True Beauty: More detail from Part 1. Don't hide!

First of all, thank you so much for all of the feedback from my first blog! It meant a lot to hear from you!

Shorter entry today, but it came to me during my prayer time this morning.

Last Friday I was in a very introverted mood. I am a major extrovert so times when I need to be alone are few and far between. I watched my favorite movie these days, "10 Things I Hate about You" and fell asleep but I woke up just as the movie was fixin to end and the most romantic part takes place. I cried, I laughed, and then the thoughts of "I want one" were flooding my mind..but that's beside the point. I didn't have much time to think about it because my awesome roomie came and sat on my bed and read me some of the book Captivating. (We interupt this blog briefly for a public service announcement. Every woman, please must read Captivating. It will change your life) She came to a section that talked about hiding. I touched on this last time, but I want to go more into detail on it. As I listened to what she was reading my eyes watered, and then the tears came rolling gently down my face. It hit me. I have spent most of my life hiding. I sat on my bed crying as my friend put her arm around me and prayed. I came to terms with the fact that this was a stronghold and I needed to let it go.
 Women spend most of their lives hiding. I can name of at least a dozen amazing girls off the top of my head that hide. Why do we do it? The crazy thing is, it's not always hiding from something bad. The majority of the time we are hiding from the women we are called to be. We have gifts, talents, and beauty but often lack the confidence to show it.We don't even realize it about ourselves so we resort to hiding. The biggest things we hide behind is words. I can't,  I am too busy, That's not for me, You get the picture. We also hide from physical things. Movies, books, work, food, sleep, make-up, clothes, men, etc. We are afraid to show our true selves because of what the world is telling us. It's time to stop. God has a plan for you. I can't stress this enough, we are made in His image. As women we have a job that only we can do, and we can't spend time hiding behind our insecurities. It's not hide and seek. If we keep hiding, there's not a gaurentee that someone is going to find you. Jesus has already found you, and he's waiting for you to come out. Use your gifts, grow your talents, and show your beauty confidently. Be secure in who you are. It breaks my heart to see people hiding from the beautiful person they are.

True Beauty: Part 1

Femininity and beauty is a topic that has been on my mind lately. I will probably have to break it up into several different blogs, but today I wanted to start sharing my thoughts starting with my background.

I was raised in a family of all girls, so naturally I grew up with people expecting me to act like a lady. That's the first mistake. What exactly does "act like a lady" mean? The keyword in that sentence being "act". I was a tomboy, so this acting didn't always come east to me. I prefered mud, fishing, and camo over sparkles, playing princess, and pink. In all honesty I despised pink. I associated it with girly things, and girly girls wern't interested in playing FBI with me so yeah, you get it. I went through a stage of army camo, and never doing much with my apperance. I wasn't what you'd consider ladylike on the outside. My mom, bless her heart, really didn't enjoy this stage. She wanted me back in frilly dresses, even though I pitched a royal fit everytime she forced me into one. (It was quite humorous, actually.) The truth though, I was confident. It wasn't until people implied that I shouldn't be that way that I started struggling with insecurity. Then the memories of being called fat and ugly were starting to hurt for the first time. I wanted so bad to be pretty, When people told me I was pretty, I was so convinced that they didn't mean it.

I was for sure a girl, I had the raging hormones that came with it. Romance books, movies, and weddings, that was my interests. On the outside I was a 13 year old who didn't know how to fix her hair, and make up was a forgein concept. (I wore ribbons though) Not to mention, I was overweight. My friends began to have boys show interest in them, and I became convinced that since I didn't have that interest from the opposite sex I was an ugly fat girl. You can imagine what this brought on, constant trying to improve myself. I was glad I started to care more about how I looked, but I was still so unconfident with my body, self, and face. This lasted up until late teens and grew into negative self talk/no confidence, then grew to depression, then grew to eating, which then I grew! Then the viscious cycle started all over again. I would constantly change hair styles, try diets, and hide. I hid behind food, romantic books and movies, other people, t-shirts and jeans (disclaimer..nothing wrong with t-shirts and jeans. Every southern girl thanks God for them.), and as much as I hate to admit it I got into some secret sins that did nothing but create more bondage. I was a wreck. Now I am going to bring it back to the top, I felt like I had to "act" lady like. The sad fact though, it didn't work. I was ashamed. Even up to a year ago I was being told "You need to be more feminine. You need to try harder. You need to watch what you eat"  I thought the only way for me to be a feminine young lady was to be girly. That's not who I was. As time progressed it dawned on me that I was a lady. The inside was what made me a lady. I was created with a gentle heart, I am wired like every other woman, I desire love, I want to be wanted, I was made in God's image and carry an aspect of His beauty. Being a lady is a matter of the heart, and once I became comfortable with that confidence starting coming out. I know who I am in Christ. I feel beauty because I am made in the image of the most beautiful thing in all of the universe. The thought of that leads me to want to take care of my body, present myself well, and show love and grace to everyone. I feel as if though God has really captured my heart, and whispers to it what he expects of me, and what he thinks of me. Let me tell you, it is so much better than what the world screams at me. I enjoy dressing more feminine now that I am more confident of who I am, I enjoy doing things with the girls, and I can still be Leah. I can still frog gig, hunt, fish, drive a truck, wear camo, and be beautiful because being a lady goes beyond appearance.

.fem·i·nin·i·ty

ˌfeməˈninədē/

noun

1. the quality of being female; womanliness.

   
   

   
   

   synonyms:

   womanliness, feminineness, womanly qualities, feminine qualities "she was a woman truly comfortable with her femininity"

 I thank God that he made me to be a girl. We really do have more fun. ;)