You Are Beautiful

I have to admit, some days I don’t feel beautiful. And if I am really honest with myself, those some days are really most days. I have struggled most of my life with a dislike of my body, and by the sheer number of celebrities stepping into the public eye and saying that they struggled with eating disorders and self-esteem issues, I know that I am not alone.

Most mornings I wake up and don’t want to do anything. I don’t wear makeup and I hate having to spend a long time getting ready. There are mornings when I don’t have to leave the house that I am perfectly okay with just staying in pajamas all day. Ponytails are my thing. I tell people most of the time that I am just a low maintenance kind of girl, which is true, but a lot of mornings, it is also true that I just don’t feel like it’s worth it to get all dolled up.

I have always been a heavier set girl. I tend to be the biggest one in my group of friends. As a result, most times I don’t get the attention, and when I do, it’s not from guys that I would give the time of day to.

I know that that sounds like I am putting myself down, but I am truly just trying to be honest.

I wouldn’t trade most of my friends for the world. They are some really great people, and the ones that I am really close to also share my faith. However, there are days when I just really don’t want to be around any of them because we can eat the same things, I will gain a pound, they will lose 2, and I am left trying to figure out just how that is possible.

It wasn’t till recently that I started to believe that who I am is who God made me and that automatically makes me beautiful.

Jeremiah 1:5a says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

Now I have a god baby in the works right now and it is absolutely amazing to think about God sitting there in heaven deciding just what that baby will look like. He is deciding its eye color and hair texture and ,yes, even its body shape. And everything He is doing for that baby, He did for me and you. We were designed by the same person that drew a lion out of the stars. We were designed by the same person who created the Grand Canyon and the Sahara and the Everglades and the Amazon. The same person that can give gnat all the parts it needs to function and can create whales big enough to swallow people whole took the time to design each of us perfectly.

I may still have low self-esteem on most days but it is something about me that is improving, and a big part of that is me coming to terms with the fact that I was designed by an awesome God and He thinks I am beautiful, therefore, I should believe it too. 

Your Fellow Water Walker, 

Ashlee

Failure May Not Be Fun, But It Can Be Helpful.

Failure. 

It’s not a fun word is it? But sometimes we have to deal with that word. Everyone from the begger on the street corner to Donald Trump has to deal with failure. In the past couple of weeks I have had to deal with that word much more than I ever wanted to. 

If you are like me, you hate to admit your failure. Stumbling is somehow more acceptable to us. That means that we just tripped on the sidewalk. Failure means we fell flat on our faces, onstage, with everyone we know and love watching. Stumbling might earn a giggle from passer-bys and maybe even a semi-funny story to be shared at family dinners. Failure, however, is often swept under the rug with the hope that we will never have to look at it again. Everyone knows this, even if they don’t admit it. We have a major problem with admitting our failures. But why?

Why do we run in fear from our failure? You see countless posts on facebook and twitter about how failing teaches us life’s lessons and how mistakes make us wiser. What we don’t accept though is how true it is. Sure, we put on the face like “yes, this is true” and we even will say the words aloud, but we don’t accept it mentally or emotionally. If we did, it would not be nearly as easy to beat ourselves up about every little stumble, mistake, and failure over and over again until we can barely drag ourselves out of bed because we don’t feel like we can do anything right. It is time for us to start really realizing that failure isn’t the end of the road. Failure doesn’t mean that we can’t come back from the low point where we are. Failure simply means that we have more growing to do.

We might have messed up in the past, and we might even be at the lowest points of our lives. We might have let down every person that has ever put their faith in you. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t fix things. If our heart is still beating and our lungs are still breathing, we still have time to work and work and reach our highs again.

2 Corinthians 16-18 says

 “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

See? Even the Bible says that our troubles are momentary and that there is an eternal glory that far outweighs every bad thing that can ever happen to us in this lifetime. The One who created us is waiting for us to realize that he is bigger than our troubles.

I’m not saying that we should just accept our failures. We all know that we would never grow if we accepted our failures as the” be all end all” in our life. I am saying, however, that we should take our failures for what they are: opportunities to grow in ways that were not present before. Only by really learning from our mistakes and growing through our failures can we become the people that God has laid out for us.

Now, so that I can send you off with an awesome song in your head, I have included my favorite singer’s newest single, which just so happens to have an amazing message that goes perfectly with the meaning of this blog post.

Keep your head up guys. Trust me, “the pain ain’t gonna last forever, it’s time it’s gonna get better, believe me, this is gonna make you stronger.”

Your fellow Water Walker,

Ashlee.