Fat you say? Oh sorry, I didn't see it, it must have been hiding under all my beauty!

Here's the thing, self-image is something that girls struggle with. Period. You can deny it, you can shove it aside, you can pretend like it's not there but it's there. I have struggled with it ever since I started puberty and although it has gotten better, the struggle is still there.

Right now, my entire family is on a diet, they're all on a health kick and everyone is pushing me to join them. Why? "You're too short to be that fat", "look at your belly", "you're not healthy", blah blah blah. Don't you just wish sometimes that you had a little power switch so that you could tune out all of that stuff? But like, legit tune it out. All those comments have been making me insecure lately, they're drawing me back to a place where I don't want to go, a place called depression. The last time that I seriously struggled with my self image I lost myself, I became this person that people wanted of me, I wanted to please everyone.

Here's a little tip: DO NOT try to please EVERYONE! It's impossible!! If I tried to please my family then sure, I would be on a diet and shedding pounds, but then what about me? What happens when I fail one week? Then I would be stuck thinking of myself as a loser. When we encounter failure and it has to do with our self image, the negative takes over the positive, and if you're like me, then when you are doing things for the sake of others, you won't be motivated to do it for yourself so you'll just quit. I don't want to work out or eat healthy cause people tell me to, I want to do it FOR ME! I love running, I used to do it often actually, and if I ever have that desire again then I will do it, but I want to make sure it comes out of me. You see this world has this idea of beauty, the "thin" ideal, and I don't know whose idea was it to come up with that but I know of a guy who can prove this ideal wrong.

Fernando Botero is a Colombian artist who has been doing paintings and sculptures for many years. His work is displayed around the main cities of Colombia and I can honestly say (since I am an eye witness) that it is unlike any other, take a look:

This man has dedicated his entire life to drawing FAT people, especially NAKED fat people. He mostly draws fat naked women and there are many sculptures of the kind around the world, but he has expanded to fat everything, fat men, fat animals, fat babies, fat fat fat. I don't know about you, but his work is beautiful, in my eyes, that's so beautiful. Society teaches us that there's this ONE ideal way to be, that's not true, Botero has proved that all over the world. You don't have to be thin to be beautiful, you don't have to be huge either, you are beautiful because you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Since when is fat a bad thing? Since when is that not beautiful? If there was really only one ideal way to be beautiful, then wouldn't we all be the same way? The only person that has the power to define beauty for you is yourself!!! Some of you may look at these pictures and laugh your heads off or think it's completely weird but to me, it is beautiful. The bible says that God "has made everything beautiful in its time" and the reality is that beauty is not something that may or may not exist in everyone, it IS in everyone. 

I struggle with my physical beauty a lot and that's why I love encouraging girls to feel beautiful. You see I know that I am beautiful, but I don't always feel beautiful. I have been blessed to have an incredible young man by my side who doesn't let a day go by without telling me how gorgeous I am, hearing those words from a boy may help at times, but it does not determine my perspective on my beauty, on the days that I don't feel beautiful it's hard to believe him when he says that. So now what? Where do you go from there? Let me help you out a bit.

First things first, you need to come to the point of KNOWING that you ARE beautiful!! God has shown me that, He says it in His word that I am beautiful and loved and special. Something that has helped me lately is looking in the mirror and concentrating on one part of my body and first looking at my imperfections and then overlooking those to concentrate on the beauty of it. For example, my hands, I have really small hands and they are constantly dry so I have a ton of lines everywhere and I have these small dark hairs on my finders and my ring finger has this weird bump on it from me resting the pencil there when I write and my right hand has two scars and like 3 birth marks. But I have beautiful nails that are really strong and my pinkies are adorable because they're so tiny! My eyebrows are really bushy and I have a fuzzy forehead but my eyes are really beautiful and my smile is beautiful as well. It's all about learning to love yourself little by little, piece by piece. 

Once you've learned and understood that you ARE beautiful, you have to fight the daily battle of feeling beautiful. There are days when I look at myself and I see nothing beautiful, I hate pictures of myself because I never look good in any of them, I don't feel like I'm beautiful in any of them. So how do you achieve feeling beautiful? You accept your beauty no matter what you look like. Sweaty? Still beautiful. In sweat pants? Beautiful. Hair a mess? Beautiful. Greasy hair? Beautiful. A couple of pounds over? Beautiful. A couple of pounds under? Beautiful. Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Accept that reality and it will be easier for you to notice your beauty. And if people tell you otherwise, remember that they are blinded by what the media feeds us. A year ago every magazine was going crazy about Kim Kardashian, now that she's pregnant she's criticized for being "too fat", criticized by the same magazines that were saying how gorgeous she looks in a bikini. Just think about that.

This past week I found out that only 4% of women describe themselves as beautiful. That's sad, that's pathetic, and the worst part is that it's not our fault. We are taught that beauty is this and beauty is that and no one lets us define beauty on our own. You see I AM beautiful, do some people call me fat? Yes, do I have fat in me? Of course, more than I should, is that my identity? No. Never. You see I'm not fat, I'm beautiful. I'm I defined by how hairy my forehead is? No, I'm still beautiful. I am imperfect, that's true, but I am God's special little girl and I will always be beautiful because of that.

I don't care what you have heard, I don't care what you have been told, I beg you please remember this: Beautiful is not just a word, it's an attitude. Beautiful is not what the media shows us, it's what you make of it. 

God bless <3 You're beautiful!!

I'm not poetic and I'm not a poet

Ok so poetry is not my thing, but every once in a millennium I'll get really really inspired and I'll write some pretty cool stuff. I was thinking about my future husband one time and I decided to write this poem for him. I write other things for him as well so why not throw some poetry in there right? So here it is.

I can't believe you gave me this chance, the chance to love without any fears You never fail to make my heart dance so I pray it dances for many years Our God has blessed us beyond compare so forever and always, to Him be the glory My love, let's never seize to lift our prayer of living out a godly love story I still remember when you whispered "no doubting", the doubts went away as we embraced I could not keep myself from smiling and inside of me, my heart raced Your eyes are gorgeous like the moon, they always show me my reflection In them, I will see your wife soon For only you have my affection I promise to bear that ring with pride I promise to someday say "I do" I long to call myself your bride I long to say that I love you

Well since I've been challenged....here's 6 weird things I do

As some of you may know, my dear Becca Lathorn has challenged me (along with some others) to blog about weird things that we do. You see I had to think about this one, I'm a rather strange kid, choosing JUST six was not easy but somehow I made it, so here we go:

1. In my head, I have an entire superhero story line about my life
Ok so have any of you ever seen that picture with the kid saying that his life is so much more interesting in his head and you see a shadow of him fighting a dragon? Yep. That's me. I have this whole storyline of me being a normal teenage kid who discovers that she has a dark side and a good side and one is controlled by an angelic spirit and another one is controlled by a demonic spirit so I'm thorn between the two, they both have powers and I can't control them yet, but when they mesh together, I become this incredibly powerful princess, only it can't happen too often cause well...I would embarrass all of my enemies. Ever seen Xena, Warrior Princess? Well imagine that mixed with Oh! My Goddess, Narnia and Sakura CardCaptor. Yep, so far I've had to fight an army of werewolves and demons and I've had to go down to the Underworld to visit my father (hence the dark/demonic side). I also have a pet Griffin who's a boss and an army of the most powerful 7 angels at my command (they're all guys), and since every good story needs a love story, Ezerrel would be my love interest, he's the head angel (for those of you that know my real life love interest, I will shoot you if you tell him any of this, you are forbidden from showing him this). I also have 3 female demons that work by my side when we have battles, and guess what? I can shoot a bow and arrow!! It's so cool! I'm still working on the whole wielding a sword thing but at least I can use daggers! And some other cool powers :) *Sigh* If only....this is what happens when you watch too much t.v and do 3 years of drama in high school...

2. I have a rather eerie obsession with the moon
So a couple of days ago my dad was saying how I was just born with my name, my name is connected to the moon. Ever since I can remember, the moon has been super important to me and I always seem to be stunned when I see it, I just stare at it. I can stare at it for hours and hours and when I'm not feeling well or when things are going bad, I just stare at the moon and everything goes away. And I look for it every night, to me it's way more than just another thing in the sky. It's so weird. I am literally obsess with it.

3. My insults are....well....interesting....
I'm REALLY BAD at insulting people, like really bad. So this year in zoology I learned my favorite word in the english language: marsupial. Yep, I love it. So since it's a cool word and I like to say it, whenever I want to be mean to someone I call them a marsupial. Another one of my favorites is calling people vegans, I got that from a friend. Oh, and if you're a vegan marsupial that eats peaches then...you're pretty much the worst person on Earth...

4. I am utterly incapable of controlling my laughter
I cannot tell you the amounts of times when I have literally "rolled on the floor laughing", one time my cousin took my sister and I to see a movie and after we were done, we went out to the parking lot and he said something funny and I dropped to the floor for like a good 5 minutes, literally laying there on the parking lot just dying of laughter, needless to say they ran to the car and almost drove away without me. I've cried and peed because of laughter way too many times. And in dance class one time, I went the entire 45 minutes dancing and laughing at the same time, my teacher was looking at me like I was nuts! Oh and if I'm too tired or if I've just had a Monster....yeahhhh, it gets worse....

5. I loveeeee picking my scabs!
Seriously, I have scars all over my arms, knees and legs that are results of me picking my scabs. I just find it so much fun!! It's painful AND satisfying at the same time, it's the best of both worlds!

6. I desperately wish my life was either a John Hughes movie or and 80s/90s Japanese anime
If God ever decided "Screw it, I'm done with this kid!" and quit His job as director/writer of my life, I would gladly bring back John Hughes and have him direct my life, come on, I could bond with random strangers in detention, I could wear a pink dress to the Prom, I could ditch a whole day of school and tour around Chicago, I could have a fantastic musical number or dance routine FOR NO APPARENT REASON!!! And if Mr. Hughes doesn't feel like coming back, then I can just call Mr. Akira Toriyama and have him give me super cool strength and glowing blonde hair as I fight off evil aliens and set out to look for the Dragon Balls.

So yeah, those are a few weird things about me. As a treat for you all here are a few extras: I like walking barefoot no matter where I am, I love strawberries with peanut butter, I talk to myself in public all the time and sometimes people think I'm talking to them and I have to reply by saying "sorry, I was just talking to myself" and I have overly dramatic reactions when I'm watching t.v or movies, I also like to yell at the t.v when people are being stupid.

Well there it is, I hope you guys like it. God bless!!!

What Hurts The Most: Part 2 - Mistakes

Now I don't know how many of you are like me, I like to beat myself up for my mistakes all the time. Humans have this inability to understand how perfectly imperfect we are, and when we make mistakes, we like to act as if it were the first time we've ever made a mistake in our lives and we dwell in it and dwell in it and dwell in it.

This time, we hurt because we are hurting ourselves, we realize how stupid we were or how mean were and we recognize that what we did was not something we would usually do so we stay stuck on that. Or we hurt because the consequences of other people's mistakes are hurting us and the pain is so deep that it seems like you are never going to get out of that pit.

I don't know how you react when you make mistakes but I can tell you about my reactions. I used to make mistakes and not care about them, I didn't think about them because to me, they weren't mistakes. As I grew older I realized that (shocker) I'm not perfect!!! (I know, I know, just let that sink in for a second...) And that I'm not the only person in this world, the universe does not revolve around me. There was a bit of an attitude change because if I made a mistake I would condemn myself and beat myself up for it but I wouldn't do anything to correct my mistake unless someone spoke to me about it. However, to me I was still an idiot, I was still stupid and terrible for even making the mistake in the first place, as if perfection was an option for me in my humanity. If you're beating yourself up over your mistakes, just don't, it's as if a zebra was beating itself up over it's stripes, you can't help making mistakes, we are all human.

My reaction when people made mistakes that affected me was pity, I pitied myself and I made myself the victim. Yes, life is unfair, sometimes we are going to get hurt simply because we are caught in the midst of things, God changed my perspective which allowed me to let go of my suffering a bit. When people make mistakes that affect you, realize that they may be hurting you, but the reality is that they are hurting themselves even more. It's sad really, I look at the people that have seriously hurt me before and I see the consequences of their mistakes affecting them now and I begin to forget that they hurt me in the first place.

Humans are bound to make mistakes, it's a reality. There are two quotes that I really like that help me deal with those moments when I make mistakes:

"You live and you learn" You see life...life is this big book full of fables, each page is a day, a day of your story. Inside that day there are many stories, some days you're going to make really big mistakes, some days you're going to make little mistakes, but at the end of every fable there's always a lesson, a moral to be learned. That's life, you have to live it to learn its lessons, you have to dig into your mistakes so that the lessons can dig into your heart. It is your choice whether or not you want to learn from your life but never forget that whatever happens, only YOU can live YOUR life, if you don't learn the lessons that are set before you, no one else can learn them on your behalf.

“You acknowledge your mistakes, and learn from them. Then you pick up and move on.” When you make a mistake, first things first, recognize that it's a mistake. Don't kid yourself and start blaming other people. The second thing you do is you learn from it, don't let guilt take over you, look to see what is there for you to learn in that situation. Then you do something about it, whether it's fixing things or apologizing, but you can't move on unless you do something about the situation. Situations in life are there to push our character, to take us beyond our lines drawn by pride, sadness, anger or whatever. Life keeps moving for a reason, we are not meant to be stationary, we are not meant to dwell in our mistakes, Christ wants us to live life to the fullest, whether you are a believer or not I'm sure we can all agree that letting the pain of our mistakes affect us on a daily basis sends us into a vicious cycle of guilt and pain that does not let us live life to our full potential

Yes, sometimes your mistakes involve other people and they hurt other people, but if you really cared about that person's feelings, you wouldn't keep doing that to them, you would learn your lesson. At the end of the day, the consequences of your mistakes can drag down many, but they can only drown you.

Everybody makes mistakes, there are those who let the pain of their mistakes rule their lives and those who take that suffering and turn it into determination to live out their lesson.

Humans are bound to make mistakes, and we are bound to be affected by other people's mistakes. You are not perfect yourself, don't expect perfection from others. There's a reason why Christianity is based on God's forgiveness towards us, because whether we like it or not, forgiveness is the foundation of perfect love towards those who are imperfect.

What Hurts The Most: Part 1 - Commentary

So I've had a lot on my mind lately, and a lot on my heart as well, but I've been thinking a lot about people, I'm seeing so many people hurting right now. And they're not alone, some days I just want to forget about everything and listen to music for hours and hours without end.

As I was analyzing what hurts people, what drives our behavior, I realized that there are some key things, some main things that hurt all of us. Especially me.

Comments. What people say. That's one of the things that hurts us the most, there's a theory called The Lookingglass Self in which you see yourself through the eyes of others, you begin to define yourself based on  what others see and say about you. I can honestly say that it is really hard to fight this, to fight falling into the Lokingglass self effect (yes, to me it's just an effect) because we are taught to consider what other people say about us. Well lately a lot of comments from a lot of people have been hurting me deeply, I know that they don't mean to hurt me and that they don't realize that they're doing so, but that doesn't erase the fact that they're hurting me. These are people that I love to death, I do my best to concentrate on who I know myself to be, because besides God, no one else in this universe will know you better than you know yourself, no one knows the demons you fight or the thoughts that you think, that's all on you. So whether the people that hurt you with their comments are some of the closest to your heart, or whether they are strangers, only you have the power to give their words power, to give their words meaning. You see I am a firm believer that our emotional health is our personal responsibility, perspective plays a huge part in that, the comments that people say can either make you doubt yourself completely, or they can help you see who you really are. They say you're a loser, who decides what a loser is? They say you're ugly, what's the definition of beautiful? Do they say you're dumb or stupid? A letter grade or a number should not be a measure to see if a person is capable of problem-solving.

I realized that a lot of times we define ourselves based on what society says about a specific thing. I'm a christian and I know how God views me and it is still hard for me to fight off all of the negative comments, I've also been on the other side where I didn't understand how much God loved me and I can tell you that I became a different person based on what people's opinions of me were, people's comments had a huge toll on me in middle school and one of my greatest fears is that I will go back to that place again, that place where it was all about what people thought of me and not about what I thought of me.

Look, whatever you do with your life, for good or for bad people are going to have an opinion about it. Everyone you meet is going to have opinions about you and you can let those opinions becomes realities or you can let them be what they are, opinions, ways of thinking. If you want to know yourself, get to know your creator. Words only have power if you choose to give them power.

 I know about the power of words because I know that I've also hurt a lot of people with my words and for that I am truly sorry. Let me say this, people will remember the nice things you say about them, the good things, and they might remember them for a couple of years, but in the end people will never, ever, forget about a time when their heart was crushed because of something you said. They might forgive, they might get over it, but we never forget about things that leave a mark on our hearts and painful words cut deeper than we can imagine. So many people hear so many words of encouragement everyday and at the end of the day they still cut, they still throw up, they still hate themselves. That's because everyday all they can think about is the negative words.

Watch what you say to people. I know, I have to do it too.

Choosing to love people and encourage them is not easy, and we might hurt others subconsciously because we are not perfect, but it never hurts to keep your tongue in check and I hope you discover (the way I did) that loving others is one of the best ways to show love to yourself.

Live not by the words of a fallen society, show this fallen society what are the words to live by.

Marriage

Ok, hi! I know I've been gone for a while but I just haven't had anything in mind that I really wanted to blog about, I didn't die or anything though :)

But I heard a sermon about this so over the last few days I've really been thinking a lot about marriage, and I guess it's the perfect timing since there's all this stuff going on with gay marriage. So get ready, this is why I think gay marriage SHOULD be legal and why I am completely 100% against it. Beware: this is going to be a bit of a rant.

I have NOTHING against gay people, nothing at all, and I do know a bunch of gay/lesbian/bisexual people. The reality is that homosexuality IS a sin, Leviticus 18:22 says it and it talks about it in Romans as well. God said to love one another, love EVERYONE, but for some reason in our culture the words "love", "tolerance" and "acceptance" seem to all mean the same thing. Well they don't, loving someone does not mean you have to accommodate your believes and opinions so that that person can feel accepted, and just like love is not acceptance, acceptance is not love either, sometimes when people accept us for the wrong reasons we think we feel loved and so we crave that, we associate the feeling of love with the feeling of acceptance because we are living in a tolerant society, but since when is tolerance something that can measure how much you love a person? To me, love is everything that the bible says it is but the love for a neighbor includes loving that person by accepting who they truly are while not having the obligation of tolerating their life styles. I can accept the fact that some people are gay but I do not have to tolerate their life choices, does that mean I can bash on them? No, because then it wouldn't be love. I love gay people but I do not agree with gay marriage. Plain and simple. I accept them and their personalities but I don't have to tolerate their relationships with their partners. It's just like with any other sin, love the alcoholic not the addiction, love the adulteress not the action of adultery, etc.

Should it be legal? Sure, I don't mind that, but calling an apple an orange doesn't make it an orange, and calling gay marriage "marriage" does not make it marriage. So...what is marriage?

A couple of days ago I was in Ephesians 5: 22-33, it talks about marriage and the role of the wife and the role of the husband. Well I was thinking, marriage is the biggest picture of how our love and our relationship with God should be like. When you really like someone, you think about them all the time, you long to talk to them and be with them, to be held by them, your heart jumps at the sight of that person, every little thing they do means the world to you and so on and so forth, two people that are married feel all of this and more, especially at the beginning of the relationship. You don't want to harm that person, you want to do everything in your power to keep them from heartbreak, you want to be a source of joy in their life, the reason why they smile everyday.

God loves us like this and even more so, he desires our attention, he thinks about us all the time, when we call out to him and pray to him his Spirit lights up and his heart rejoices when we worship Him, that is how a man should love a woman, he should cherish her. We are cherished by God through Jesus Christ. Marriage is two people becoming ONE, a husband and wife are completely intertwined and whatever the husband does affects the wife, whether it's good or bad, well although our actions don't affect God, they play a role on the plans he has for us, they don't mess them up! But they do play a role. But God's actions do affect us, the action of sending his son to the cross and therefore making a way for salvation affects our lives and how we live them, we are free to live by grace, we are free to have a personal relationship with God, a marriage with God, a relationship where we have a crazy love and passion for Him that we will defend until the end of time because we are now ONE, Christ dwells in my heart and I am his, I am a co-heir with Christ.

 The more I live life and the more I see people around me I realize that a wedding ring and a piece of paper don't make a marriage, two people willing to truly be one in heart and soul, to work things out through it all and to give the glory to God within their marriage make a marriage.

You wanna know why I'm against gay marriage? Because you cannot take something so precious that God designed as a picture of our relationship with Him and allow it to be used as a description of a sinful relationship, because it is sinful. The state can make it legal all they want, but if two people are not married in the eyes of God, then they're not married at all, and maybe it should be legalized, but until God says you're married, the world can say whatever it wants to say but sadly, you're not married.

The world's definition of marriage is twisted and defiled and I pray with all my heart that someday my marriage mirrors my personal relationship with my Father, that my love for my husband and his love for me amazes the people around us and that they may get a glimpse of how beautiful God's love for all of us is and how committed I am to my marriage with God.

"Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one's house for love, it would be utterly scorned." Song of Solomon 8: 6-7

Crazy Love and Rise Above It

Wow I haven't blogged in FOREVERRRRR!!!!!! Ok well I didn't die or anything.

Ok today I want to talk about Crazy Love :) Beware, this will be a very random post.

I was watching Pitch Perfect with my friends yesterday and in that movie they reference The Breakfast Club A LOT! The Breakfast Club is my favorite movie of all time!! It's a classic and the storyline is jammed with greatness, even though it seems like it's just a regular teenage movie. So if you haven't watched that movie go watch it NOW!!! (Spoiler alert) At the end of the movie, John Bender is walking on the football field and he does a fist pump because he finally got the girl, he got the princess, the beautiful popular girl that everyone wants. Well I've always said that if anyone ever does that for me I'm marrying that person and after I told my friends they were teasing me about it all night. lol.

Well when I was at youth group last night, we did the song Crazy Love by Hawk Nelson and wow. It impacted me a lot, it made me think about God's crazy love for me, see I haven't always been a Christian so when we were worshiping and the song was saying we were saved by crazy love, I just pictured Jesus doing the fist pump thing, because after 16 long years of the Holy Spirit being around me, I finally decided to accept that it is by grace that we are saved. Jesus already got this girl :) God has this immense crazy love for us that is too big for us to comprehend, we don't get it! And because we don't get it, sometimes we can't feel it, but just because we can't feel it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. See that's the thing, God is so unlike us and like us at the same time, but his definition of love is so beyond what we know. We put a limit on love, he doesn't, he has crazy love, we have this skewed worldly definition of love.

We think love can just come and go like it's nothing. Love is so much more than that, God is like love's physical body and he never EVER goes away, he was, he is and he will always be here. His love never fails, we get this feelings and we have the audacity to call it love, we love our family, our friends, our partners, but unlike God, we put a limit on that. See I think it's so cool how God himself is love and how perfect that is because there's not a single human being alive that I can say I love like God loves, I just think his love is too great, it's crazy!! And he loves all of us like that, his love has no limits for any of us. Wow. I'm dwelling on that a bit this week.

Now, to change topics a little bit but not really, my friend and I started a ministry!! I'm so excited! The name is Rise Above It Missions.

The point is to show people love, for them to know that they are not alone in their struggles, we also have a facebook page and an email. It's not that big of a thing yet but we are praying that this grows, we want to help people so badly! We both have had our struggles and our passion in life is to help others understand that God loves them and that they never ever have to face things on their own. Please check it out and if you want to share your story please go for it.

 I guess that's it for now. I miss writing on here :) I've been journaling a lot lately and I really enjoy it but everytime I'm online facebook takes the life of me. lol. I think I have an obsession, ugh, social networks.....Anyways, God bless! Try to find God's crazy love in the little things, they hold tremendous amounts of love!