I put a picture on my mirror.

A few years ago I put a picture on my mirror.

I put a picture on my mirror of another time and place and weight that I existed in, but that I no longer embodied. I was told it would be good motivation, that it would make me strive to get back to that skinnier, toned, tanned girl who smiled back at me every morning.

I was not told it would make me look at myself with disgust every morning, no longer recognizing the nakedness that reflected back.

But my lack of recognition was not because of my physical state, or my newly appointed love handles, or the cellulite that finally crept in, or the pores that just seem to grow deeper. No. I didn't recognize myself because I was completely devastated by the lack of joy that overwhelmed me. I was doing this to myself. I was the thief of my own joy.

So only a few weeks into this "betterment exercise" I took it down and threw it in the trash.

No woman, I repeat, No woman, on this Earth has a perfect body image. We all have that "one thing," those "couple things," we would change if we could. But why? When you get to "that place" will you be happier? Have more friends? Get the right guy? I'm telling you from experience that the answer is no, because joy is the most important ingredient. Without joy and happiness how can the next two follow? And that is the absolute best news I could ever give you. Because it is attainable.

I watched this video got chills.

http://darlingmagazine.org/

That picture on our mirror does not give motivation, it gives condemnation. 

How much more beautiful would we be if we replaced it with a sign that reads 

"I, have a beautiful body."

Now, I feel the most beautiful when...

I let my thoughts, rather than my outfit, do the talking. My husband comes home with flowers and tells me they remind him of me. I'm sitting in a circle with my best friends, in sweats, talking about Jesus. I'm laughing about something ridiculous with my husband after we've just eaten dinner on the couch and watched Parenthood (inside look into our Thursday nights). I'm dancing.

When do you feel the most beautiful?

The truth about "calling" and peach bellinis

Darling Magazine

"The truth is that calling is not about what you are producing, but what God is producing in you."

If you know me well you know I have big dreams. These ideas and little pieces of ideas that only the Holy Spirit could have stirred in me...because I certainly wasn't looking for them in my big bow-wrapped life of contentment.

For the first time in my short but sweet 25 years I feel like I am truly on this Earth for something greater than me...but where do you even start with something so grand as a "calling" to be something, do something, change something. How do you even start to wrap your mind around that?

A few months ago I read this article in RELEVENT Magazine and I finally feel like I can give words to the chaos that has been my free time over the past year. And by that I mean the company I'm in the process of founding (more on that later).

"Bearing fruit" seems like such an elusive and overly spiritual term, but it makes sense when you break it down into real life....

"To “bear fruit” means for a thing to reproduce that which resembles its very essence. Trees were created as God created them, and they bore fruit that was true to its God-given nature. And it was good."

Credit

So I'm the tree, you're the tree. I'm probably a peach tree, because those are just delicious...but if I decided to produce lemons one day it would be a disaster. A complete disaster.

The point? When it's right it will reflect God in my life. So what is He producing in me? He is producing an awareness of my selfishness. A freedom to be who HE created me to be, not the version I asked for. A calling beyond my wildest dreams.

And that kind of fruit, when it's ripe for the picking, actually tastes like what is on the outside....

How often, as women, do we (A) decide what the outside [persona] is going to look like and then (B) fail in our attempt to live that out? 

I lived like this. and it was exhausting. 

We allude to the fact that the forbidden fruit Eve ate all those years ago was an apple....did you know that there are more than 7,500 cultivars of apples in the world? Now there is clearly a lot of historical data and evolution of plant species that I'm leaving out in this analogy, but humor me for a moment. Eve has it all; all the delicious fruit in Eden to chose from to eat and even 7,499 other types of apples, but she choses the one that leads to death. We know we were not made to be someone we aren't, but yet we strive to be just like her, because she has perfect hair, the perfect husband, the perfect car, the perfect job, the perfect calling on her life. There are 7,500 kinds of apples people! God cared  about the apples - crazy!

I don't know your story or what kind of fruit you're striving to be, but I do know that you were made to be YOU. It's really that simple and that huge all wrapped into one. When I finally discovered this truth it changed everything and gave way to a freedom that no striving could ever produce. 

HIS vision for your life, for my life, the one he has had in mind all along, is so much more than what we could think up on our own. He has a calling on your life, it just may take a few bare seasons before the harvest comes. Good thing it's worth it. It's always worth it.

Now, who's craving a peach bellini? Cheers!

Africa. Revisited and re-imagined.

I want to go to Africa.

How often do we hear this in the Church? That desire to go to a far off place to share Jesus with little ones in orphanages and remote villages...it is a common and beautiful tune, but God decided it wasn't for me.

He has a pretty great sense of humor, ya know? I never truly appreciated His brilliance until recently, and now I feel compelled to share the story of how "Africa" came to me.

In July 2012 I was ready for Africa. I didn't have a grand plan to raise support, but I figured God would provide, because surly this desire I felt was His pulling me towards what He had for me there. After weeks of anxiously trying to figure out how to make this all happen I finally heard that peaceful small voice clearly say "It's not your time."

WHAT?!? It's not my time? But I'm ready. I'm passionate. I'm trusting you. How is it not my time?

Months passed and the desire to "go" faded, but I still knew that there was something for me there.

Two months ago I met Tou*. A beautiful fourteen-year-old girl from western Africa who happened to be walking in the wrong direction home, in the freezing cold, on my street, long after school dismissed for the day. Tou had been told to leave her middle school to take the city bus home, as the school was closing and she had yet to be picked up.

I was driving down the road on my way home, having taken a different route than usual; I saw her and suddenly our stories intersected.

Tou's Mom was unable to pick her up. This happens a lot due to her job, and Tou usually has to find a way home. One of five children, she lives in a three-bedroom apartment directly across from the church I am a doorholder at...what are the chances?

Over the next two months Tou and I have become best friends. I pick her up from school about once a week and we chat about the bullies on her bus, the dance recital she has coming up, boys, homework, and her dream to someday help girls from Africa moving to the U.S. feel more accepted.

Have you ever hear the saying "Do for one what you wish you could do for all?" (Andy Stanley)

Tou doesn't know that my heart has yearned to love on sweet girls in Africa for years. She doesn't know about my dreams to someday provide educations to the friends she left behind when her family moved to the States. She just knows that I'm her best friend who she can count on to be there when she needs a ride home from school.

Tou also doesn't know that I pray furiously for her and her family. She doesn't know that I have dreams of her leaving Islam to love Jesus. She doesn't know that I literally have dreams of her praising God with all she is.

God has a sense of humor, but He also always fulfills His promises to us. He knew my heart and literally placed a sweet Muslim girl from western Africa in my car one day. He grew our relationship into something beyond the reach a short-term trip could have provided.

If you have a dream inside you that you see falling through, just wait. Wait for God to show you what He means when He says "Africa," because it might come in the form of a more lasting and consistent relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl, who He dearly loves.

Painting Tou got me during her recent trip home :)

"That's probably why Jesus' disciples never said they were on a missions trip. I think they knew love already had a name and they didn't need a program or anything else to define it. We don't require an application or prerequisites. It's just about deciding to take up the offer made by a father who wants us to come." - Love Does by Bob Goff

*name has been changed to protect the identity of a minor*

#enditmovement

Who do you think you are?

photo credit: jcrewandcappuccinos

Identity. We all have one -- whether it is something we create in our lives through trial and error, given to us by someone else's perception or observation, or something we were born into.

It's a tricky thing, identity, because most of us continuously change based on our current stage of life. Two years ago I defined myself as a recent college graduate, single, job seeker and intern. This was not who I was, it was simply a short summary of what I was up to.

What we do and who we portray ourselves to be - these do not make up our identity. Through months of frustration and struggling with the decision to make a career change, I recently came to the revelation that defining myself based on my job description will only limit the possibilities of what God has planned for me. 

Mark Driscoll poses a simple question in his book/sermon series "Who Do You Think You Are?"

How would you describe yourself to someone you just met? 

(and I don't mean the elevator pitch version)

My name means "strong faith," and this is what I strive to live out in my identity. I believe God thought me up for a reason, and I'm on the journey to figure out what he sees beyond my limited horizon.

I am J's fiance and will soon be his wife. This will take on a new identity in itself, which I will have to revisit at a later date.

I am a dreamer of far away places and the things I long to create.

I am an optimist and a romantic. I want to change the world.

Above all else, I want to be identified as a woman who longs to know, and be known by the creator of the Universe.

I challenge you to write and rewrite and rewrite your own identity. This is my first draft. Do this until your identity is less about you, and more about Him. Dream a little and don't hold back.

Genesis 1:26-27 
James 4:13-17

What learning to ski taught me about myself

When I was twelve years old my family moved from the quaint and academically flourishing Peachtree City, Georgia to the barren sleeping giant that is Helena, Montana. Twelve is an awkward age for every youngster trying to find a way to fit into this big world, but it was particularly unfortunate for this soon-to-be middle schooler.

As the daunting reality of my new surrounds began to unfold, I – like any Georgia native – was most naively excited to experience my first snow day. Granted it was now July, I still had months to learn what this grand day meant to my new middle school friends.

I soon learned that this meant snowboarding. My professed dreams of skiing gracefully in a snow-white ski outfit were quickly crushed in following remarks that could only end in ridicule if I so chose to break the “cool” mold.

I promptly traded my Oshkosh and Keds for Roxy and Burton, my Southern accent for surfer slang that somehow became ambiguous with snow, and love of ballet for a sport that was furthest from everything I was.

I conformed to survive. I conformed to avoid. I lost myself at twelve years old.

The years that followed involved a few more moves and a few more schools. Each one let way to the possibility of rehabilitation of the loss that came before. But I dared not break the mold. It would take twelve years to fully get myself back.

In the early winter of 2012 I had the chance to relive my adolescent sport.  When asked if I would “board or ski,” the fear crept in. But it was a different emotion of fear – the fear of breaking away from the falsified safety of what I knew. I snowboarded on that trip, and knew it wasn’t me at every turn.

The freedom did come with my most recent trip to Utah, where I finally learned to ski. Firm in my decision, I resolved to try something new, the thing I knew I was meant to do from the beginning of my relationship with snowy peaks.

Freedom from the past means something different for everyone, but it is almost always triggered by a specific memory or event. The weight of that one decision to conform I carried for twelve years was finally lifted when I changed the pattern. If we are honest with each other we know this has nothing to do with the winter sport, and more to do with the moment I decided to change who I was to be accepted for who I was not. A loose metaphor I know, but a moment of self-realization can come from even the most pedestrian life events. i.e. An association of memories with an activity.

I say all of this to say: Christ showed me His extravagant grace in those twelve years. He wants to show us who we really are, but He frequently asks us to break the pattern of lies to get to the final reveal. I cannot say I am 100% certain of all aspects of my life, but I can say I am finally at peace with some of the messy ones.

If you are finding yourself in a pattern weaved so tight you feel like there is no way out my advice is this – go back to the beginning. Go back to the first memory that significantly changed the way you navigated the mountain, and take a new path.