I’ve heard it several times lately: “You need to stop wearing such big clothes.” It’s meant as a compliment—a recognition that my body has changed, that a good bit of the weight I carried for so long isn’t there anymore. But when I stand in front of the mirror, those old shapes still influence what I see. I reach for clothes that hide me because, in some deep and familiar way, I still feel like the plus-size girl I was before.
It’s strange, isn’t it? How we can shed the weight and still live as if we are carrying it. I’m not talking merely about physical weight, by the way. I’m talking about burdens laid down long ago—things that threaten to entangle and ensnare us: pain, doubt, bitterness, fear.
We walk through healing but still move like we’re broken. We experience liberation but still live like we’re bound.
Somewhere along the line, we forgot how it felt to live free.
Perhaps the old weight just became part of our identity. We got used to its heaviness. We adjusted our posture to it. We shaped our lives to accommodate it. And now that it’s gone—even though healing has done its magnificent, miraculous work—we still wear the big clothes. We still move through the world burdened, as if the weight was never lifted.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Oswald Chambers exhorts us, “Beware of harking back to what you once were when God is calling you to be something you’ve never been.” That really is the invitation, isn’t it? To embrace our purpose. To step fully into the new thing. To stop dressing ourselves in fear when courage has already been tailored for us. To stop second guessing our healing—as if freedom needs our permission to exist.
We question whether the wholeness we feel is real, whether the joy will last, whether we’re allowed to move forward without looking back. We fear that our breakthroughs will break down, so we stick with what we know, contenting ourselves with what is too big for us, rather than ordering a smaller size. We choose the comfort of familiar failure over the risk of becoming something new.
It takes time to adjust. Sometimes it takes faith to believe we’re not who we once were. But I think healing is a kind of becoming, and every step forward asks us to let go of what no longer fits—what no longer serves us. The weight is gone. The bitterness has departed. The fear no longer defines us.
So, beloved, don the joy. Wear the peace. Cloak yourself in the confidence of someone who knows they’ve been made new. And when you feel the pull of the old—when you’re tempted to shrink back into what’s familiar—remember this: You don’t live there anymore.
Our transformation, whether physical or spiritual, is never a once-for-all thing. It is the product of consistency, of daily acts of courage, of choices made, both large and small, not to settle—choosing grace over resentment, hope over despair, and what is real over what is only imagined. It’s in the way we show up for our ourselves and others, refusing to be bound by stories that no longer fit.
We’ve been called to something we’ve never been, tasked with the opportunity to live beyond what we’ve known. May we step into the callings crafted solely for us—trusting that every step forward, no matter how small, is a step toward becoming who we were always meant to be.
The walk and the work begin anew today.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
~ 𝐄𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝟐:𝟏𝟎