On Dating and the 'F' Word

I’ve never liked being called fat.  Never.  And yet, I’ve been teased by peers, both children and adults, for my entire life about being, well, fat.  I repeat, I have never liked being called fat.  It has always hurt, stung, sometimes more than others, but it has always, always hurt.  I’ve been bigger than I’m supposed to be (according to all of my doctors) for my whole life.  I was put on my first diet in the first grade.  Weighing an outrageous 103lbs. clearly merited an intervention. At this stage in my life I actually took pride in being taller and bigger than everyone, though.  My little mind felt that my gargantuan status made me unique, different, special.  These boastful feelings would die a few years later. 

By the time I was a tweenager I was self-conscious of my size for negative reasons.  I felt fat.  The kind that’s socially uncomfortable.  I had no problems with the weigh I felt in my own body, but I didn’t like the weigh others perceived me.  I started to hear giggles and snickers.  I couldn’t keep up gym class.  To this day, I have never made it across monkey bars and I was usually one of the last kids chosen when it was time pick teammates for kickball.  Others noticed, so I did too.  Even more painful, adults, family members included, would openly tease me.  “Natalie Ann, what size you wearin’ now?”…Upon checking the size of my dress hanging in the doorway, “Uh…uh…uh…”  “You gotta get some of that weight off you, girl.” 

LIKE I WAS FEEDING MYSELF!

Children have no control over the foods or portion sizes to which they are exposed.  Coupled with what I believe to be a genetic predisposition to obesity, the types and amounts of food I was given as a child cemented my arrival in the plus size section of my local Deb clothing store in the 3^rd grade.  To clarify, I am not blaming my parents.  My mother is an amazing cook, specializing in traditional Southern and African American cuisine.  Throughout my life people have told her, almost begged her, to open a restaurant so that they could more frequently enjoy her cooking.  She’s good, and she did everything she knew to do to take care of her family.  My brother and I were well-dressed, well-groomed, and well-fed.  I became accustomed to eating a lot of really good food, too much good food…at all times of day and night.  And so, I developed a habit of overeating without really knowing it. 

By the time I was in 7^th grade, I was just average height, but weighed a ridiculous 219lbs.  By then, I accepted that I was a “big girl” and fit into a kind of miscellaneous, misfit pile in the dysfunctional social strata of middle school.  I became keenly aware that I didn’t look like most of the girls with boyfriends, but I wanted one.  I felt that it was fine for me not to have a boyfriend currently, but I knew that I wanted a boyfriend in high school and definitely had to have a prom date.  High school happened and I neither gained a boyfriend nor a prom date.  I did, however, suffer open ridicule, some quieter, some louder, for my size.  My favorite memories include being referred to as Missy Elliot (sized much larger than my peers and I deemed attractive), having my (slow, “big girl”) walk imitated by a football player in my homeroom (he poked his butt out for emphasis and discussed his act with a neighboring football player before execution), and being patted on the butt as a joke by a fellow marching band member.  He and his friends must have had a discussion about this unwelcomed touch before it happened because they all laughed as soon as he removed his hand.  We were supposed to be standing silently still in a circle as a part of an attention drill for performances, but he moved…his hand onto my right glute and laughed.  My sexuality was a joke.  I felt it.  I was too fat to date. 

Heading into college, I believed that I would quickly find my husband, the God-sent man who would make up for all of the years of rejection I faced as a teenager.  He would love me.  We would date, graduate engaged, marry and live happily ever after.  Never happened.  Instead, I was once again boyfriendless and dateless.  On a conscious level, I tried to be as attractive as I could.  I flirted with new styles, kept myself up, and added accent pieces here and there.  I’ve always enjoyed looking good.  I’ve always loved frills.  But on a subconscious level, I felt unattractive.  I felt too fat to date.  This must have been this case.  Why else was I perpetually single?  I cannot say that any one man gave me this impression, just that because I wasn’t being pursued, I assumed that men didn’t find me attractive because I was fat.  I had varying levels of consciousness about this.  Although I harbored insecurity about my physical appearance, I maintained consistent hope and expectation that someone would find me attractive enough to date.  I enjoyed flirting, but never moved passed these casual interactions to anything that would lead to an actual date, further and further and further confirming my self-loathing.  I felt too fat to date.

Many long talks with God unraveled my erroneous web of thinking.   Yes, I consulted God.  What was He going to do about my lack of a dating life?  Very odd to me, He informed me that He wanted all of my attention and that my perpetual singleness was a result of His protection from the harm that cycling through relationships can bring. (I’ll write much more about this later.  In fact, I’ll cover it in a book.)  This helped tremendously!  The heaviness of rejection was lifted and I felt more confident in who I was than I ever had.  God was my Father.  He created me in His image and this made me beautiful.  He let me know that there was nothing wrong with my desire to be attractive to the opposite sex, but that I could never situate or evaluate my identity based on how men approached or didn’t approach me.  I would finish college with salvific confidence in God’s protection, but I still wanted to date.  I still wanted to marry. The devil still sometimes haunted me with the fear of being rejected by men for a myriad of reasons, but primarily because of my size. 

I fought very hard against this lie in my early adulthood.  I decided to address my dissatisfaction with my size through weight loss plans in college and after graduation.  Men took notice of the change in my appearance, but more accurately, the change in my confidence, and started to approach me more.  It had been very difficult for me to reason how other “big girls,” several larger than me, had men and I didn’t.  I failed, at times, to maintain the understanding that God gave me that I was single and not dating because He wanted me to focus fully on Him and serving in the Church.  (1 Corinthians 7:34 provides this instruction.)  I wasn’t supposed to be dating.  On my worst days, I felt like something was inherently wrong with me.  On my best days, I walked in full assurance of God’s care for me.  On my best days, I did not care about not dating.  And, on my best days, I got hit on, a lot.  I am grateful for this correlation:  when I felt best about myself, men did too.  After losing almost 80lbs. and going from a size 24 to a size 12, I felt different about me.  I felt good about me and men did too.  Although I was still categorized as overweight at 180lbs. and 5’6”, I felt amazing.  My energy changed and I started to attract men everywhere I went.  My encounters at gas stations were the funniest.  Seems a lady like myself shouldn’t have to pump her own gas. 

In the 7 years since my last attempt at taking off the weight (yep, I gained most of it back), I have still fought, almost daily to maintain a healthy view of myself.  I am far more confident than I was when I was teenager, but I still sometimes struggle with my weight and satisfaction with my body image.  I am no longer in the very dark, dense depression that I was in high school about my body.  (Thank You, Jesus!  Depression is real and it feels so good to be free!)  But…I still want to be a better steward of my body.  I still want to feel better in my own skin. 

When I hit 30, I started to feel really good about my potential for attracting a potential husband.  I don’t know why, but when I hit the big 3-0, a lot of mental weight started falling off of me. Additionally, I enjoyed being hit on by men I found attractive, were gainfully employed and not criminal.  Still no dates, though.  Then one day  I was fussing at God about how long He was taking with delivering my promised Boo, and I got an inbox asking me if I was interested in being introduced to a potential husband. (Pause.  If you’re reading this and you are not a Christian who believes that we should only date toward marriage, meaning that we don’t date recreationally, but with the sole purpose of acquiring a spouse, I know this sounds very weird.  I promise, I’ll write an explanation later.)  I was floored and thankful that a past ministry partnership, could lead to marriage.  A former colleague introduced me to the first man that I would ever date at 31 years of age.  Yep, I didn’t go on my first date until I was 31 years old.  I had been serving the Lord as instructed, spending (not enough) quality time with Him, all the while maintaining my faith that He would ensure that my husband and I would someday meet.  And, just like that, I was introduced to an amazing, godly man. 

He fulfilled all of my prayerful requests for spiritual leadership and a few aesthetic things like height, being musical, and very good in his field.  I fully believed God had ordained our relationship and eventual marriage.  One problem: I didn’t find him attractive.  In fact, I was extremely unattracted to him.  So much so, that I cried.  Why did God do this?  I was finally in a dating relationship, but I didn’t want to have sex with the man I was dating.  To clarify, I was and I am still fully committed to saving sex for marriage, but I am fully persuaded that sexual desire should come before wedding vows are stated.  This was not the answer to my prayers.  I cried and cried.  He was amazing in every other way.  He scored 100% in the “Things that Count” category.  But, I knew that I wouldn’t want to have sex with him, a fairly important part of marriage.  After a few too many tears, I made the decision to end the relationship.  We met at a coffee shop…and he already knew before I started talking. 

I spent the next few months pressing God about why all this had occurred, and then one day He told me that the way I felt about my suitor was the way I felt that men felt about me.  Whoa.  I promise I really believed I was over feeling unattractive, too fat to date, but I was not.  I was still convinced of my unattractiveness on a subconscious level, so much so that I attracted someone who reflected my belief that men only saw value in my character.  I was a good girl, smart, kind, I would probably make a good mother someday, but I wasn’t sexy.  I was too fat to date.  Ouch.  This stung.  My ex was a mirror image of my beliefs about my unattractiveness to men.

I was immediately convicted about ever feeling that our failed relationship had anything to do with what was wrong with him. (He obviously lacked self-confidence, even once warning me not to fall for his best friend because of his green eye color.  So weird.  I could feel that he didn’t feel that he was good enough for me which was a major turn-off.  Note to self.)  I began praying that whatever lessons he needed to learn from the situation were learned quickly and that his heart would be healed so that he could move on and enjoy a healthy relationship (I believe this prayer was answered.)  I also began praying about what I determined to be a persistent plague.  Somewhere deep in my cerebrum, I still felt that I was too fat to date, that I was unattractive, unsexy.

I’ve since devoted that last 4 years to addressing my insecurities head on, boldly asking God for help and being intentional about dismissing negative self-talk and the temptation to compare my body to others.  Of late, and I mean within the last 6 months, perhaps because God has given me 2 prophetic dreams (dreams that indicate future events) and prophetic words through 2 prophets (people that relay God’s messages about the future) that God was preparing me for marriage and that marriage was on the horizon, I’ve felt very comfortable with my image.  Like, I’ve let so much of the worrying about not being attractive to a potential mate go.  And it feels so good. Perhaps it’s because I’ll be turning 35 on the 29^th of this month or a combination of these 2 that I just feel relieved, that I can, should, must drop all of my insecurities about my body.  I’ve even lent myself to the mind that husbae would be really fond of my ability to keep him extra warm.  I’ll leave it at that.  I’ve been working to live in the persuasion that without losing another pound or inch, my man, the husband God has for me, would desire me.  And it feels so good, being okay with me feels so good.

And then this happened.  I overheard some friends talking about potential mates, trying to figure out who would pair well with whom and then someone suggested me.  Without a single breath, the intended beau retorted, “Natalie is fat.”  He felt that I was too fat to date.  The other 2 loud talkers chuckled.  I remembered.  I remembered years of ridicule and laughter, but also rejoiced that I didn’t feel paralyzed by this rejection.   I was discomforted by this statement, angry that the people in the kitchen hadn’t figured out that the people in the living room could hear their conversation, and annoyed that my size meant that I was unattractive to someone.

For the record, I am not attracted to the individual who apparently doesn’t care for plus size women.  There is no crush to speak of.  Our relationship is completely professional and I am more than okay with this, but it just didn’t feel good to be rejected by someone of the opposite sex because of my size.  It stung and reminded me of how I used to feel, of what I used to believe.  And so, I’ve spent a decent part of the last 2 days perusing plus size dating videos on Youtube and skimming BBW dating Instagram posts (Warning: Even if your inquiry is an innocent search for sisterhood, you’ll run across a plethora of risqué images) all in search of community, of other women who shared my experiences and victoriously claimed their confidence and a couple of cute husbands.  I found this and also felt a burden to write this expression of my evolution. 

I’ve decided to love me and love being me, no matter my size.  I am me and I am fine with that.  At my last doctor’s visit I weighed a surprising 260lbs.  I’d weighed 244lbs., within my typical range of 225-245lbs., at my visit in December of the previous year and didn’t expect the ten month gap to introduce the15lbs. that I’ve decided to drop in addition to another 60 or so.  But I’ve decided to love myself every step of the weigh down (or up.)  I’ve never enjoyed feeling bad about myself, so I’ve just decided to feel good.  I don’t know what changed in my head, but I’ve just decided to feel good about me, to enjoy my body and shape regardless of its fluctuations.  I must be more responsible with regards to maintaining a healthy weight, but I simply refuse to engage in anymore self-loathing.  I’ve already lost too many years to that. And yes, I believe that I am desirable, that I can be loved by the man of my dreams, and that I am not too fat to date.

Another Perspective

This is very Twilight Zone-ish, but all so Earthly . Rare, but all so Attainable. Challenging, but all so Inspiring. Enjoy!

AM 91 Radio: Lindsey Isham - Full Interview from Lindsey Isham on Vimeo.

* See an earlier post for more about Lindsey and more sex talk.

Sex on the Brain a la Steve Harvey

I, like everyone else, know that comedian, entertainer, and self-proclaimed "expert on manhood," Steve Harvey* may say
N. E. Thing.

Tact isn't his specialty.

On a recent episode of the Trinity Broadcasting Network's Praise the Lord program, our beloved Steve said something about sex that absolutely shocked me. I expected him to be raw and real, but I had no idea he was so ignorant. The statement that got me, went a little something like this:

"I believe in the no sex before marriage thing, but we know ain't nobody doin' that...."

Urrrrr...? Say what? NO ONE, NOBODY is saving sex for marriage? Really? Has it come to this?

He went on to admonish CHRISTIAN women, people who are supposed to observe God's standard of sexless singleness, to follow his 90 day rule. Since NONE of them are gonna make it to the altar before making it to bed, they should make their men wait 90 days before extending their benefits package, read sex. With the Ford Motor Company as their model, they should place their men on a 3 month probation period in which the women can fully observe and investigate a man's life, checking for inconsistencies and whatnot, before granting him access to the goods. (We'll come back to that word, inconsistencies, a little later.)

Upon hearing this, I proceeded to buck my eyes, shake my head, and eventually write this blog.

Convo in my head sounded like this:

"Steve is SO wrong and his advice is WACK! Who made him an expert on singleness and manhood?"

I posted my frustration with his statement on Facebook and received 3 replies expressing the following:

"That's sad Sis, keep holiding it down for those of us who didn't make it."

-Bestie.

"That's not true. Some people are saving sex for marriage. Some are even saving their first kisses. I feel priveleged to teach people to maintain their purity."

-Abstinence Educator

"Makes me glad I'm not single...in this messed up world. Sounds like we're holding up the world's standard and not God's."

-Married Mom of Three

Make no mistake, singleness, in the context of a sometimes marriage-obsessed culture, is no walk in the park. Singleness, in the context of Christianity, in the context of unmet sexual desire, is a walk in the DESERT.

But it is a walk that we can take, a journery that we can finish. Success lies in learning to lean on God, learning to trust in His Word. He promised to never leave us or forsake us. He'll be with us through every ordered step. His strength is made perfect in our weakness and He will give us the grace, the ability, to live sex-free lives in a sex-crazed world.

We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. It is possible to save sex for marriage.

Some of us are doing it right now. Striving everyday to live lives of adherence to God's Word. Working diligiently to rid ourselves of inconsistencies that would result in counterfeit Christianity.

Lemme drop a few names...

-John Gray, Comedian, Singer, Playwright

-Lindsey Isham, Author, Purity Activist

-Natalie Witherspoon, Teacher, Youth-Advocate, Resident Blogger


Feel free to add to my list as well as any other thoughts in my comments section.

*As an act of solidarity with myself, I've decided that you'll have to google Steve if you want to see his pic or learn more about his book.

Sex on the Brain

For about a year, I've been serving with a prison ministry that also visits a local juvenile detention center. This experience has truly enriched my life and has been nothing but a BLESSING! Through my time at Juvy the Lord has gifted me with community and grown my teaching ministry. My primary role is to share the Word of God with the kids, to teach them, but they always end up schoolin' me.

Today's lesson title was Counterfeits. We spent a brief time defining the term and naming counterfeits we commonly use including cubic zirconia in place of diamonds, store brand pop (or soda, depending on where you're from) instead of Coke or Pepsi, and monopoly money versus actual Benjamins. We talked about Satan's desire to entice us, to trap us, to snare us, to entangle us in web's of perverse fulfillment of our God-given desires,to use this evil fulfillment to transform us into counterfeits. Thankfully, the conversation quickly turned to sex.

As always, it started with thoughts. The question was posed, "Is it a sin to have sexual thoughts?" I went on to explain that an initial sexual thought would not be considered a sin. (Please feel free to refute this in the comments section.) The problem (sin) would be maintaining these thoughts, dwelling on them, allowing them to, in the words of my 11th grade English teacher, marinate. The boys understood the concept. A bird may hover above your head, perhaps even lay an egg, but you shouldn't allow it to build a nest there. Ok, cool. But what about sex? Does God really expect us to abstain from sex until marriage? The Goodfellas weren't really "feelin' that."

I went on to explain that like every other area of our lives, God has a plan for our sexuality. He has given sexuality and sexual desire to us and they are good gifts. Like all other gifts God expects us to use them to bring Him glory, to make Him famous. Like all other gifts, God has provided guidelines and parameters for their use. Like all other gifts, Satan WORKS to get us to exercise our sexuality, to fulfill sexual desire outside of these boundaries. He tries to make us-people who claim to follow Jesus, people who confess Christ's Lordship or leadership of our lives-Counterfeits.

With the boys' eyes widened, I proceeded to discuss ways that Satan specifically tries to trap men with regards to the abuse of sex. We surveyed Proverbs 5 & 7 where we learned valuable lessons like Girls Got Game, Too, Taste It and Die, Run, Forrest, Run, and Keep Your Butt at Home.

With loads of humor we made it through our lesson and determined that sex is good, at least that's what they tell me, sex is powerful, and sex has rules. It is Satan's job to get us to disobey and succumb to sexual temptation. But with the help of the Holy Spirit, through hiding God's Word in our hearts, through resisting temptation, we CAN live sexually PURE lives.

Got my toes stepped on!

To Be Continued.