In HIS image...
I was reading a friend of mines blog and he really inspired me to get back into it. I’ve been on hiatus for the last week from all of my writing projects, trying to recuperate from accomplishing a major goal. *And Joe, I don’t know if you are reading this, but you are truly an inspiration to me. I admire your honesty and beautiful way with words. Please let me know when the book comes out homie!* You all should check out his blog... http://www.trustintruss.blogspot.com/
So yesterday I stayed for the triple feature at church and got a different word at every service. It was amazing. The one thing that resonated with me the most was the Pastor’s comments on women. There is a movement going on and maybe it’s just within me, but I see it happening with my friends too, but I am going to use myself as an example so as not to make any assumptions! LOL. Anywho, there is a movement going on within myself to learn to love who I am. The Pastor was talking about truly learning to admire the beauty that God has created you in. We are made in His image not Beyonce’s and its time for us to stop manipulating our bodies in order to fit into some fantasy ideal. My friend Thea wrote this poem that has become my anthem and one line says ‘if I want to be adored, I must inspire adoration’, and the only way that can happen is if we adore ourselves first. We have this concept of beauty that is so tainted and off key that we don’t know what to believe anymore. We take the words of strangers and use them as gospel because we are not strong enough to create our own definitions of self and live by them no matter what! The crazy thing is that I used to let all kinds of things dictate how I felt about myself, but I don’t do that anymore. I’ve learned to do me and if you aren’t on board, I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t let men dictate how I feel about myself. I have learned to determine my own flyness and bask in it. I might even have some not so cute days, but that’s cool because being fly is a state of mind, so even if my hair is whoped to one side and my clothes are wrinkled, I’m still fly. Before we can ask anyone to love us, we must first love all of who we are AS WE ARE.
I feel really blessed to be the way I am. To be the size and shape I am. To have the talents I possess. To have the personality and sense of humor I have. To be everything I am because that is what God wanted me to be. I am perfect in His sight and I would be perfect in His sight if I were a size 2 or 22. Don’t get me wrong, it’s about being healthy too. I walk the lake in the mornings and try not to eat badly, but honestly, sometimes I do and that’s alright. It breaks my heart to see my sisters uncomfortable in their own skin. Tugging on clothes and shifting their bodies trying to hide parts of themselves all because they have been told over and over again that who they are and what they look like is not acceptable and they won’t be accepted until they start to lose weight and shed some of those pounds and then they will be perfect. Of course we all want to get to that point in our lives because thin women never have any body image issues and love themselves just as much as we do...right... So we are taught not to accept who we are and what we look like we are taught to always need and want to achieve more. When we look in the mirrors we don’t’ see the gifts God has given us. All they see is the same thing I used to see, every single negative comment that has ever been said about them by a family member, friend, boyfriend, whatever. It is so easy to hold on to the negative things people say but nearly impossible to accept a compliment. Why is that?
My birthday was last Wednesday and I turned 28 years old. In the next year of my life, I am determined to love me. I’ve spent the last 27 years feeling self conscious and everything a big girl in this society has been told she should feel about herself, but no more. His opinions no longer matter, in fact, he has been cut off because he is not on board with the program, and I’m creating the definition. It is so liberating to just let go of all the garbage and love. I hope this helps somebody today!
Peace Y’all
B
