wanting to be her

Body Image Secrets Victoria Won't Tell You

Written June 20, 2009:

I wrote this a month ago during a shift at The Shelter and didn't have the courage or the freedom to post this until now. It's really cool to see all that has happened in a month.

*** DISCLAIMER: I’m choosing to share on a very personal topic and express a deeper level of vulnerability than normal on this blog for something personal yet I do so only because these realizations are something God is calling me to live as well as help others know how to wrestle with these same issues and find truth. I’m choosing to share some recent struggles with a very sensitive topic for women as I’m finding openness in this issue with those I talk to and see regularly has been helpful in seeing how this can affect various women. I’m finding many of my recent experiences are battles many women are secretly waging. Alone. And they didn’t know someone else also had that same feeling or same thing happen. Talking about this is helpful for us as women to claim our true identity and to fight the lies we’re constantly told. But if body image or weight is a sensitive subject, please don’t read this. Please also note, I share the sizes only for the sake of clarity, I tried writing it without numbers and it was too confusing, but the sizes are shared not the be "condemning" if you are those sizes or communicated as "the standard" if you are not those sizes. We were each created unique and possess a beauty, each of us, all our own.

:::

who said our image equals our worth?
who determined the cultural standard of beauty that enslaves and drives so many women?
who said that a size 0 is more desirable than a size 10?
who says that you are more beautiful if you are thin?
who started all of this???

:::

It’s a terrible feeling.

When you’re faced with reality and have to reconcile that you’ve changed. That you’ve gained weight and there is no denying it.

It’s a terrible feeling to be getting ready to go somewhere and go through outfit after outfit, trying to find something in your closet that fits and coming up short. Things that never used to be a problem, suddenly you can’t wear.

I realized part of why this is so scary is that it is an entirely new feeling.

The fact that none of my friends can tell I’ve gained weight, even the ones who are brutally honest with me at all times and think I am making this one up, doesn’t change what I know to be true – clothes that fit before no longer do.

I don’t get much sympathy here, but here me on this one, I guess I took for granted the fact that I have been roughly the same weight and size since junior high. If I still liked those clothes, I could wear some of them.

I’m used to being able to pick things out from four-five years back even and put it on and be on my way.

Those days are over.

And I found a fear, rational or not, that I was getting fat...

:::

Everyone woman has felt this before. Hardly any of us are completely at peace with our body image, but for most of us it has something we’ve accepted and that doesn’t have a hold on us emotionally.

Till I realized I was really bothered by this and didn’t like the new me.
I didn’t like the way clothes were fitting.
I feared I would keep gaining weight and be a balloon.

But then I had to ask, what’s wrong with being fat? I had to make myself go there, what would be a problem with me being “fat?” Why is this such a fear?

And the worst part is that weight is one of those things everyone can see. I found myself joining a league of women who have struggled with their body image and conversations that I never really entered into. Even the title of this post, Wanting to be her was a book that’s been passed around in our church for years that I had heard about but would recommend to girls but couldn’t say I’d read because I’d never struggled with my body image in this specific way. I have to a degree in my past but that was a different struggle, though somewhat related. I used to struggle with the fear of becoming fat but that issue was more of one of control and a coping mechanism I once relied on in the past that related to body image. After several years of being free from that, my body image hasn’t been a struggle, in fact, God has given me tremendous freedom in this area and I have for the first time felt comfortable with who I am and how I look. Until recent discoveries.

But these realizations were affecting me more than I understood why.

I just had to stop and ask myself,

Mazvita, what does this have to do with who you are? What does this have to do with your worth?

When my answer was nearly everything I was shocked.
And admittedly, embarrassed.

We say that inner beauty matters just as much, but outward has to count for something.

We know it’s not true that inner beauty is all that matters, which is why the absence of beauty is something that frightens us to the core.

We inextricably link our beauty with our worth and our value with our desirability with our significance…

We know that anyone who ever told us inner beauty is all that matters was somehow telling us a lie that betrayed our hearts. And all of a sudden we’re fearing we won’t be loved, wanted, cherished, or sought after…

So I beg to ask the question,

Does beauty really matter?

I found more disturbing the fact that I didn’t want to leave the house that night because I felt unacceptable.

Unacceptable to who?
Me.

I found a failure to love and accept myself this way and started feeling depressed. Sometimes we’re the hardest to love. Sadly, this wasn’t the first night. This has happened a few times since this realization and has become something I am learning to fight.

I’ve been pretty open with this struggle with a lot of the younger women I’m around just because I know it is so real for them as well.

And it’s the only way to fight it.

And it’s something I could never relate to. What I feared and have heard from all the older women around me is happening – your metabolism slows down once you hit 25.

Is it the end of the world? I have to ask myself.

What does it REALLY matter.

The answer to this reveals a lot. Whether we’re ready for those answers or not.

Mostly, I find unsettling a growing loss of control that I once felt I had with my weight.

I found myself trying to back peddle and figure out what had gone wrong the first time I went to the closet and picked up dress pants I hadn’t worn since September, and found them tighter than normal. Wait, that can’t be true. These used to be loose.

So I went to another pair of black pants. And another.

I found this most unsettling because I buy clothes about a size up because how I like it to fit, and so now the “loose” clothes… didn’t fit.

Oh.

You really can’t argue with reality and that is part of why it is so hard to swallow.
I was in a funk the whole night and felt everyone could see it.
But this self-focus and self-obsession is not only untrue and entirely ridiculous, yet so real and so valid simultaneously... because it is stranger to no woman.

I felt exposed.

But the worst part about it.

I didn’t feel free.

I went about my night, this has happened now three times since November, but internally I wasn’t free. I was disgusted with myself and didn’t even want to be around people until I got to the bottom of this, but I forced myself to go on as normal.

But I felt something I haven’t felt in a long time, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. It was an all too familiar emotion.

That night I investigated a range of factors that could have led to the potential weight gain and how I was going to fight it in a healthy way, as I had a long history of not doing so in the past. I wasn’t going to go back to those monsters, so I started devising new plans of how I could manage my weight and take care of my body without being obsessive, compulsive or destructive.

I started looking at what I eat. Things weren’t looking so good. I was one of those people most of my friends and my roommates couldn’t stand – one of those girls who could eat whatever they wanted and never gained weight.

Well those days were over now too.

I can’t eat like I used to – not that I would eat a ton, but it was WHAT I ate – lots of junk food. and I hardly cook. I hardly eat fruits and vegetables. Very smart, I know.

I started dancing more in the last year, but have since determined to run again along with making healthier choices. I’m finding I can take personal responsibility without going over the edge and either not eating or developing bad eating patterns.

Another episode of this happened the last time I was getting ready for a wedding, last weekend. I had borrowed a dress from an old friend, we’ve been the same size dating back to high school and she lives nearby, we see each other from time to time. I would normally try it on at her house, but I couldn’t fathom the embarrassment of it not fitting, so I just told her I didn’t have time to try it on but I would later on that night once I got home.

Get home. It doesn’t fit. How can this be?

Then I go to my closet and the myriad of summer dresses I haven’t worn in a while… dress after dress, either tighter than I’d feel comfortable with wearing or same story. Not fitting.

It didn’t take long for the discouragement to set in. I didn’t even want to go anymore.

Then, I came to my last option. There’s a handful of us girls who are roughly the same size and we have had a great thing going trading clothes over the years. It works out great because everyone gets to wear “something new” from time to time without breaking the bank getting new clothes. This is especially true for weddings, and we’ve been switching dresses about every other wedding. I felt like I was getting kicked out of the “skinny” club as one girl had called it, who lamented how she was jealous that we were all “tiny” and could share clothes all the time. Well, the next day, I was feeling out of the club. One of my friends brought 5 dresses and I was fearing none would work.

I was relieved to find several of the dresses fitting, some not fitting, but the one I really hoped would fit, did.

Then I realized, some of the other girls who were still "little" in my opinion were more of the new sizes I wear now.

So maybe I had a messed up standard before. Why could I personally not accept myself not being whatever size I used to be. Was that size even healthy? And did I expect to stay that size forever?

So I found myself saying, okay I don’t think that they’re fat and they are this size. So that means I am not fat. It sounds ridiculous, but it took seeing the sizes of some of my other friends and seeing that it was okay to not be a size 0 anymore.

:::

Then, ultimately last night, as I realized how clever of a scheme this was. I was getting ready for a BBQ and trying to dig out summer clothes, coming up with nothing and once again felt discouraged. Then I got a glimpse of what else was going on here.

Satan wants us to be so consumed with this that it’s all we think about. Because how we think and feel about ourselves affects everything.

If he can get us so caught up in things like this he knows he has successfully gotten our eyes of the things that do matter.

As Beth Moore says, our hearts are always worshipping something… and worship simply means where our eyes are fixing their gaze…

And we’re always either worshipping God or we’re worshipping something else… Satan loves nothing more than to turn our eyes away… and have us fix our attention, and worship, anything but God.

This is why I’m finding this struggle is such a critical fight.

The enemy wants nothing more than to turn us away from and turn us towards our false gods, the things that we think will give us life, but always run dry.

I’m finding in facing reality, the fact that the weight isn’t really noticeable to anyone around me, and just is probably just getting shifted around, as clothes fit differently but my actual weight hasn’t changed hardly at all, that I have to make a choice.

A choice to believe who I truly am and that value that comes from the only Voice that matters, the one that says I am the Beloved.

The one who determined my worth and value before I was born and the One who says I am fearfully and wonderfully made or if I will be tempted to believe I am less because I feel that way because of how I look now or how I feel others perceive me.

At the bottom of these fears, as women we fear weight gain will make us less beautiful. I will be less desirable or not wanted by men. I will be less beautiful to all the women around me. and no longer be accepted. I will only keep getting bigger. And I will no longer have value.

As Jonalyn Grace Fincher points out, we fall prey to the lie that “If you aren’t beautiful, somehow you’re less good, less valuable.”

:::

Why beauty matters. (More on that subject Fincher pointed out later.)

But the truth is our value doesn’t come from how we look or what others think or feel about us or what we do or how we perform or if we’re accepted or not or if we’re loved.

Our value comes from an unshakable truth from the only voice that matters, that says, you are my beloved. Amen?

There’s a song on the radio lately that I’m absolutely loving.

One line says, there can never be a more beautiful you.

This is such a powerful message to us women.

Instead of wanting to be her

…why don’t we allow God to delight in us as He already is for who we ALREADY are and allow Him to make us the most beautiful “us” more and more each day – inside and out.

Becoming more beautifully… you…

We are beautiful. And this beauty is not as whimsical as we think, it is not determined by the addition or subtraction of a few pounds, it is deeply rooted and planted within by our Creator. We are beautiful first and foremost because we are image-bearers of God. And He is beautiful. Breathtakingly, astonishingly and incredibly beautiful.

Despite what society and culture can pressure us to believe.

Despite how we feel about our own body image or if we do look different.

The enemy will stop at nothing to make us feel like less than who we are and to turn us away from the one true God.

and you are mine.

“In the silence of the heart God speaks…”

i am my beloved’s, her heart dared to say.
and you are mine, was his loving reply.

a declaration and reclaiming of what was once lost. now found, ransomed and redeemed.

I am my Beloved’s...
And you are Mine.

Life of the Beloved

Another thought mentor of mine:
Henri Nouwen

The only book of his I have actually read entirely is Life of the Beloved. I am hoping to read more. I get a devotional of his in my email and I have enjoyed snippets of his books on JR’s blog over the years and already knew I loved the man. And that book is a treasure.

But today, after leaving my favorite spot, I came home to grab some dinner and this book caught my eye on my bookshelf.

I went to my favorite part, a part that was so huge for me when I read it and continues to impact me today, it gave me a new direction for what it really meant to live in the father’s affection and to live in the awareness of the father’s love for me and how that was the beginning and center of what it meant to live a “spiritual life.” This chapter on being "chosen" is one of four of the most important words in the spiritual life he has found, that we are always in the process of being "chosen/taken, blessed, broken and given." More on this later, but chosen in this context, not in predestination matters.

“ ‘Am I really wanted?’

... In the midst of this extremely painful reality, we have to dare to reclaim the truth that we are God’s chosen ones, even when our world does not choose us. As long as we allow our parents, siblings, teachers, friends and lover to determine whether we are chosen or not, we are caught in the net of a suffocating world that accepts or rejects us according to its own agenda of effectivity and control.

Often this reclaiming is an arduous task, a lifelong work because the world persists in its efforts to pull us into the darkness of self-doubt, low self-esteem, self-rejection and depression. And this because it is as insecure, fearful, self-deprecating people that we can most easily be used and manipulated by the powers surrounding us.

The great spiritual battle begins—and never ends—with the reclaiming of our chosenness. Long before any human being saw us, we are seen by God’s loving eyes.

Long before any one heard us cry or laugh, we are head by our God who is all ears for us. Long before any person spoke to us in this world, we are spoken to by the voice of eternal love.

Our preciousness, uniqueness and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time—our brief chronological existence—but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity..."

I had a really cool experience with this today. An experience that was too precious and too sacred to be not be guarded and kept. But an experience I will always remember.

I love how Nouwen expresses here so clearly a truth that is so easy to forget, that so often we give away the power to accept us or reject us, or the power to determine our worth to those whom never had the authority to give it in the first place… a power that only rests with our Creator, the maker and lover of our souls.

--Photo courtesy of Katie Barnes photography

My thought mentors

One of my favorite things about my "thought mentors" is that they give me a glimpse into another world.

As I've already noted, one of my favorite quotes, spoken by the character playing C.S. Lewis in the film Shadowlands, "We read so we know we are not alone."

So I am kicking myself but am sure our paths will cross again.

I was at a spiritual retreat directed by a woman who has become one of my most cherished “thought mentors," but didn't actually meet her. I don't get into the whole starstruck thing and the more everyone kept making a big deal about her the more intimidated I felt in actually, you know, introducing myself, so I didn't it. I was blessed to be at a retreat directed by her and where she spoke and am hoping for another opportunity. But, I digress.

Ruth Haley Barton’s writing comes straight from within, straight from within the throes and frustrations of learning how to lead as God created her to lead and how to lead in the context of the local church or a large ministry…

Her words connect so deeply with words deep within, words I may have never found voice to, but words she draws out.

Every chapter I read in this book is sobering.

I cannot describe it any other way.

Sobering in the fact that it always speaks the truth I so desperately need to hear and always immediately calls me to action, sobering in the sense that it reveals more of what God is already doing in my life, trying to teach me or trying to get me to see.

Today, I was sitting in the middle of my favorite spot and finished another chapter, at the end I could not believe it.

From the time of the retreat, where everything she shared just made sense of the last 6 month fog I had just been through but didn’t understand entirely… as I wanted to take notes on her every word because it was resonating so deeply within and words I had only heard the Lord say and confirm to me, yet to hear them voiced was an entirely different story.

Then I found they were all in her book. EXCELLENT.

Then, this last chapter just made sense of the last two weeks.

I don’t know how things like this happen, but I am incredibly grateful.

It would take me months to blog on the lessons from this book because nearly every other line is underlined. I’m hoping to soon, but for now, check out the book for yourself.


Other thought mentors that come to mind off the top of my head at this hour and authors I'd recommend:

Henri Nouwen
Brennan Manning
Maya Angelou
A.W. Tozer
Edwin McManus
C.S. Lewis
Langston Hughes
Mother Teresa
Sarah Sumner
Dan Allender
Jonalyn Grace Fincher
Among many others...

But, Ruth Haley Barton's, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership is definitely worth the read and in my top 5 of all time books. I think it speaks to anyone trying to navigate their way in the journey God has them on, leadership in any context, the home, work, church, or not.

--Photo courtesy of Katie Barnes photography

Reign of Love

RUN
I want to run from the very feelings pulling me deeper
To what is real

A life I thirst for
A life I know I was made for and will someday live.

I gotta long way to run.

LONGING
This longing only points to the fact that something is missing.

Something maybe not once had
But something you always...
knew

:::

Tonite I emceed a fashion show at The Intersection, a local nonprofit serving at-risk youth. I had a blast and the kids did such a great job. Yet once again I felt that longing, that tug.

It didn’t come till hours later.

It was a joyous occasion. We had a blast at the event. And a bunch of the organizers and I hung out late into the night.

Till I came home.

That nagging persisted.
Until moments ago when the tears came.

That familiar sense of longing
That agonizing pain of loss

Why is it that the peace that washes over me when a baby rests upon me and falls asleep or a 9-year-old girl rests her head upon my shoulder

Only points to a deeper longing and confirmation of a peace within…
For a moment nothing else exists, the world seems to stand still, a feeling of this is all that matters overcomes me...

That those things are pointing to the larger mission of what I was created for.

A part of me was created for the inner city
A part of me was created to empower women and awaken them to a better life, whether nine years old, 18 or 43 years old
A part of me was created to mother
A part of me was created to love, to nurture, cherish, to hold, to comfort

There is no separating the longing from who I am
In the depths

And so it lingers-

An all too familiar feeling
The moments when you feel most alive.

I found myself just now berating myself for getting attached.
Yet I cannot deny that those kids are uniquely tied to the core of my being
And part of the larger mission God has placed over my life.

I was so proud of those girls tonite.
One of the classes at The Intersection, The Ladies of Elegance, put on the show tonite. The Ladies of Elegance is a class teaching young teenage girls in the “inner-city” or “underprivileged” areas of Columbia what it means to be a lady, that they are ladies, and how to see themselves and treat themselves as such.

It is so central to the core of my being.

And to see these young girls lives and get a glimpse of what they could become. It kills me, yet in the same breath inspires me.

What will you give you life to?
Is the question that haunts me again and again.

As I’m reminded my life is not my own.
And that my story is a part of a much larger and grander and more beautiful story.
The Story of God and that while I’m struggling and pushing Him for the title, He is reminding me gently, He has barely even finished taking me through the page we're currently on. A page that has already been written, but not yet traveled. I try to rush ahead but His wisdom and His sovereignty brings me back to where we are in the book.

I don’t know what the story looks like.
I don’t know how it ends.
I don’t know what role they have in it.
I just know I have to pay attention...

to the things that make my heart leap.

I feel most at home and most at peace and alive, that sense, that feeling of this is what I was created for, in moments like tonite being with those kids. The kids that no one cares to love. The kids hungry for love and attention. Who want to know that they matter and that they too have a place in this world.

:::

The longing persists, but it is about much more than that.
The longing is accompanied by a whole host of questions. Questions I wish not to entertain. Again.

Fearful that they only point more to the depth of the longing, of which I’d forgotten the ache or managed to dull it, or fearful of what facing those questions might mean.

Will I ever be loved? Be a priority to someone?
Be pursued?
Be a mother? A wife? A bride?
When will I live in the inner-city?
Will I live in LA?
Am I called there?

When will I have a romance all my own?
Who is the man you are calling to be in this great adventure with me?
What is he like? And when will our lives cross paths?
Will I have kids all my own to parent?
What does that look like? And when?
Will I live overseas?

I find it utterly absurd yet it makes perfect sense that there could be things and places I long for and haven’t yet known that seem more real to me and more natural than some of the places and things I have even experienced.

It’s like how I felt when I got to Honduras.
The minute I stepped off the plane, it felt like home.

It felt like Africa.
But I have never been to Africa, how could I know…

It was exactly what I know it will feel and be like.
Something in my heart saw home.
Recognized, felt and sensed it deep within.

I long to be loved. To be pursued, sought after. Enough.
I long to be the object of one’s affection. The one that makes their heart stop.
The one they are willing to do anything for. Drop anything for. Lay down their life.

I long to do the same.

But I long to dismiss the thoughts because they could be utterly fiction. It could not be the life I am called to.

I know that is not where true life is found.
I know that is not my source of identity, worth or value.

So why the nagging sense of longing once again?

:::

In the last year, the most dramatic work has taken place as far as the Lord stripping me away of all my false comforts and bringing me into deeper communion with Him.

Where He alone could speak to me about my beauty, worth and value.
Where He alone could show me and allow me to experience what it means to be loved, what it means to be seen, known, pursued, sought after, delighted in, cherished, the object of one’s affection, chosen, held, wanted, desired and adored.

They have been powerful lessons. Lessons continuing to deepen and lessons that will forever stick with me.

At the same time the Lord has undergone a major reconstruction and restoration process in my view of marriage and relationships and of men in general, especially Christian men.

I have more hope than ever for God’s purposes for marriage. I am filled with more hope in the anticipation of one day being called to be a lover, a servant, a life-giver, a wife, an encourager, a life partner, a best friend, and soul mate with the man who most beautifully will reflect the Father’s love to me and I to Him.

Someone to be on an adventure with. Someone to do life with and to serve alongside. Someone to change the world with, one person at a time. Someone who will strengthen and challenge me. Someone who will cause me the greatest joy yet also the deepest hurts. A relationship forged in grace, trust, forgiveness and love. A continual process of repentance and acceptance. A mirror, of which my own sin and brokenness is only further illuminated, yet brought into the light so it can be healed. Someone who God will use in a way no other person will have had access to my life, someone who will deepen my walk with the Lord and allow me to fall more in love with Him as a result, and prayerfully I the same in their life.

I get more excited about the thought of how much he will be worth the wait.
Because now I know the “real”… now that I know what those type of men actually look like, I cannot settle, I am finding myself even more quickly saying no to the counterfeits that come along because they are so much easier to pick out now.

Once you have seen the real, a substitute will never satisfy.
They are no longer illusions.

For that guy, the one who will be worth the wait, is chosen by the Lord. Chosen by One who knows me better than I know myself. Who knows my innermost being. Who knows the type of person and the man He has created for me to more beautifully reflect the Gospel with to this broken world.

My vision of marriage has never been more exciting and alluring to me.

It’s crazy that in this period of the Lord speaking to me so clearly and powerfully about my identity and worth in ways I was never able to hear before, that He has brought along men to show me a new picture of what godly men truly look like, that they do in fact exist, and how I should be treated.

I remember the first example more than a year ago, I told Kate as she picked me up from the airport…

It was more how I felt around him…

I have never felt like that in the presence of a man before.

Woah, I’ve never heard you say that before, I remember her commenting.

I continued..

There was a security in his presence. An overwhelming sense of admiration, acceptance and sheer delight.

I felt free. I felt enough.

For the first time I had the thought, by just the way he looked at me, that I was going to be worth the wait to someone... that not only were they a gift to me, that I would be the one his friends would talk about, that I was a gift in his life...

He had a gentleness that commanded respect.
A strength that was characterized by tenderness.

It was as I was describing him to her I realized, no man has more accurately portrayed Jesus to me.

I recognized it the minute I was around him. And knew that was what I was looking for.

Not necessarily this guy, but a guy who reflects and relates to me in the exact reflection of the way Jesus relates to me in our unique relationship.

There have been several people and several men who I have seen the reflection of God in, but this was different.

This was strangely familiar.

When I experienced that and knew it was real, I began to understand what some of my married friends have explained. Something I thought was cool but probably not something I would be fortunate to experience myself.

That feeling of, this person is the closest reflection of Jesus to me. He relates to me in the exact ways I need to be loved. It directly mirrors the ways in which the Lord loves me and speaks to me. That I will be able to say, "No he’s not perfect, but he is so obviously chosen and hand picked by my Creator, to be my husband."

I cannot wait for this! It's going to be so amazing.
But at the same time I’m know I'm not living for this. I know this isn't all I'm living for.

That's not what my life is about. I've already found that. I know what my life is about. Yet these longings do exist and persist and are real, maybe even desires planted by Him.
Part of me wrestles with the men that have shown me glimpses of the type of man I feel God would choose for me. It only seems to awaken something within I wish would lie dormant.

Or not exist at all.

But that is not the answer either.

I long to be fully alive.

I’m reminded of those wise words, “to be alive is to be broken.”

I’m also comforted by Tozer’s remarks, "Thirsty hearts are those whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them."

These longings remind me of my need for my one true source of love. These longings that I hate and despise in one breath, yet am grateful for in the same vein, point me to Him again and again.

Even tonight, the journey traveling these longings took me was unexpected, leading to hope not sorrow. A reality found in facing life and all it’s fullness, not running and shying away from that which we fear.

:::

I don’t have answers to all my questions.
I don’t know why those I wish would pursue me have not.
I don’t know why yet I am most sure my worth coming from Him that in the same breath I am tempted to link my value with their acceptance or rejection of me, I don’t know when that fight will end or if I will ever stop fighting it.

I don’t know why I know I was made for other lands yet am not living there now.
I don’t know when or how.
I don’t know if I will ever live or serve in the inner-city.

I don’t know if the children will come.
I don’t know if I will ever mother kids all my own, or if I will be a mother to many of different walks of life, different nations, tribes and tongues.

I don’t know if the longing for companionship will ever go away, some days felt, some days not, or if it will itself become a lifelong companion.

I don’t know what others are thinking or what I even think about them, if I’m really honest.
I long to be known and to know. To love and be loved, this is what I was created for.

Holy longings, only to be filled by you.
My daily, desperate prayer for the last year, has been a variation of these words,

Come and fill Come and fill Father come and fill me up with you Come and fill Lord Jesus Come and fill Come and fill me with joy Love Peace In your presence I need you now more than never Be near

So this emptiness, once despised, has become a blessing.
If I wasn’t so aware of my need for You, I probably wouldn’t talk to You as much
I probably wouldn’t have to rely on You so much, moment to moment

For each next step of every day

:::

I’m reminded and find a strange sense in being able to relate to her words here though I am far from living the life or having the relationship she had with Jesus,

But Mother Teresa starts No Greater Love with these powerful words and these words were her secret, the life she had was because she knew God’s love and simply lived and relied upon it… day by day, moment by moment. That was it,

“I don’t think there is anyone who needs God’s help and grace as much as I do. Sometimes I feel so helpless and weak. I think that is why God uses me. Because I cannot depend on my own strength, I rely on Him twenty-four hours a day. if the day had more hours, then I would need His help and grace during those hours as well. All of us must cling to God in prayer.

My secret is very simple: I pray. Through prayer I become one in love with Christ. I realized that praying to Him is loving Him.”

Amen.

*Photo by Keith Montgomery of two of my friends, Chris and Aimee Swift, recently married. This is one of my favorite photos and struck me as a beautiful portrayal as I was contemplating the longing for a romance within the Greater Romance and Story we are being invited into.

a grateful heart i give

"Let’s say I interviewed ten people, asking each the same question—'Do you trust God?'—and each answered, 'Yes, I trust God,' but nine of the ten actually did not trust him. How would I find out which one of the ragamuffins was telling the truth?

I would videotape each of the ten lives for a month, and then, watching the videos, pass judgment using this criterion: the person with an abiding spirit of gratitude is the one who trusts God.

The foremost quality of a trusting disciple is gratefulness. Gratitude arises from the lived perception, evaluation, and acceptance of all of life as grace—as an undeserved and unearned gift from the Father’s hand. Such recognition is itself the work of grace, and acceptance of the gift is implicitly an acknowledgment of the Giver…”

:: Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

RIZE

UMMMM... just watched RIZE tonight with the ladies and loved it. Not only does it break my heart all over again for those who grow up in the inner-city but also makes me wish I could be there. I think people warned me I'd get teary watching it cause I feel that's why it's taken me so long to get around to watching it. What I love though is the redemption you see in the inner-city... as kids, whether it's South Central LA like in this movie, or here in Columbia, the kids I see at The Shelter or The Intersection, there are always a few that rise up and desire to make something more of their life and create opportunities for those around them to find and outlet for the pain of their situations and have a much different life and find alternatives radically different from the paths others before them in their shoes have chosen.

From IMDB:

"RIZE reveals a groundbreaking dance phenomenon that's exploding on the streets of South Central, Los Angeles. Taking advantage of unprecedented access, this documentary film bring to first light a revolutionary form of artistic expression borne from oppression. The aggressive and visually stunning dance modernizes moves indigenous to African tribal rituals and features mind-blowing, athletic movement sped up to impossible speeds. We meet Tommy Johnson (Tommy the Clown), who first created the style as a response to the 1992 Rodney King riots and named it Clowning, as well as the kids who developed the movement into what they now call Krumping. The kids use dance as an alternative to gangs and hustling: they form their own troupe and paint their faces like warriors, meeting to outperform rival gangs of dancers or just to hone their skills. For the dancers, Krumping becomes a way of life--and, because it's authentic expression (in complete opposition to the bling-bling hip-hop culture), the dance becomes a vital part of who they are. Written by Sujit R. Varma

Documentary film that chronicles the practice of "Clowning" and "Krumping", radical, energetic, and vividly extreme dance forms that have taken on enormous importance for black communities in south-central Los Angeles on many levels: as serious forms of spiritual and artistic expression, as alternatives to gang participation, as a means for knitting social fabric. Various personalities within the dance movements are profiled." Written by Martin Lewison {dr@martinlewison.com}

Here's the trailer: