Life Doesn’t Wear a Shaper by Marie Whitson

TM

Life Doesn’t Wear a Shaper
A Look Into the Quirky Ways Life Can Shape Us
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2020 Marie Whitson
v2.0

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the
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ISBN: 978-1-9772-1405-8

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

I would like to thank everyone who helped in the making of this
book.I would not have made it through my life without you and espe-
cially want to thank my husband , Dave and my kids Dylan , Deidra
and Dalton.I love you more than words can say and can’t wait to see
what your future holds. To my friends and family who made it in this
edition – I love you all and you have blessed my greatly and enriched
my life so much!! And to those who haven’t – well I’m not done writ-
ing yet(wink ,wink!) I would also like to dedicate this to my parents. I
miss them so much and wish they could be here to see the final pub-
lication of this dream of mine. I love you so much My Papa and My
Marmy!!I would also like to thank my nephew Shaun Mulholland for
the awesome cover he did for this book, he really amazes me!

Life doesn’t wear a shaper
A look into how life’s quirky ways can shape us

By Marie Whitson

Table of Contents

1. Life Before a shaper .................................................................. 1
2. Our new life – still before a shaper!.......................................... 4
3. Beginning to need a shaper ...................................................... 9
4. Why are these things so tight?................................................. 14
5. What does a shaper really do? ................................................ 17
6. Do I have to wear one?........................................................... 19
7. The’re not to bad - once the’re on ........................................... 21
8. You look great! ....................................................................... 25
9. There on, how do I look? ........................................................ 27
10. The longer they’re on – the tighter they feel ............................ 29
11. So uncomfortable! .................................................................. 33
12. I can’t breathe! ....................................................................... 35
13. What would happen if I didn’t wear one? ............................... 37
14. She’s wearing one….. ............................................................. 40
15. But everyone else is wearing them.......................................... 42
16. Letting it go ............................................................................ 45

17. Being hangry .......................................................................... 48
18. Can I live without one? ........................................................... 52
19. Can they tell I have them on?.................................................. 55
20. Thinking of letting go…… ..................................................... 58
21. I’m gonna do it!...................................................................... 62
22. Oooo, this feels weird! ........................................................... 65
23. Wow! I’m free and I’m loving it!............................................. 69
24. Come on and do it with me!................................................... 72
25. Acknowledgements ................................................................ 75

1C H A P T E R

Life Before a shaper

LET ME FIRST start by saying, I am a rather full figure gal. I was thin all
the way up into my early thirties. I seem to remember the exact time it
happened. I had just had my daughter Deidra (and no, I am not blam-
ing her, even though it would be nice to pass the blame).My husband
Dave and I have been married 5 years at the time and had a 4 year old
son already. We had what many call “the rich man’s family”. I decided
I was going to get my “tubes tied”. Well, God had other plans. Ten days
before my surgery, I found out I was pregnant. I Smoked at the time,
but not in my house. I was coming in from having my morning smoke
and said to Dave “Pew! What is that smell?! He looked dead at me and
made the statement….”You’re pregnant!” So I of course said back”
What in the world would make you joke like that? Why did you say
that? Calmly he said,” That smell is coffee, and the only time you didn’t
like coffee and it’s smell, was when you were pregnant”. Well, I wanted
to cold-cock him right on the spot because I didn’t think it was funny.
Now I have to say, I was a Christian at that time, but I was not seri-
ous nor truly understanding of what being a follower of Christ should
mean to me(sad, but true)I went about my day, thinking about what
he had said and the more I thought of it, the more my mind was get-
ting away from me. Well, I have been feeling a little off ,but that could
just be a cold. But I am more tired than usual. Well, My mood swings
have been really severe (Ha, says Dave).Well by time evening came

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LIFE DOESN’T WEAR A SHAPER

around I couldn’t take it anymore and went to the store to get “the
test”. I came home and just couldn’t wait until the morning; my mind
just wouldn’t let me. Dave was in bed already and the two kids were
asleep, so I took the test. BINGO! The stick was barely dipped when
the plus sign came up. A big red plus sign. I was horrified. I was bawling
like a big baby(no pun intended)when I took the stick in to show Dave.
I couldn’t even speak, I just cried uncontrollably. I woke him up and he
was like “what’s wrong? What’s wrong? All I could do was show him
the stick. He hugged me and said “We’ll be fine ,It’s ok!”I just wanted
to punch him. It wasn’t ok! We had the perfect family! We were going
to upset the apple cart of our perfect sized family! It took me quite
awhile before I could wrap my mind around all of this .I would pray,
”Lord, what happened? We had the perfect size family, we didn’t plan
this.”I prayed that for a long time, probably half of my pregnancy. I did
of course feel motherly, excited about the love for this little person in-
side of me, and he was the easiest pregnancy(my first two were tough)
and I always joked “ God made this one easy for me cause He figured
He didn’t want to do me in.”The shame of my initial feelings came
flooding in the night I had Dalton. He was three weeks early, and I had
all kinds of concerns. I wanted him to be ok, and all those thoughts of
how I initially felt came back to me, racing in my mind. Would God
forgive me for ever feeling like that? While I was laying in bed with our
perfect little Dalton in my arms, just bonding, quiet, beautiful & serene,
I thought of this verse in Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans
to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a
future.”*

I just stared at Dalton and started to cry. Lord forgive me! How can
I have ever questioned a beautiful gift like this from YOU! How can
you ever forgive me for having such selfish thoughts! Now, I have to
say in advance that this was by no means a sighting of a holy spirit,
no Angels talking to me or anything like that ,but at that very moment

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LIFE BEFORE A SHAPER
I felt the most strongest presence of God that I have ever felt. I felt
HIS peace ,joy ,love. I can’t explain it to you except that I had such a
calm come over me, and the very strong feeling that God was going
to do something special with Dalton’s life. Now ,I know He made us
all to have a purpose , and are made special in His eyes. I don’t mean
that, I meant that I felt God was telling me ”It’s ok Marie ,I am with
you. I am with your family. I am with Dalton ,and boy do I have a plan
for him.”I never looked back on the guilt I felt, because I know God
was telling me “It’s ok Marie, I forgive you-now you need to forgive
yourself.”I realized how special God thought we were to Bless Dave
and I with another child of His.

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2C H A P T E R

Our new life – still before a
shaper!

AFTER THE BIRTH of my third and last child, Dalton, I was in the
process of opening my own beauty shop. We rented our house at
that time for 10 years and we had a small little bungalow behind our
house. I had asked my landlords about using that small house to con-
vert into a shop. They said sure and my landlord and I went to mea-
sure the room to make sure it was big enough to use by State Board
regulations. Would you believe it was twelve feet to short! Twelve
feet! The little house was old and the township regulations would
make it expensive to renovate and not worth it. My landlord had this
huge building in between our house and theirs, and decided she was
going to talk to her husband (also my landlord) about renovating that.
The thought was, she wanted to do something with the building any-
way and if they were going to put out big money, they might as well
put it into that .Oh, did I mention it was an old milk house that they
refurbished as a house for their farm help? Later on in years, they put
all their old tractors in it. Did I mention the back of the building was
out and it housed about 40 chickens and roosters? Ha! How in the
world were they going to turn THAT dilapidated shell of a building
into my beautiful beauty shop? I just couldn’t picture it. That’s why
I’m not an architect. I have a hard time envisioning a big beautiful

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OUR NEW LIFE – STILL BEFORE A SHAPER!

finished building out of a old or nonexistent one. But Charlotte obvi-
ously did and I’ve said all along that I didn’t want something that big,
but God had other plans for me. It took four years from start of plan
to finish. I thought we were never going to open, but the day finally
came.

Psalm 86:10-12
10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.

11Teachmeyourway,Lord,thatImayrelyonyourfaithfulness;
give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

12 I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will
glorify your name forever.

It was February 5th, 2002. I remember stepping inside that door before
anyone came, dropping to my knees and praying a prayer of thankful-
ness, faithfulness, guidance, to help others and for prosperity. I prayed
that I would be Gods witness to every person who entered that door
and that He would help me to be a Blessing to all I encountered. He
did just that. I was blessed with a ten year run of joy, pain, despair,
happiness, every emotion you could possibly feel, I felt. We not only
felt them for ourselves, but for our extended families. Oh, the sto-
ries we would hear! Dating, marriages, babies, new friendships, new
houses, cars , pets! The hardest ones of course were the painful ones.
Deaths, unfaithfulness, betrayal , broken friendships , lost jobs, disap-
pointments. I would pray so much for them, and was thankful that I
could. I had so many to pray for that it reminded me of a movie where
the main character was hearing all the prayers coming in his head and
it was making his head spin! It was all good though, I love praying
for people! Another good thing was that I was right next to my house.
How great was that! I was able to be around my kids and they could

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LIFE DOESN’T WEAR A SHAPER

walk over to come see me when they wanted. It was good, and it was
bad. That “double edge sword” if you will. I had really understanding
clients and I don’t really like to call them that. They were family and
still are. As the kids got older, the issues got bigger. My oldest had
issues from about six years of age. As a “tween” he started hanging
around a group of kids that I didn’t think were all that bad, some is-
sues, but don’t we all? We didn’t live near a lot of houses so anyone
that came over had to be dropped off or they rode their bikes. Dylan
started really acting out. He was not able to express himself and felt
constantly frustrated. He would get so mad; he would bang his head
against the wall, bite himself and lash out. I wanted to enroll him with
a counselor, but Dave said that was always my reasoning, and he
didn’t need a counselor. I begged to differ. As they got older, I realized,
some of those friends weren’t so good. Drugs, alcohol, stealing, Jail,
all came creeping into our lives. The harder I tried to keep my family
in church and in God’s word, the harder it was to keep them there. I
think now, really looking at the situations in our lives, maybe it was
more for my own fear that I pushed so hard. I was so afraid that my
children, my gift that God has trusted to me, weren’t going to be saved
and follow me into the kingdom of Heaven and that I failed God. How
could I fail the Father? What did I do wrong? Why did they not see
what I saw in Gods unchangeable love and promises? I admittedly still
struggle with it. I can’t even imagine my kids not choosing God and
suffering eternal pain and suffering! Let’s take a walk back in time to
visit Cain. Cain was the first born of Adam and Eve. He grew to be a
selfish man who was jealous of his brother, Abel. He was not happy
that God was not pleased with what he had to offer. His thoughts
probably went a little like this; “ I can’t believe God thought my offer-
ing wasn’t up to His standards! How dare He! I gave SOMETHING!
Isn’t that better than NOTHING? Oh! But what Abel gave was great-
so why didn’t He like what I had to offer? That Abel is just showing
off! Well. I’ve got news for him, I’m going to show him who’s boss!
So Cain said to Abel “ Let’s go out into the field “. When they did,
Cain killed his brother ( Genesis 4:8). Now, imagine being jealous of

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OUR NEW LIFE – STILL BEFORE A SHAPER!

one of your siblings. Would it be so bad that you would kill them for
it? I know you probably feel like it at times, but you wouldn’t do it,
especially if YOU were the one who was wrong. You think Mom loves
them more than you. You seem to be the one getting yelled at all the
time, not them. They let them slide when coming in late from curfew,
you get read the riot act when your 10 minutes late. They get all the
boy friends/girl friends , you sit home on a Saturday night. I know. I’ve
been there. But…. I did not STAY there. Do you want to know why?
Because I knew better. In each and every one of my situations, I knew
better and my parents knew I knew better. They didn’t just correct me
because I was wrong, they corrected me because I knew better and
chose wrong any way. Now there was times when I couldn’t help it,
but they somehow knew when I was being honest and when I wasn’t.
Parents are weird that way. I was a Cosmetology Instructor in New
Jersey and my students always told me I have “ the look” – They tell
me their story of why they did what they did, and I always look them
in the eyes and they know I know when their not telling me the truth
or their trying to get over on me. They can’t look at me. I just stand
there and look at them and their like “ What? I’m telling you the truth
Ms. Marie, honest, well, mostly…well, ok….how do you do that?!”
I just laugh and tell them their guilty conscious does it, not me. Did
you get that? Their guilty conscious. Ok, back to Cain. God finds Cain
and asks him , “Cain, where is your brother , Abel?” Cain replies, “I
don’t know, am I my brothers keeper?” (Genesis 4:9)Now we know
God doesn’t need Cain to tell him what happened. He knows, He just
wants Cain to come clean and be honest with Him. He is giving him
an opportunity to be honest and tell Him the truth, but we all know
that didn’t happen. Have you ever been in a place in your life where
you get bitter angry, you do something wrong, and when confronted
about it, you get angry? That’s exactly what happened with Cain. He
was angry because God called him out on the situation. Our parents
did it to us, we do it to our children, and God does it for us. The oppor-
tunity to come clean is always there, you just have to take the first step.
My kids have had opportunities to come clean, and haven’t. I think we

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LIFE DOESN’T WEAR A SHAPER

ALL have had that opportunity slip through our hands once or twice in
our lives and I’m sure it won’t be the last. The great thing is that God
always gives us a chance, we just sometimes want to take matters in
our own hands. The problem is, that when we do, we can’t handle the
repercussions of what happens when we do our own thing and its not
Gods plan. Cain discovered that in the very next verse.

(Genesis 4:10-12)

The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your broth-
er’s blood cries out to me from the ground.  11 Now you
are under a curse  and driven from the ground, which
opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from
your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer
yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on
the earth.”

Wow! Pretty intense. Now God has told Cain ,”Hey, I know what
happened, I gave you the chance to come clean, you chose your
way, now you will not reap any harvest, nor have rest and wonder
the earth”. Have we done that? I know I have. When I do things with
prayer and ask for guidance, It is usually smooth(or smoother) sail-
ing. When I do as I want to or grow impatient, I get anxious, angry
and usually things don’t go right at all. Dave always says to me “ If
you would have done it right the first time, you wouldn’t have to go
through this now”. That is the truth, if we ask for God to be in the driv-
er seat ,we would save a lot of time and not have to keep stopping for
directions because we are lost. I need to remember this a lot with my
own kids. I sometimes get impatient waiting for God to guide them,
that I take matters into my own hands, especially when it comes to
their salvation. I get into my shallow thinking that God “needs” me to
put them on the right path when all along, God just wants me to trust
Him to put them on the right path and for ME to allow HIM to do it
through whomever He wants, and that just possibly might not be me.

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