You are beautiful

Do you believe that? I don't. But I need to. And I'm learning.

In the last couple of weeks I have begun reading several books that relate to this subject. It is time for me to begin loving myself - including my body - and stop comparing myself to other women. We're not shaped the same way. We're not made the same way. Why in the world should I look the same as you? Or you as me? Why should I be trying to attain Jennifer Aniston's arms when she lives a completely different life than I do - one which likely involves a personal trainer, a personal chef and long workouts. Why am I allowing New York and Hollywood to determine what I want to look like when God has created me to be me?

I've picked up each of these books separately, but they all relate to the same idea - I've been fascinated by this:)

Captivating, by Staci Eldridge
Feel Good Naked, by Laure Redmond
Created Beautiful - Bible study on body image, by Focus on the Family

While the Laure Redmond book is not faith based, it relates to the same theme - we are created beautifully and it is time to celebrate that and time to stop hating ourselves and criticizing ourselves to the point of destructive behavior (extreme calorie restriction, negative self-talk, horrible eating habits etc).

The other two books have similar ideas in them (as far as I've read) - women are inherently beautiful and we are CAPTIVATING. God created us that way. Why do we continually convince ourselves of the opposite? Negative self-talk - always looking at ourselves critically and deciding that this needs to change or that needs to change. How can we learn to be joyful in the way we have been created - to realize that we are beautiful - simply because we are women?

I also just completed the Bible study, Becoming a Woman of Excellence, where I learned that God calls women to be disciplined, discrete, to have a quiet & gentle spirit, to be pure and wise. These qualities are beautiful. Interestingly, there are NO scripture passages where God calls us to be a certain weight or to have specific measurements - Zero.

So this is my quest - to learn to love myself and my body. I will be going back to weight watchers as I would like to lose a few pounds, but I am not going to be as focused on that as I have been the last year. I would like to be a healthy weight - and I have high(ish) cholesterol which needs to be tamed, but my focus is more on being healthy and in shape and being in tune with my inherent beauty and captivating nature.

Now that I'm wireless it will be much easier for me to blog/journal about my Bible study and reading. If you would like to join me, please do! I got the Created Beautiful book at Family Christian Bookstore.