’s not the body I’m in love with.

Instead, it’s a body that grew our children, it fed our children, it comforted our children, it made life. Your body is the one I fall in love with every day. I didn’t know what love was until I saw this body and found out all it could do, so thank you.”

Do not be ashamed of what you have, or what your mum’s body looks like, there’s plenty of time to give up cake in the future, for now, enjoy the moments you have, and enjoy the fact that you have made something that is worth every stretch mark and every dimple.

If you needed a reminder, this is it, this body you have now, it’s worth every bit of love and more. Laura’s words of encouragement are a powerful reminder that the body, even the postpartum body we have IS worth loving… And moreover, it is NOT infused with the kind of beauty that lasts.

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”~Proverbs 31:30. Share this inspiring message with a woman who needs to hear these wise words today. I know I did