Poem for a Friend

You stand in a culture that sells mirrors
and handcuffs them to worth.
Scales. Dress sizes.
The photo where your arms looked better—
these are its gods.

But you are not here to worship.
You are here to rearrange the furniture.

You’ve always loved the misfits.
Not just the ones who bloom late,
but the ones who don’t know
they were planted at all.
You gather them like loose threads
and weave connection from tangle.
That is your kind of beautiful.

You say:
what if your body is a gift,
even when it feels like a stranger?
What if you’re not behind—
you’re just becoming?

You think in patterns,
spot the lie in the loop,
map how contentment
isn’t the prize at the end of a diet,
but a way to live now.

God delights in form
but loves beyond it.
The curves of motherhood,
the stretch of years—
not failures to reverse
but evidence of life,
of presence.

You ask us not to love ourselves blindly,
but to receive love
when we can’t summon it.
To pray when the mirror lies.
To come to each other
when we forget what’s true.

You are not what you look like.
Not what you’ve done.
Not the best version of yourself
waiting at the end of a regime.

You are loved.
Already.
By the One who formed you
and never wrote you off.

So you build a room with open chairs,
a place for the unseen,
a story that calls us
not to perfection
but participation.

Because even when words feel slow,
your heart speaks fast.
Strategic. Tender. Strong.
And we hear it.

You’ve made peace with mirrors
by turning toward the One
who sees more—
and now you hold that mirror up
for us.

To see His image
in our own.