Review: "My Big Bottom Blessing: How Hating My Body Led to Love in My Life"

I was offered a free review copy of My Big Bottom Blessing:  How Hating My Body Led to Love in My Life by Teasi Cannon published by Worthy Publishing. I thank them for the opportunity to read and review this book.  [I am posting this review on my blog, Amazon.com, and at Worthy Publishing.]

I must confess from the beginning that I am not a woman and this book is specifically directed toward women and women with a weight problem. I can, however, empathize by the fact that I am overweight.

The author writes in a very accessible, enjoyable, honest, and funny style.

She begins by describing how she grew up overweight – being very self-critical of herself for being overweight. She talks about how she entered a period of substance abuse and promiscuity. She ended up marrying, having a child, and then getting a divorce – which added to her self-loathing.

After a time, she fell in love with and married a minister – her current husband. However, that did not end her frustration or her self-criticism; she was still overweight and her family and those at her church often criticized her for not being able to be a normal weight.

She came to find that the answer was not in all the different diets that she tried, but then, asking for healing from God. She found that she did not need to be skinny, necessarily, but she did need to receive healing from the Great Physician.

She came to understand that acceptance from God was not based on her weight, and she moved from the stands of being an orphan in the family of God to being a daughter in the family of God. She began to find out what the old emotional wounds were in her life and she sought healing for them. She came to understand that the heart is more important than the physical. And that our value is found in God, not in our perception – or anyone else's perception – of ourselves.

This is a book of great encouragement for anyone who is having difficulty with their weight. The author rightly encourages the reader to face old wounds, to seek healing from God, and to understand that our value is found in God in not in ourselves in any way.

The only weakness I found in the book is that there is no reflection on what the scripture does say about the care of our body. Scripture is clear that we are to take care of our physical bodies to the best of our ability – for some for various medical reasons or for having it as their favorite sin – food and weight will be a lifetime struggle. I believe the author is on the right track in seeking healing from God, but I wish she had looked at some Scripture and reflected on what God has to say about care of the physical body.

This book is excellent for individual reading as well as study groups. Each chapter ends with a series of questions for reflection, a pep talk, based on the chapter, and a series of Scriptures focusing on a one-word theme of the chapter.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is having difficulty believing that God could love them due to their weight. I would follow up the reading of this book with a study of what the Scriptures say about caring for the body. I would also encourage the readers not to be satisfied with being unhealthy, but to continue to struggle to seek the best health he or she can be in.