Mirror Mirror On the Wall

Everywhere I look I see this concept that recently has plagued me.

Its on the TV, in books, magazines, newspapers, movies, billboards, other ads, on my facebook/twitter newsfeed... the point is that this concept is everywhere.

What I am talking about is image.

Orthofill Blog http://www.orthofill.com/blog/gap-bands/quick-steps-to-become-beautiful/

All of these media outlets have women that beg us to compare ourselves to them and say their image wins over our own.  Its so sad to the point that it is teaching us the thought process of who doesn’t fit and leads to picking on others.
I remember the first time someone picked on me:
“Isn’t that your sister over there; I wish those genes ran through the family.”
Honestly I can't blame them because its how we have been trained, to hold up examples over others and how we are supposed to match those examples.

From a young age we are trained to be the most beautiful enamoring woman in the room.  Snow White told me that the fairest one of them all won the prince and ruled the kingdom.  Little Mermaid taught me to do anything to fit in with a crowd I wanted to be a part of.  Cinderella told me that a transformation into the beauty of the ball gets the prince’s attention.  Now calm down Disney lovers, I still enjoy these movies, I am just pointing out how the media loves beauty in general.

Upon entering into adulthood you are immediately bombarded with image ideals and if you didn’t learn the lessons of beauty when you were younger, you are considered behind.  There are the obvious signs of obsession with our bodies in the amount of weight loss commercials and the Victoria Secret commercials.  Then you have the commercials where there is a woman with a barbie doll figure and little clothing, and she is advertising a hamburger.  She is literally advertising meat by subjecting herself as a piece of meat.  Miley has gained recent popularity by exposing herself and we keep dogging her but what about the people who advertise it and take the pictures?  Less clothing and seduction is what gets attention.

Switching gears slightly, I want you to think of a woman who you believe is beautiful.
Was it you?
Doubt it. (If it was you, you have great self-esteem, but please feel free to continue to read and walk along this journey and even comment tips.)

Let me start by telling you that you are beautiful; I don’t even have to know you but I can tell without a doubt that you are beautiful.  Here’s why I am so confident in this statement:

Image itself is not a bad thing.  We were made in God’s image and He formed us in the womb.  What plagues us is the human conditions we have put on image.  It has been misconstrued to the point of broken hearts, fallen tears, and regrets.
 "You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. and your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you , declares the Lord.But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his." Ezekiel 16:13b-15

Ezekiel is telling us of how we have strayed from God, that we are giving our beauty over to others and literally calls us whores.  We are betraying are creator for worldly image, we are trading are beauty for the world's view.

What God is showing me, and what I hope He is revealing to you, is this: we are mistaking a worldly thing for a Godly thing.  We know God created beauty, but never in the Bible does it define it as a size 2-4, perfectly proportioned, big soft eyed, symmetric-faced woman.  It also never ever calls a woman by slang terms of hot and sexy.  What the Bible says is this:

“You are absolutely beautiful my darling with no imperfection in you.” Songs of Solomon 4:7

“For all the gods of peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary." Psalm 96:6 

Beauty is in his court and these worthless idols they are nothing compared to what He has created in you and has prepared for you in heaven. There is no prerequisite in the Bible of looking a certain way or showing skin in order to get God's attention.  You come as you are and God says that you are his creation and on top that he desires you.   He desires me?! Are you kidding me, that’s the greatest news ever; God wants me and He wants you.  He doesn't require all of this stress over image, he wants you as you are.  Allow this to free you to listen to His voice that is wooing you and forming you, why else would we have the story of Hosea (in Hosea) and how he has to repeatedly win back his prostitute wife?  We are the whores from Ezekiel confused by the world we blindly choose, we are Hosea's wife, and God is still trying to win us back.

SO next time an ad makes you feel like you need to do something, don't get caught up in it.  Realize you were made for more.

"Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious." 1 Peter 3: 3-4
 

Hopelessly Devoted

“What your mind dwells on, 
your heart will cherish, 
  and your feet will follow.”
 -Anonymous

This is one of my all time favorite quotes.  You can literally apply it to anything, but in this case I’m going to apply it to how we relate to boys.

So you like a guy, and whether you have liked him for a long time or its a blooming crush, everyone can relate to one of these phrases:

"Thinking of Him" by Roy Lichtenstein

“I love him so much”

“he doesn’t understand what he does to me when he acts like that” 

“why doesn’t he see it”

“he is just so pretty”

“he texts me all the time”

“I can’t handle being around him”

“I could just see us being together”
“I don’t want to give up on my feelings”
“I catch him looking at me sometimes”
“I just get excited to see him”
“I feel like he wants my attention”
“Just look at how intentional he is”
"I hate when we are in a room and he doesn't talk to me; he probably knows"
"we danced together"
"we had a meaningful conversation"

Etc. etc.....

It is okay to say these things but let me ask you this: why are you saying these phrases?
A lot of the time the answer is you have been dwelling on this guy in your thought life.  

If you are thinking about him all the time, of course you are going to like him.  You start to see the good in him (the things Jesus has redeemed) as well as the things that normally attract you.  Before you know it you are head over heels and he literally has done nothing to encourage it, only things you have blown out of proportion have encouraged these feelings.  (See the connection from head to heart?)

Blog: Pieces of Me, He Gives Me Caterpillars

Now its story time:
Once upon a time there was a guy and... well me (let’s be real).  We met and were great friends pretty quickly.  The more time I spent around him, I began to think about him all the time.  I had some friends convinced he liked me because I would talk about things such as the time we spent together, similar interests, we would look for when he was looking at me (see some of the above list).  The point is I was not engaging God about him.  I started to pray that I would learn from the situation, and God did teach me; but that was just surface level spiritually.  Then I prayed for God to take it away because it became clear it was not good for me and there was no way he could actually like me; in this I learned a little more but still not deep enough.

Then God brought it to my attention “He must increase, but I must decrease” John 3:30.  This comes from the story of John the Baptist where he had prepared the way and had many followers, but he rejoiced in Jesus growing more popular than he because John knew Jesus was the only source of true joy. My control over my thoughts must decrease, God in them must increase because only true joy can be found in Him; not the circumstances I found myself in with a boy.  Once learning this lesson I still liked the guy for awhile, but God was what I dwelt on.  God's beauty far surpassed the guy I liked and there was no need to look for hope in a relationship with him because I already had a beautiful one with God. This major crush eventually dwindled away because God decided that it wasn’t time for it and it was His to control. (So if any boys are reading this no need to try and figure it out)

http://www.inspired-art.com/inspiredartworks/home.html

With all this being said this doesn’t mean you should beat yourself up.  Clearly I have done this myself and many others have and we will continue to do this; we are going to mess up because we are all sinners. This also doesn’t mean that the guy doesn’t like you or that you will stop liking the guy. 
Its as simple as this: instead of looking for potential signs of romance with man, look for the definite signs of romance with God. All of it is just allowing God to be what you are dwelling on in your mind, so you will cherish Him in your heart, and follow Him with your feet.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 (NIV)

Learning About the Heart

I don’t know what has brought you to this blog, what made you want to read it and honestly if you even want to listen to it.  I am just writing what I have learned in hopes of processing out loud to learn even more and hopefully you can learn from my experiences.

So this obviously is directed towards girls and its going to be a lot about my heart and how it relates to guys and relationships and how God is somehow working through all of it... (gosh another site on this) but hopefully you will find my perspective a little different.  

I guess you should know a little about me for this to be able to work.

I’ve never had a boyfriend and I’ve never been kissed.

Now before those who feel like they have ‘baggage’ stop here just listen to how these experiences led me to learn more about my heart as a woman, you might recognize a few things.

I grew up a tom boy so I am great at playing the role of ‘just friend’.  I was perfectly fine with this role until high school.  Oh the dreaded years of high school, no I wasn’t bullied over it at all.  What happened to me was this, I let myself get distracted by the world.  God had saved me at a young age which had given me clarity to just dive in deeper with Him and just want to know Him more.  All of a sudden in high school all of my friends were dating and apparently I didn’t get the memo.

My immediate thought was what is wrong with me? Why was I not the one who was chosen? Was there nothing special about me that made a guy want to pursue me? God created marriage so shouldn’t it be something I strive toward and to have this don’t I need a guy to pursue me?

The progression of how badly I thought of myself just spiraled from there.

1. It started off innocent enough that I just don’t know how to flirt (which is true) and that’s why no one pursued me.  I just didn’t know how to show interest.

Picture from Natural Beauty Haven

2. The next step after awhile was, ‘well its got to be more than the flirting I feel like a guy could get pass that, it has to be my tom boyish ways;’ and enter the nightmarish experimenting with make-up phase.  I had been complimented on my eyes over the years and so thats what I focused on when I first started doing my make-up.  Needless to say when you feel like you have to compensate instead of just playing around with it, I over did the mascara and eye-liner; I looked like a raccoon.

3. When the changing my tom-boyish ways didn’t work, the worst and final phase was something was physically wrong with me.  Now I trusted God had made me a certain way for a certain reason so I didn’t think about altering myself in any way, but gosh did I think that my certain way was ugly.  You name it, I thought it was wrong with me.  My nose was too big, my uneven eyes, my disproportionate hips, my love handles, my messed up teeth, etc.  I thought God had made me ugly in order to teach me in that particular way.  

“Woman Alone"Picture from Live Action Blog

I remember nights asking why did you make me like this? Why didn’t you make me at least tolerable? I wanted to marry a Christian man and take on the world together for Christ and teach our children about Christ, but how was that going to happen if I couldn’t get one to pay attention to me?  I knew I wasn’t supposed to flaunt myself and throw myself on everyone, the man was supposed to lead, but there wasn’t a Christian man wanting to lead.

And thats when God said to me “You are absolutely beautiful my darling with no imperfection in you." (Songs of Solomon 4:7) “He will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17) “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalms 139:14) God is the perfect lover of my soul, not just a fatherly love but lover.  I’d seen God as intimate but not that intimate; it honestly kind of scared me and it was hard to grasp at first.  I was starting to understand His love for me and it is patient, kind, not boastful, basically all the things of 1 Corinthians 13 neither you or me will ever be.

I thank God for allowing me to learn this way(now) because it taught me a lot about root desires of a woman.  I was wanting to be desired, I wanted someone to choose me and call me beautiful.  I wanted someone to be able to fight for me and push past my awkwardness.  Isn’t that what we all want is someone to call us beautiful and say “you are mine.”  That we are never too much or never not enough.  Thats why so many girls give themselves away and suffer through horrible relationships or fall into destructive habits.   God is the answer to all of these things, you are not only His daughter but lover.  How in the world do you think they came up with the “He has to love you through God’s eyes;” because God is your lover!! Face it as awkward as it seems at first, it is allowing God to meet you on all levels and that’s all He wants to do is to have and to know all of you.

But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
 he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.” 
Isaiah 43:1