What I wish I could say to every teenage girl

Peeling back the layers

This past year has been full of a lot of changes for me. This picture is very reflective of my heart changing process.  There has been some great spiritual changes, and some long time coming.  

My pastor says that "we may impress people with our strengths, but we connect emotionally with our weakness."  So get ready for some real transparency...

Here goes...

God's changes have been a very hard, difficult process, but worth it all.  

I am making some new changes that result in a new me.  In the discovery of God's best, I am realizing who I am in Christ but also who I am not. 

My journey is well on it's way of seeing myself as Christ sees me and discovering that my identity completely rests on His opinion of me. 

Will we ever get His full picture of ourselves?  Yes, one day we will have the full view of what God sees.  

But until then...

For years, I have not thought of myself as valuable, important, or pretty. Instead I have let the lie of the unlovable, the overweight, the imperfect, the you-will-never-fit-in-because-you-are-fat-lie to affect me. I've always measured myself up against others, or have tried to compare myself to those who are better at everything over me.  Better at everything in life, especially better at being thin.

I never accepted me as the way that God has made me.  But that is changing as God has defined my character as "made in His image."  

Now daily, I am only living from His approval and that allows my perspective to change and see His beauty.

So I guess you could say that I gave myself permission to like me.  That's part of this healing process.  God sees me as His child who was created to be like Himself.

What part of a Holy God would I not want to here?  Ahem...all of it.  

Lately God has been pounding this into my heart..."You are wanted by a Holy God."

The hurting parts of me wants to bounce that like a pin ball hitting the bumpers, setting off alarms, lights flashing, with all bells singing. Years and years of hardness and hurts need to be softened.  It's like a party gone bad in the middle of Chuckee Cheese.

So my challenge is to rethink my thinking about God's opinion of me. He sees beauty, He sees me with grace and mercy, He sees me with His perfect Love.   He sees me as an work of His own hands.  He has given me the Holy Spirit to live inside of me to heal the wounds and scars that run so deep.

As I align my heart with His Word, I know am his daughter.  

Psalm 139: 13-14 "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

As I have accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I am understanding God's planned grace on my behalf.  So when the world tries to give me a perfect beauty message, I know that I don't have to measure up to it's standards.

I only need to measure my heart to God's and let His holy touch perfect and measure.   This world compares me to the latest, the skinniest, the faces with the fullest lips, and perfect cheek bones. Man compares and shows me my failures and short comings, and puts unrealistic expectations in front of our crushed self-images.

The lies of the world can cut my wounded heart to pieces. 

I know deep down my face will never be on their tempting covers that they try to sell.  It's a false statement as they try to reflect true beauty to the masses. The world's picture of beauty leaves me feeling empty, worthless, and walking away with the fact I will never be good enough.  It leaves me discontent with what God has blessed me with.

The world says to be this way or that weight, to always strive for a better look or appearance. The mirror has reflected these lies so many times and I have swallowed them for years. So much so that I have a large cavity of hurt that needs repair.  

I know I am not perfect, nor will I ever measure up.  That doesn't matter anymore.

Ephesians 5:1  "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children..."
 
In this becoming transformation, I want to see and understand why a Holy God would want me. His word says I am His beloved. Knowing that He loves me just the way I am is good and enough.  Knowing that I am His forgiven daughter is way enough. The full understanding of this truth is sinking into my hurts and healing my identity. 

It's not based on my worth, this truth is based on God's character. 

In my discovery of finding my true beauty, I realize I am not the lot of lies that I have swallowed about myself.

I am not ugly.  
I am not fat.  
I am not you and now don't want to be.  
I am God's, a daughter who is wanted by a Holy God.

Is this new attitude becoming?  God thinks so.  He created my beauty for His pleasure. I will never be good enough to be wanted except through the eyes of Jesus. 

Grace filters and covers my beautiful becoming.

Let that sink in a moment or for a while.  Grace...from a Holy God changes us.

His grace becomes my beautiful. I am wanted by a Holy God because of His beauty that becomes my identity.  My identity is  based on the grace given by Jesus.

My heart is becoming more accustomed to Grace. 

Dear God, please touch my painful places to reveal your beauty, help me to understand your grace-filled view of little me. There are a lot of raw places still yet to become whole. Bring your fullness to my hurts and heal them with your Holiness.

What are you overcoming to become?

There's No Way I Am Leaving

My child-like journey of knowing God 

It was in a regular Sunday message where God touched this deep hungry nerve in my heart to know Him more.  It was on that day I had to make a choice to be devoted in my efforts to do so.  If I really wanted it bad enough,  I had to make some changes to make it happen.   

To know more about God, I had to put God as my priority.  

I needed to absorb more truth but also I needed to be a doer of the what the Bible said.  I needed more God in my everyday life.  I needed to stop dancing around church and get into verses that would rejuvenate.   I needed God's power to transform.

He only asks one thing of me.  To make Him first.  To look upon His holy face in relation to the pages of my life.   So I chose God over sleep.  

It's my daily choice to pray, to read God's words back to me, it's my choice to make time for God in the early part of my day.

God's truth is found in His holy and inspired words.  My pastor spoke of what a difference this made in his life.  And that day...it was enough to make me want it too.  

I have found that the more I spend time with God, the more I need to hear from Him on everything.  It has made a profound difference in my understanding.  So here's the part where I tell you there have been a lot of lies that  have been uncovered from my past that God has revealed to my heart and I am now processing.  I am "burning plows" so to speak and getting rid of those lies, and letting God's healing grace take me to my new spiritual places of freedom.  

My embedded lies are met with this:  

"If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness; we lie and do not live by the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."  1 John 1: 5-6 

Away in His word places...I find light.  I find freedom.  I find escape from this world that weighs me down.  I find His grace that transforms.  The distance is bridged from my heart to His.  I find I can just be me.  I find His truth to be liberating.  I find promises for my future and for my today. I find God.  And as I find God, he takes me by the hand and shows me His way.  He is the Way, the Truth, my Life.

I find He is with me even when my heart is succumbed to lies of this world.  I find mercy to match every lie I have swallowed.  I find Him waiting with open arms to receive.  When I find His truth, I find a deep inner peace.  I find a Lifeline.  I cling to His love as He changes me.  I find His light that illuminates into those horrible lies and dispels them.  I find what my raw emotions are crying for.  I find calmness for my last nerve.  I find a bridge over these trouble filled waters of my soul.   

Your love is the reason I am free.

I am running to you.

You are all I need.

You are the only for me.

Your Love is Alive and living in me.

There has been a lot of changes that have come from this journey, worth the start, worth the effort, and I have found so much worth it makes my heart crumble.  
There is no way I am leaving now.