Here is the speech that helped me win the champion trophy tonight:
In search of beauty
Once
upon a time, there was a sweet young thing. She
was so sweet that she attracted many suitors.
Her suitors lined the streets from her house all the way to JB, and some
even say Batam!
But
as the years rolled by, the sweet young thing got married and had babies and
suddenly she wasn't so sweet anymore.
She became a yellow face wife. And believe it or not - that sweet young
thing was (dramatic pause) me of course.
During
my first pregnancy, I ate like an elephant and ended up looking pretty much
like one, having put on 20 kg. After disgorging the baby from my rotund
belly, I still had 10 kg of excess weight. From an M size, I became XL!
Once
when I visited my friend, one look at me and her mom's jaws dropped. Her eyes
were as round as saucers as if she was witnessing something incredulous from
Ripley's Believe it or not. She exclaimed “WA YOU HAVE BECOME SO FAT! SO FAT!”
If she were a student in my English class doing show and tell, I would have
given her an A+ for expressiveness, excellent vocal variety and body language. But since she wasn't, I could only give her an F
- failure for being tactful. No woman
wants to be told the cold hard truth about their girth!
Her
callous words wounded my fragile ego so deeply that it ignited an obsession
with weight loss. Pre pregnancy I had a
shapely pear shaped figure but post pregnancy I had become an out of shape
pear! All my old clothes could no longer fit. My entire wardrobe had to be
overhauled. In desperation, I tried dieting, exercising and slimming treatments,
slimming pills, slimming gel, anything I could get my hands on but I could not
get the desired result due to inconsistent effort.
Two
years ago I signed up for a gym membership. Good idea right? Only thing was I could
feel my stiff bones creaking in protest. Some moves were so hard I could hardly
keep up. And there in front of me was a petite lady with white hair, in her
60s, prancing and moving with so much gusto that she completely put me to
shame. The sessions were always
energetic and enjoyable but I eventually stopped going due to my part-time
studies and exams.
Recently
I was helping my 7-year-old boy to wipe himself dry after his shower. I was
squatting next to him. You know how when you sit or squat, your thigh muscles
will relax and spread out. Well, my son was staring intently at my thunder
thighs and he suddenly asked me, “Mommy, why your leg so giant?” I
almost frothed at the mouth and fainted.
But I quickly regained my composure, thanks to my Toastmasters Table
Topics training and told him , “Well, God gave me strong legs so that I can
carry you around!”
Seriously,
a woman can have so many hang-ups about their physical appearance. My hang-ups
are innumerable: small boobs, big butt, thunder thighs, belly fat, freckles,
pigmentation, eye bags, dark circles, crow’s feet, and the list goes on. I have searched for beauty in vain.
Last
week I went for a makeover. I was so well made over that my son did not
recognize me. As for me, I could not stop staring at my reflection in the
mirror. I was unbelievably, unimaginably and irresistibly beautiful, like I was
14 years ago on my wedding day. But the magic of make-up is transient and
illusory, when the make-up is removed, the magic is gone.
Then
God spoke to me, (pause) not in person of course, but through the Bible. I was reading a story in 1
Samuel chapter 16 about God tasking the prophet Samuel to look for a new king
for Israel. God directed Samuel to Bethlehem, to the household of Jesse, who
has eight sons. When Samuel saw Eliab, Jesse’s eldest son, he was impressed by
his stature and convinced that he must be God’s anointed king. However God said
to Samuel, and I was sure He was saying it to me as well: “Do
not look at his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. Man looks at
the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
(I
Samuel 16:7 NKJV)
Wow!
That made me sit bolt upright with the realization that I have wasted so much
time, money and energy on my physical appearance when it’s my heart I should be
concerned with. And the bonus? How can a woman who’s pretty on the inside
possibly be ugly on the outside?
In the wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt, the
longest serving First Lady of the United States: “No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written
across her face, she will be beautiful.”
Now
that’s the kind of beauty I want!
