One of my old boyfriends had a beautifully generous way of describing my figure. He called me ‘shapely’. Ian Booth, wherever you are, I salute you.

I’ve been really excited to get back into my old clothes. After pregnancy there is something lovely about the thought of slipping on a pair of ‘shapely’ jeans that do up without necessitating an industrial medieval girdle-esque undergarment of tortuous discomfort. Ladies of a certain age, you may know where I’m at! I hear that the hard-pressed people of Marks and Spencers have waved their lingerie wand and invented ‘magic knickers,’ but I currently need rather more miraculous ones. I weighed myself at the weekend and whooped with unbridled joy to see that I had finally (after three months of very careful eating) lost all my pregnancy weight. I almost ran to the cupboard where I’d stashed my ‘thinner me’ clothes. I tried them all on. Every last thing looked completely rubbish. (Insert sad face here.)

I went down to the kitchen (in my one-size-fits-all leggings) and bemoaned this fact to Jon. You see, I may have lost all my weight but I have utterly changed shape in the past few months. My legs, hips and back are all smaller, but my tummy and breast size is bigger. (My cup overfloweth, so to speak.) So my jeans don’t do up properly or look too big round my legs. My tops are hideously tight or, are, to be more accurate, completely impossible to get further than ‘garotte position.’ Not at all decent for a bracing constitutional round the park, I assure you.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. My body has been through a great deal in the last five years. I’ve been pregnant three times, breastfed four children and had a terribly sore back, hampering my mobility, into the bargain. It’s no wonder the clothes of my old self no longer ‘sit well’ on my post postpartum body.

The same is true of me spiritually too. I have changed shape in this past few years. Things and people I relied on are no longer there. New things and new wonderful people are on the horizon. Life looks very different. My old spiritual ‘clothes’ no longer fit.

So I have a choice… Do I keep that cupboard full of unfitting items, hoping that I will one day put weight on my thighs and lose a few pounds from elsewhere? Or, do I recycle the lot and trawl charity shops for a new wardrobe? And spiritually? Should I begrudge my changed shape or be glad that Father has apparently designed the new me ready for the new chapter ahead?

Whenever God has changed me in the past it’s because He has known what’s coming next… What a mercy He does not compare us or prepare us for someone else’s assignments! It’s always a tailor-made, perfect fit with Father. He equips BEFORE He sends. Every time.

I looked at my old clothes again today…so very ‘last year darling.’ They are all very shapely of course. Just not my shape.