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WisconsinChristianNews.com
Volume 26, Issue 4
Healthy Homes & Families Natural, Biblical, Healthy Living Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat? By Chris McMahan August 2025 Psalm 139:13 (ESV), “For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”
waist. He reminded me that I am beautiful, loved, and His creation. I am unique and special. I am not supposed to look like everybody else. He made me to be me. God thinks I’m awesome. And you know what… He thinks you’re awesome too! Be confident in who God made you to be. He did a great job making you. He loves you and He loves how He made you. Let’s learn to see ourselves and to see each other from God’s perspective – unique, individual, special, original, one-of-a-kind. I am learning to care for the body that God gave me as well as appreciate it. I must be able to see the beauty in who I am if I am going to look at others and see the beauty that God has deposited in them as well. At the airport, I love to observe all the different people. I enjoy seeing how everyone has a different style, unique hair, strange dialects, a variety of body sizes. It’s a great place for people watching…and a great place to appreciate the diverse beauty that our Creator has placed in each of us. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one who sometimes struggles with body image. The next time you find yourself in that same situation, remember, you were made to be…phat. • Purposeful • Holy • Adored • Treasured When God made us, He said it was “very good.” It is time for us to appreciate our Creator for His good work, and rejoice that He purposed to create you and I. Genesis 1:27, 31 ESV, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them… And God saw ev- erything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Chris McMahan,
Getting ready for a flight the other day, I couldn’t decide what to wear. One of my signature moves is to try on several outfits, dumping the ‘rejects’ in a pile. My patient and encouraging husband is always standing nearby
Ephesians 2:10 (ESV), “For we are His workmanship...” Psalm 34:5 (ESV), “Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.”
to tell me “that one looks nice” — to which I often respond by asking, “Do these pants make me look fat?” Seems like, as a middle-aged woman, I’m al- ways worried about how “fat” I am. As a middle-aged Christian woman, I struggle against my self-focus on my seemingly ever-changing body. Recently, I was lamenting to my stepsister that overall I felt really good, except for being…you got it…fat. She responded kindly and said, “I’m not sure I know what that word means.” Being clever, I went to Google to get her a definition. As I was typing my search in, another word came to mind… “phat.” Now, if you’re like me, and middle-aged, that means you were around in the early 2000s when the word PHAT became popular. I had a vague recollection that it meant “cool.” So I did what we do, and I googled “PHAT.” Here is the definition that I found. Phat – “Phat is modern English slang for ‘very good.’ It is derived from African-American Vernacular Eng- lish. It has been used as an abbreviation for ‘Pretty Hot and Tempting’ since the early 2000’s.” It made me chuckle, I have to admit. I felt like the Lord was agreeing with me. I am fat. I am PHAT. Not FAT. And now, when I ask my husband if my pants make me look fat, he can definitively reply… “Yes, honey, you look very phat.” It was a sweet reminder today, that there are al- ways multiple perspectives and viewpoints that we can look at our life from. I often only see my life from my own perspective. But God offers us the opportunity every day to see our lives from His perspective. His perspective is almost always more lofty than ours , more grace-filled than ours, and more powerful than ours. Psalm 139:14 (ESV), “I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
1 Peter 2:9 (ESV), “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own posses- sion, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Today God reminded me that I am fearfully and won- derfully made. He reminded me that He put me together just as He wanted me. He reminded me that I have pur- pose, and that purpose is not connected to my size of my
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This is What I’ve Learned...
...From Broken Things
By Layton Howerton August 2025 Our lives are filled with broken things —
and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” Old Ernest was right, for the world does break everyone, and if I might add, not just everyone, but everything, and it’s by de-
But God wants us to come to view the broken things in our lives as part of our own complete and utter broken- ness. By recognizing that somewhere within His deep love, grace and mercy how useable and valu- able we are to Him for His eternal purposes and plans. Now biblically speaking, our Heavenly Father seems to have no need of self-made men or women, who are prideful, egotistical, self-reliant and unbroken. For He choses by His own design, to use helpless, broken people and the Bible tells me so, over and over again. Choosing time after time to use broken folks who are willing to become strong in their broken places, by allowing the illu- minating light of His Holy Spirit to shine through the cracks of their lives for all the world to see. And oh, what a wondrous sight it is to see of the mighty power that He can do through broken people! So I’ll share one last thing that Old Earnest said, “We’re all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” But I’ll add this to his quote…it’s not only how the light gets in…it’s also how the light gets out!
just take a look around yours. Your attic, your garage, your outbuild- ings, the “barns” of your life. More than likely, you have some broken things in yours as I do in mine that you just can’t bear to part with.
Take a moment and think about all the storage fa- cilities that have popped up around the country, and I can just about guarantee you that many of these storage units are filled with some broken things. Broken things that folks have been holding onto for years that they just can’t bear to part with. All out of some perceived value or sentimental reason, that someday they might have need of them or find a use for them again. When I sold my place in Wyoming several years ago, I threw away all kinds of broken things that I’d been holding onto for years. Needless things, that had been cluttering up and occupying the spaces in the barns of my life for way too long.
sign. For the things of this world, were never meant to last, or as some have said, “built to last,” and this we all know from our barns to the salvage yards, and landfills of our lives.
Ernest Hemingway once said, “The world breaks everyone,
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