Oh how I love my pollito legs!

I've been skinny and petite my entire life. I've never weighed over 100 lbs. All you ladies out there with more "love to give", I guess this is where you shoot me. So I can pull off a mini skirt to work, and make it look appropriate cause my pollito legs aren't turning anyone on, but what my pollito legs do end up doing is causing all kinds of people to say things like, "Oh, my God, you're so skinny" or, "Oh, my God, do you eat?"... and of course, my favorite one, "I hate you". Of course, the "I hate you's" are usually people just being sarcastic... kind-a.

The thing with someone growing up with people telling them the same thing over and over their entire life is that at some point or another it will get to you! And when it does, good luck having a good self-esteem.

As a teenager, I spent a good portion of my time wearing sweats under my jeans. This made me feel more confident about myself, because I was actually able to fill up my jeans, as opposed to having that "relaxed" jean look all the time. When I wasn't wearing sweats, I was comparing myself to the girls that didn't need to wear sweats under their body-huggin' leggings... I mean jeans. I yearned to be that girl. That girl that had to suck in her tummy just a bit before buttoning up her jeans. That girl that made white jeans paired with heels look like nobody's business. But I was never that girl. And I will never be that girl. I'm the skinny girl. The girl people ask her to eat something because "she needs it". The girl who was blessed with a mother who is also a seamstress or else she'd be broke with all the alterations her wardrobe is in constant need of... (Which reminds me, I really need to take some sewing classes).

So I had pollito legs, long skinny arms, a long torso and as if that wasn't enough- my pollito legs, were also short pollito legs. I mean, who goes to KFC and says, "Gimme some legs and thighs, and oh yeah- make sure those legs are short!". Yeah, no one does. People want breasts and thighs. You know -meat! This is why legs and wings are always cheaper, too much bone and too little meat. By now you should have a good idea as to where my self-confidence and self-esteem where. You guessed it, somewhere with the bottom feeders in the Atlantic Ocean. But one day, my self-esteem surfaced out of those dark depths and met with Jesus. And Jesus said, "Flaquis, I designed you even before you were in your mother's womb. I am the architect of that body which I love, and you hate so much" (Jeremiah 1:5). And I cried. And I sobbed. And I realized that what I had trashed my entire life - He had died for.

It was when I realized who my creator was when I started to view my body differently. I started to appreciate its distinctiveness. Little by little, I began to embrace what God had created with that lump of clay (Isaiah 64:8). I no longer yearned to be anyone who He had not yearned me to be, I yearned to bring light to who He had meant for me to be. I asked Him to change my thinking, and little by little I began to think differently about my body. I saw the many advantages I had, as opposed to the disadvantages I had spent my life mopping about. I mean, I can hide myself in very small spaces if the need to do so ever presented itself... I would be that girl on the news that had managed to call the cops from inside the kitchen cabinet before they got away with all her money and jewelry!... I can see the headlines now! :)

God changed the way I cared about everyone else's body and He helped me start to care about my own. As soon as negative thoughts came into my mind about my body, I kicked them out with the force of Chuck Norris. It all finally hit me when I started to take dancing seriously. It was here when I realized what a commodity I was. My dance companions were constantly telling me how lucky I was to be so petite and flexible as a dancer. My short pollito legs were a sought after item because they looked lean and fast. My long torso became graceful and the small curves God chose to give me looked divine in a leotard! I realized then what I was not able to come to terms with before, that God created my body with a purpose in mind. Like a butterfly, my tiny body can prance and twirl with flexibility. Dancing brings me a joy that very few things in life can bring me, and I know now that as God was working with my lump of clay, He must have said, "I'm going to make this one a dancer... Let me see, she'll need lean legs, a petite frame... long torso... Ah, perfect".

:-)