My body works. It does what it was intended to do. It does what God made it for. It makes healthy children. It bears healthy children. It feeds children to make them healthy. My body works, I am a mother. I have always felt like an old soul in a young body. If I believed in reincarnation, I would swear that my soul had been around for centuries, had lived different lives, experienced different worlds. When I became an adult I decided to act on these feelings and become the woman I felt inside, instead of the woman people saw. I fell in love on the cusp of womanhood, married the man that nature intended to be mine, and gave birth to my first child before I was more than a child myself. Birth was a natural thing that happened in life, like breathing, like puberty, like gray hair. Birth was just something that happened. It was not bad, it was not scary, it was not hard. These are the lessons that my mother taught me, showed me in the birth of my siblings. When my children came into the world, they came naturally. They came into our home, they came into their father’s arms. They came into a place without fear or anger. A place full of love and peace. My firstborn came without fear but not without work, hard work. Now I know why they call it labor. I am so grateful to him for being strong enough to come first, to teach me how to be a mother, to pave the way for the others. And then a daughter. The second edition of my original self. She is stronger, fearless. Everything wish I could be. I will not hold her back. Giving her the birth I did, I started her down a path that shows her the world is hers for the taking. And my baby. My second son. So much quicker, easier, calmer. The peace maker in our home, from the moment of his conception. His spirit is so strong, he will do great things in this world. I give my body to them now, as I did when it was their world of growing. Now they gain from it love, confidence, nourishment. I am not ashamed of what they have done to my body, I am proud. In one of the past lives that I never experienced, I was a warrior. I draw strength from that warrior woman now, as I did when I brought my children into the world. My body is brown. Like the earth, it soaks in the sun, making me warm and life-giving. My flesh, my curves, are my battle scars. But scars cannot be called beautiful, so mine are not scars, but badges. Badges as beautiful and colorful as ancient badges of honor. Badges as adored by my husband as sunken cheeks are adored by the world. My body is considered beautiful. If not by you, or you, then it is always considered beautiful by my love, by my children, by me. I am theirs forever, theirs is the only approval I seek. My breasts are not perky anymore, my butt is not tight anymore, my stomach is not smooth anymore. My body is different than it was when I was a girl, but that is because I am not a girl, now I am a woman. How could someone go through such alterations as pregnancy and childbirth and not be affected? It would be wrong. The body is made to accommodate, and serve as a reminder to life. Like puberty, like grey hair. Change is something that happens. I welcome the change to my body, it serves as a reminder of the miracles of life. Of the beauty of nature. Of the blessings of love. I love my body. My body works. It has done what it was intended to do. It has done what God made it for. It has made healthy children. It has born healthy children. It has fed children to make them healthy. My body works, I am a mother.
