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I Love My Body – Fat Girls
I once thought I had this really great idea for one of my next books. I wanted to call it: For All The Fat Girls: Who Never Thought Their Dreams Could Come True. Whew. Long title. It took me even longer to realize it was kind-of-offensive. Whoops. Maybe that’s because I was used to carrying around the label that: I Was Fat. One thing I know: labels might lie, but clothing labels sure don’t! Just try putting on a size 9 when you’re a ballooned sized 24. Yep. That was me in high school. Last week, I mentioned in more detail about my health issues related to eczema, and how…
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I Love My Body – Stretch Marks
[Guest Post by Alice Sullivan] – Because of my stretch marks, I have struggled with body image for as long as I can remember. I started puberty early, had a woman’s figure by the age of twelve, and never felt comfortable in my own skin. I was always active with sports, but by the 8th grade, my soccer coach pulled me aside during a practice and said I was putting on too much weight. I might have weighed 150. At 5’4” I wasn’t rail thin, but I wasn’t that heavy. Still, I knew I needed to lose weight or I would get benched. So at age 13, I dieted for…
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I Love My Body – Esthetician
[Guest Post by Kayla Johnson] – I am an Esthetician–and let me tell you–celebrities are not perfect. Here’s the truth: To look like a celebrity you have to have a stylist who can look at your body and will dress you in the right clothes to conceal your flaws and accentuate your strong points. The book The Science Of Sexy shows you how to do this yourself, and is a great book! You will then need a professional makeup artist and hair stylist and be willing to sit in a chair for sometimes two hours to make you perfect. That’s right–two hours. After that you will spend thousands of dollars…
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I Love My Body – Thighs
[Guest Post by Angela McNeil] – Thunder Thighs, more cushion for the pushin’, child bearing hips, Saddlebags… I can go on and on about the names I was called throughout my life–it didn’t stop at high school. Even when I was on the swim team super active in sports, the comments still came about my thighs. It was even more frustrating because, being a child of the 90’s I wanted a pair of Guess Jeans but they weren’t styled for curves. I have always thought pants would fit better if I got rid of my saddlebags. Many of moments in the dressing room with tears because a dress didn’t fit…
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I Love My Body – Hands and Feet
Hands and feet are the two body parts I used to hate and wish I never had. The two body parts that–along with my head–cost me almost ten years of my life. I’ve shared my story before and I’ll share it again. It was because of severe eczema that took the skin off my feet, face, and hands. I also gained one hundred pounds in ten months from taking Prednisone to control my skin. So when I say I love my body–it’s nothing short of a miracle! There were many times I felt like giving up or wishing I had someone else’s body or body parts. I always felt like…
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I Survived My 20s – Consequences
[Guest Post by Tish] – As a young girl, I dreamed of the day that my very own Prince Charming would sweep me off my feet. I never once imagined that at age 29, I would still be single and dealing with the consequences of Herpes. I grew up in a Christian home, memorizing verses from the Bible, practicing hymns on the piano, and dressing up in my Sunday best for Church every week. I believed in God, even felt His calling once in a while, but I was soon to learn how shallow my faith and understanding of His power was. The chinks in my armor started to show…
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Monday Meditations #4 – Ungrateful
[Guest Post by Ashley] – The past couple weeks I have found myself very down and ungrateful. Trying to keep it together on the outside but ready to burst into tears on the inside at any given moment. I moved to Nashville 4 years ago. When I moved here I didn’t see myself working a Monday – Friday 8-4 job. I wanted to do music. Isn’t that why everyone comes to Nashville? Not only that I thought that by now, by 29 I would be married, have a house, maybe talking about a family.. like I see so many of my friends doing… Neither of those things have happened and…
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I Survived My 20s – Unmarried
[Guest Post by Cathering Kabinga] – I once read an article that claimed that marriages between the ages of 20-27 are the most successful(still have it, don’t know why). Page after page only went out to prove that a marriage conducted in the early years of one’s life has the most potential of working out. Reasons ranged from having children and raising them while still young to handling finances together. The most memorable of them all cited the bible as one that encourages early marriages with the verse in Proverbs that speaks of ‘loving the wife of your youth.’ So why am I unmarried? I was 25 when I attended…
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I Survived My 20s – Dreams
[Guest Post by Caris Adel] – I love the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. When I watch it, I relive my dream from high school. My dreams were to move to New York City and spend my 20s living the city life– whatever that meant. The issue of cost never did resolve itself. My more realistic plan was to get an apartment and go to school in a midwest town near my high school boyfriend. But alas, we ended up pregnant instead, giving birth right before his final exams his freshman year of college. We got married, and by the time we were 26, we had our fifth and…
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I Survived My 20s – Rape
[Guest Post by Laura] – Finally at the age of twenty six–I was settling into my own apartment in a country that I loved to do the ministry that God had called me to do. With the help of teammates I had successfully managed to purchase a car, appliances, furniture and other necessities. While these are things that most people do earlier in their twenties, my early twenties had been spent moving between countries and ministries, always living in a furnished apartment or at my parents. The next day was a staff meeting, and I was looking forward to suggesting a few ministry ideas that I had. Plus, I had…
