Lovely: How I Learned to Embrace the Body God Gave Me (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781681922379)

All bodies are good bodies.

Except fat bodies.

At least that's what our society tells us. According to the prevailing dogma, thin bodies are good; fat bodies are bad. In fact, any body that fails to measure up to society's standards of perfection is bad. The perfect face has no blemishes, the perfect belly has no love handles, and the perfect skin has no wrinkles or stretch marks.

According to this standard of flawlessness, a good body can have no illness, no disability, and no inadequacy. Our cultural understanding of good bodies makes most of us feel like hopeless failures.

This is not what our loving God wants for us.

In Lovely, size-dignity activist and self-proclaimed "fat girl" Amanda Martinez Beck talks openly about the purpose of bodies, what makes a body good, and the need to reframe the way we think and speak about our own bodies and the bodies of the people around us. Much more than a "self-image" read, Lovely will retrain you to think about your whole self -- body and soul -- in terms of mercy, kindness, and wonder rather than criticism, failure, and self-loathing.

Don't let the scale, the mirror, your interior critic, or the world around you keep you trapped in lies. All bodies are good bodies, including yours.

Amanda Martinez Beck is an author and story consultant who lives with her husband, Zachary, and their four young children in the Piney Woods of East Texas. Learn more about her and her work at amandamartinezbeck.com.