Who calls me beautiful?

I'm so over it!

A couple of terrific friends of mine were having a conversation (that I got bits and pieces of later on) about personal struggles they were facing and how they would just encourage one another and themselves by saying "I'm over it!"

I've discovered I need to say this to myself as well. I'm tired of thinking I have to be someone else (and whoever she is, hopefully I'll know if/when I meet her) to please people. I would love to say that my desire is to please God first and foremost and to heck with what others say or think about me. But, that's just not true. We all have a desire to be accepted and loved. God specifically created us to be dependent on Him and others for our well-being and to keep us from isolating and excluding ourselves from our community. I have to get pretty 'real' with myself when I think about the why behind the things I say and do. The season I'm in right now in my life is truly discovering and digging in to the truths of God's Word about who I am in Him.

Last night (back-tracking...sorry!), I was watching a little bit of the show So You Think You Can Dance while I was attempting (emphasis on 'attempting') to hang my window treatments in the living room. One of the singers (I wouldn't consider it singing..darn, I sound like my mother) from The Pussycat Dolls was performing on the show, and I had to turn the channel. It made me a little mad! It's sad that that has become the 'norm' for our generation. She was barely dressed, had glowing lotion on her legs to make them look really shiny & tan (must admit, I was a bit jealous), and, apart from her being very pretty, it was hard for me to even watch her. That is what the majority (not all, mind you) of young women and girls emulate. Okay, so maybe not her, per se, but many want to look beautiful and be 'successful' and tragically end up basing their self-worth on that alone. Maybe we don't say it, or even know that we've bought into the lies that society has put on us, but how scary to think that others' opinions of us has a great affect on who we are and what we do. I still buy into the lies. Present tense. How many think that they're accepted because of what they do (as an occupation), what they wear, how they look? Sadly, we're never going to change how others perceive us. I've come to terms that there will ALWAYS be someone more beautiful, more 'fashionable', more...fill in the blank.

What we can do is change how we view ourselves, and even more so, know the Creator, who the Creator has made us to be, and continuously allow His Word to renew our minds so that we're not so easily deceived in the area of self-identity. My identity is in Christ. He created me to live my life for Him, and although I fail miserably on a daily basis, my prayer is that I will continue to look to Him for my self-identification. He dances over me. He's pleased with me and He does not change. His love for me is not based on what I wear, what kind of car I drive, and He loves me the same (!!) whether I pray every day for five hours long or go five years without talking to or acknowledging Him.

I was not 'popular' in middle school. I was awkward; I looked (literally) like a boy with a haircut that only a mother could love (and she was the one who had it cut like that..I still have nightmares..). I had friends but was teased and picked on easily because I was small and developed late. Was that too much info? My bad. Those were some of the worst years in my life. I desperately wanted to be accepted. Fast-forwarding to when I was a youth leader at an outreach program for 'at-risk' youth from 2004-2006, I remember having the wonderful opportunity to meet and mentor teenage girls who were desperately wanting to be loved and treasured. To know who God created them to be; instead, they continued to look for that love in a bottle, in promiscuous behavior, and friends who were constantly dragging them down.

I've read a wonderful book called Who Calls Me Beautiful? It's one of those I will need to read over & over again to really grasp what God wants to say to me through it. My prayer is that I'll not look at others for my self-worth anymore. Not in a man. Not in my job. Not in whether or not I'm married with ten kids, and not whether or not I'm 'important' in the eyes of the world. Jesus is who I want to see when I look in the mirror. He loves me. Period. He calls me beautiful...and that's enough for me. Whew..what a journey...

~on a little side note~

I'm so grateful to have one of my dearest friends living with me. She's so patient with me when I'm in a 'poopy' mood and threatening to throw things across the room b/c I can't do something when I want the way I want it done. Hence to say, my window treatments are currently laying on the floor in my living room, I have a nice nick in my new hardwood floors, and....well, I'm not much smarter on the whole 'do-it-yourself' thing that everyone preaches about. Ugh. Live and learn, I guess. Looks like God may be testing me in the area of patience as well...