my pants don't fit

I'm not fitting well into my clothes these days. Well let's be honest. It's mostly my pants. They're tighter in the bum than usual, they fit far too snugly around my thighs and some, including my most-loved, well-worn and go-to jeans, can hardly even zip. It has nothing to do with the late night nachos I've been nursing, I know. Or the homemade chex mix I've been chomping or the helpings of kuchen I've been having - faithfully - for the past several weeks (if you don't know what kuchen is, I'm really very sorry for you). No, as far as I'm concerned, my pants problem is entirely blamed on being 14 weeks pregnant because hey, I've got an actual person growing in here! But whatever the cause, I'm bugged. I'm really pretty annoyed. There's little like feeling your clothes don't fit and I find I'm wearing that feeling much more than I'd like.

It's a sense, it's a haunting, or maybe it's more like an aroma, that, like garlic after a really great italian dinner out, somehow bleeds into your pores, moves around with you and no matter how many times you brush your teeth, no matter how many sticks of Trident you chew, is simply now an unwelcomed and undetachable element of you. This aroma, this haunting, this sense that "My pants don't fit!" bleeds into how I'm feeling in any given moment. Because it's making me self-conscious. Way more self-conscious than, most of the time, I already am.

When I run into someone I know my first thought isn't how happy (or even unhappy) I am to see them. It's not "Wow, I get to ask them how they're doing!" or even "Great! We get to get caught up!" It's "Oh no. I really hope they don't notice my pants." Or how puffy my face has gotten. Or fill-in-the-blank with something to do with how I look.

It's insecurity, plain and simple. And it's shallow. It's not new to me, this insecurity. This obsession, really, with how I look. It certainly doesn't just accompany having a baby. But I like what came of a conversation my friend Megan and I were having the other day.

We were talking about this stuff, this preoccupation with appearance we far too often carry. And I can't remember how it came up but we hit on a truth that, when stopped on for even just a moment, kind of cancels out the appearance addiction we tend to get caught up in.

God cares about the heart.

He looks at, and cares about, our hearts.

Not what we're wearing today. Not whether our denims are donned as well as yesterday. He doesn't see bad hair days, expensive outfits or cars, well-placed accessories, well-put-together ensembles, he doesn't see rips or stains or less-than-stellar complexions. He doesn't see how funny, how popular or how successful (whatever "success" really means) we are either. At least these things are not his focus. Because he cares about our hearts. The condition of our hearts. And whether they are beating for, and becoming like, his.

When I let myself think on that and especially when I let myself believe on the truth of that, my pants (and so much else) pale in comparison. And suddenly I care, or care again, about what's actually worth giving my thoughts and care to. God. His heart. And where the condition of my heart falls.

I want a heart like his. I really, really do. A heart that, maybe best summed up (if God and his heart can even begin to be summed up), is about love. About loving people. I want a heart that loves... people. Most days I feel oh so very far from that. Galaxies away from even liking let alone loving the people I come in contact with every day.

But I really do want that. Because that's what God wants for me. And for you. It's how we are designed. We are most of who God authored us to be when our hearts are beating for, and becoming like, his. We're happiest and most content. We are freed from self-imposed shackles we put and keep locked on as we think about, care about and ultimately live about stuff that has little if not absolutely nothing to do with the heart. Plus, when all is said and done and our hearts are, at some point, required of us, it's not going to matter what size we wore or whether we accomplished particular appearances. God will be looking at, and caring about, our hearts.

Getting a heart like his will take a lifetime. It'll amount to an accumulation of moments and days during which I surrender my heart to him, ask him to change my heart, including into a heart that genuinely loves people as he himself loves people. It'll be about following him into that change as he leads. But as I start my day today, I'm starting with that simple truth: God cares about the heart. I'm choosing to stop on that truth today. To remember it. And I'm allowing everything else, including my pants, to pale in comparison.