Dear girl, did you know I was like you?

This is a letter written to any girl out there who needs it. Holy Spirit guide my thoughts

Dear girl,

I've never met you and I'm probably never gonna meet you but did you know I was like you? Did you know I hated the image in the mirror? Yeah I used to dislike who I was, in fact I didn't even know who I was. People would tell me I was beautiful and I never believed them. Some people would tell me I needed to loose weight because no one was going to love me that way, now I don't know why but those words I did believe, those words I did take to heart. Somehow those lies were the ones that sunk in, it was because I looked in the mirror and pointed out every imperfection possible, nothing about me was good or worthy of liking. When your friends have boyfriends and your crush doesn't even look at you.............well, let's just say it's pretty easy to believe the lies. I didn't have a boy to tell me that I was beautiful and that he loved me and wanted to be with me forever. I looked in the mirror and saw someone who no one could ever like or have feelings for. Why did I do that? As teenage girls why do we like to torture ourselves? I'm sure you do it too, you stare at yourself in the mirror and spend hours trying to make yourself look better because you are not happy with what you see and you need make up to cover up and feel beautiful. Well that was me, I would spend at least and hour getting ready and making sure that my hair looked great, my mascara was perfect, my lips were glossy, eyeshadow was a must! And I was only in 8th grade.....wow, I was still 14 and I was putting make up on. I wanted to impress a boy and impress the world. I was working out because that's what the world required of me. You see I was never going to believe I was beautiful until a boy told me so, until I knew I could be liked and loved. Boy was I jealous of those Victoria's Secret models who could basically pick out a boyfriend from the crowd, and boy was I jealous of my best friends, don't get me wrong, their relationships were adorable but I wanted something like that. It's human nature to feel like that but with me it was unhealthy, it was destroying my self esteem. Don't let it destroy yours.
Now that was only the physical part. Dear girl, did you know I used to hate my inner self too? Oh yeah, I didn't like who I was inside either. My perspective of myself was : "I'm not pretty, I get angry all the time, I'm never strong enough, I always have to pretend, I hate this girl, she is too jealous, too ugly, too envious. No one loves you, not your family, not your friends, not anyone. Why are you even alive?" Yeah not a place to be huh? I attempted suicide because I was done, I was done with myself, this girl that I trusted with my problems and that I laughed with since I was born was the same girl that now I couldn't stand, was the same girl that I wanted to murder, literally murder. Countless tears were shed and countless more were retained.
So I got a boyfriend, yay!!!!........Not really, if a boy tells you he likes you, do you believe him? Because I couldn't believe this boy, I couldn't believe he would and could like me. So in my head I needed to hear the words "you are beautiful" from a boy but when I heard them, I STILL DIDN'T BELIEVE!! WHAT?!?! What was it gonna take for me to get it?! What was it gonna take for me to understand that I was beautiful inside and out even if I couldn't see it? Was it gonna take for YOU to notice your beauty?
Look I don't care how old you are or how much you hate or love yourself but I'm going to tell you something that you need to hear: YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL! STOP BELIEVING WHAT THE WORLD TELLS YOU!!! Beauty is a very personal thing and is subjective, love yourself first if you want the world to love you.
How did I do it? How did I survive? Well, the cool thing is....I didn't. I didn't do anything, God did it all. He showed me that I was beautiful, that I was his princess, his bride. Everytime I held that knife to take my life and couldn't do it, well it made me feel like a bigger coward than before, but I wasn't ready to die, there is something in this life that I have to do, my story was not ready to end yet. I wanted a boy to tell me I was gorgeous and God did more than that, Christ did more than that. He showed me that his love was immense! Not only did he think I was beautiful, oh no, he loved me even with all my imperfections. He made me with all these imperfections and those make me so unique! GOD LOVES YOU! I don't care if you believe in him or not (and I pray that you do) but the truth is the HE LOVES YOU! Your life may not be easy but he's there!!!! I had to learn to love myself. Dear girl I know how it feels, to not have God, to not have hope, to hate what you see but I understand where you and I went wrong, we listened to every word we heard, to every image we saw. The media shows us stunning girls who are size 0 and we envy them, imagine if everyone was a size 0, do we become beautiful or do we become clones? We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. We cannot be clones.
Dear girl STOP IT! Stop the pain, love yourself, learn how to do it. I want you to know I love you and that there is good in you, of course there's good in you. You are a princess and your husband will love you no matter how you look or feel about yourself because that is real love. If you think that only because a guy likes you that makes you beautiful then I'm sorry to tell you that you are wrong. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Dear girl, what is beauty??
Finally, know this: Loving myself did not come easily, it's not a facile task to love something that you once despised. But by the grace of God I did it, I stopped believing what the world was telling me and the world is going to tell you that God is not real. Think of all the lies it has told you before, will you trust it again? You are worth so much!!! Even the most valuable diamond in this world is not more beautiful than you are because you have a chance to know God, because even in all the struggles that you've faced you still survived.
I love you so much and I hope you can love yourself as much as I love you.
Sincerely,
A girl who was once like you

Pray for the stars

Hey there! Well I was just thinking today and I was thinking that almost never do I pray for the stars and by stars I mean celebrities. I mean honestly, we get caught up in the fact that these people are beautiful and surrounded by money and live glamorous lives and we forget that they are humans just like you and I. Yeah the paparazzi follows them around and give us pretty much everything we want to know, but they don't tell us what we don't want to know. Rarely ever does a paparazzi or a magazine take the time and effort of finding out the problems that celebs have, just because someone smiles it doesn't mean they are happy. Smiles can be deceitful and I think that celebrities hide a lot of things because they influence their fans a lot and we don't like to see our heroes be fragile. For example, one celebrity that I truly admire is Angelina Jolie. Don't get me wrong, I know she is not perfect or anything and there are a lot of things about her that I don't agree with but you have to admit that she is a great actress, she can deliver a variety of characters, from a secret agent to a desperate mother. I admire her skills as an actress and her passion for acting and directing. She is someone that I must pray for and will pray for. Yeah she has money and beauty and a wonderful family but do I know her struggles? She could be going through something really harsh right now and not a single paparazzi would tell me. You see we never know what our stars are going trough. Their lives seem so perfect and wonderful but no one has a perfect life.
But I like her, it's easy for me to pray for celebrities that I like, but what about those that I don't like? What about Marilyn Manson (whom I can't stand) or Drake (yeah Im not a fan of him)? Should I cast them out?? NO! On the other hand I should pray for them even more! Think of celebrities or people that you can't stand and pray for them, don't let that be an excuse for you not praying, I don't know Drake but I know that his life is not all roses and lilies. Pray pray pray. No prayer is ever wasted.

Hmmm.....do you ever wonder??

Ok so this is a thought that has been recurring in my head for a while now and I'm kind of interested to get some responses (those of five of you who read my blog.lol) because I want to know if anyone else feels like this.
I like to walk a lot and take the bus a lot so when I do that I listen to my iPod. One day I was just standing there waiting for the bus and I was listening to my iPod and I started looking around at the people driving, the many cars that passed me and I wondered.....these people, these drivers.....how many burdens do they carry? Ever look at someone and just wonder how their day is going? Well that's what I did, I sat there and pondered the idea that each and everyone of these drivers is real and has a life of their own and what is it like to live that life? And as they drive where are they going? To see some loved ones? To work? To feed their kids? To beat their kids? To cry themselves to sleep? To fulfill a dream? To destroy a dream? I mean how many times a day do we see people driving or walking and we don't even acknowledge them? We don't even realize that we may be having a good day or a bad day but what has their day been like?We don't realize that maybe they are broken inside or maybe they are having the happiest day of their life.
These past couple of days I've just really been thinking about that and looking at the drivers and maybe giving them a smile because I never know who's gonna need it, also the passengers, they have lives too. I look at those people and I can't help to feel love for them and wonder if some day by some weird accident or plan of God I will be able to meet one of them or help one of them. I also wonder about all the trials that they may be facing right now and how unfortunate I am for NOT being able to help but how fortunate I am to see their faces and BE able to help.....just not in the way you and I are thinking of helping.
Do you ever wonder? Do you ever pray?? You see while I was analyzing all of this I realized that I was useless to the people that didn't see my smile or realize that I was looking at them and for a slight second I felt frustration.
And then I looked up.
Wow. This thought was not about me at all! It's about those people, it's about them and God. Maybe I can't be there for them in the hard times or celebrate with them the joys of their lives but I CAN PRAY! That's the best way to help anyone!! Yes, I can ask God to help them because he can do anything and I am powerless, I can tell God that it's awesome that their lives are going great, I can ask him to show them Christ, to strengthen the faith of those who are falling apart. Praise the Lord because I CAN PRAY!!!!!!!!
You see I was getting so frustrated because I knew nothing about these people and I couldn't rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. I felt helpless. But by praying I am giving them up to the one being that absolutely adores them because He made them, he knows where they are going and what they are going to do, my prayers are the best help I can offer for them. Maybe my smile will brighten their day but my prayers give them hope and they don't even know it!! It's so cool! God knows the plans he has for them, these are plans to prosper them, not to harm them. Plans to give them a HOPE and a FUTURE. I could never give them that, no matter how much I want to be a light in their lives I can't because I can't help every person out there, but my prayers sure can because I know that my God is listening and I know that my faith is sufficient and his grace is abundant.
So I ponder....do YOU ever wonder? Do YOU ever pray for random people? Do YOU ever even pray for yourself? Look, if it were in my hands I would help every single one of those drivers and passengers and I would laugh with them and give them comfort when they need it, but I'm not God. The best thing I can do is pray for them. And if that's not good enough.....well, then you tell me what's better because I don't think you can out-do praying.
Go out and wonder. Go out and pray. It's fun.

Christian Gossip

Ahhh yes. Gossip. One of my favorite things to do. I'm a teenage girl, I like to gossip, only......it's not the gossip you are thinking of. A couple of months ago I was at church hanging out with some friends and we were talking, now I don't remember how but one of my friends said "we are gossiping....christian gossiping". You may be asking "what's christian gossiping?" well it's as simple as this: saying nice things about people when they are not around. That's it. That's all it is. From then on I've been using that term a lot, whenever I'm saying something nice about someone and they are not around I say I'm christian gossiping. I have a friend who will text me everytime she's christian gossiping bout me. It feels really nice actually, to know that instead of sitting there judging someone and discussing how wrong they are and how I could have done things better in that situation, I'm actually saying positive things about them. Things that are encouraging. Honestly, what's the pleasure in eating someone with your words? That person is never going to hear all the hurtful things you have to say and whoever you are talking to doesn't need to hear those things. If instead you concentrate on the people you love and the things you love about them and you choose to share those things with other people, you will see how rewarding it is. The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Don't use it to hurt others, use it to motivate people and encourage them. Try it, I guarantee that what you feel after you've done that is going to be an amazing feeling. Everytime I go around christian gossiping it fills my heart with love and it puts a huge smile on my face, that person may never know I did it or may never know what I said but boy is it gratifying!! I can tell you this, the feeling I get when I do it.....I can't explain it and I am thankful because God placed people so amazing that are worthy of such gossip. If you have anytime today please gossip.....no, not just gossip. Christian gossip :)

The little things....

So I've been gone for quite a while. I've been busy with school and really trying to put my thoughts together and thinking what I want to blog about. I want to talk about the little things, those small acts of kindness that we miss, that we don't appreciate. Lately God has been showing me a lot of kindness trough other people, through the kind people that he has placed in my path. I love it when people give me presents or whatever but once in a while it's just nice to receive a smile. It's refreshing to receive a smile from a complete stranger. I've been blessed with totally kind people in my life and when I think about all the little things that they've done for me, they think it's little but for me it's a HUGE deal. There's several people at my church that give me rides when I need them, that for me is something huge! There's a friend at school that if I'm not in class, she'll always ask what's wrong or where I'm I. There's a friend that if I tell her I'm hungry, she will make me food, she brought me a taco to church one time just because I told her I was craving tacos. A taco!!! She didn't realize that that was a huge act of love for me. A couple of months ago I was with some friends and one of my friends had like a small candy thingy and I started joking saying that I wanted it, as he was unwrapping it he said "no", then I said "Ok, I see how it is" and while he was unwrapping it he offered it to me. He knew I was joking but he still wanted to give it to me anyways. Sometimes we get all caught up in the big things that people do for us that we forget the magnitude of the little things. A smile, a sweet text, a nice post on facebook, a hug, it's so easy to appreciate those things. Today I encourage you to pay attention to all the little things that are given to you, but not only that, give back!!! Yes. Give a smile, a compliment, a hug, a high five. Guys, it's so easy to be kind! Don't take the little things for granted, embrace them. Don't go around thinking you deserve the world, be humble and kind, try it. I can't tell you how good it feels to just smile at someone, engage in conversation with them and compliment them and share stories with them. Helping people is one of my favorite things to do. Be kind, not because of what you are going to get out of it, but because of what you've already been given because of it. At the end of the day, don't underestimate the power of the little things........size matters not.