July Blogging Challenge Day 5

Post a picture of something or someone who made your day special.

There is just something about a dog's unconditional love that never fails to make my heart smile.

July Blogging Challenge Day 2

If you could give a newborn baby one 

piece of advice what would it be?

Hmmm, if I could give a newborn baby one piece of advice it would probably be the same advice I would give myself: 

"Be gentle with yourself & learn to love yourself for who God created you to be, not by the world's standards of who you need to be or what you need to look like."

Embrace Self-Love & Acceptance.  I know I need to, do you?

Here is a link to a great blogpost at one of my favorite sites,

 Positively Present, on Self Love, enjoy and why not give 

yourself a hug :)

A Public Service Announcement: GET REAL

Beautiful You- Day 2 & 3

"The key to feeling better isn't looking better.  It is feeling better about our lives and better understanding our bodies really are- vehicles in which we can experience life.  Our bodies are not life itself; they are objects of motion, not admiration."

-Excerpt from Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance

Day 2- Pledge Allegiance to Yourself

Allegiance- [uh-lee-juh ns] loyalty or devotion to some person, group, cause, or the like.

-therefore-

Allegiance to myself= showing love, respect and loyalty to all of me- body, mind, soul and spirit.

The exercise for Day 2 is to read through and sign a Body Warrior Pledge.  To be put simply this Pledge is a commitment to being true to your whole self...

• Celebrate the temple God has given me.
• Allow God & myself to be my primary sources of confidence & worth
• Replace envy with admiration
• Stand up for myself
• Renew my mind
• embrace my imperfections
• Give my body what it needs
• Recognize strengths
• No longer put off things I want to experience

Day 3- Consider How You Feel about Yourself

Where I've been, where I'm going and

how I would like to get there....

How do you feel about yourself?

  Right now, I feel like I am trying to really figure out who the real Meagan is apart from what I have found my identity in for quite a while.  Its exciting, but at the same time scary.  Its a day by day, moment by moment process of letting go that is uncomfortable, but at the same time freeing.  Its a faith walk- trusting God to guide me in discovering who I am as His and a willingness to submit to His ways for me.

        What I know about myself is- the good, the bad, 
the ugly...

• I don't love myself
• I have a lot of doubt the concept of God and his love for me
• I worry about what other people think 
• My family means the world to me
• I am too hard on myself
• I am too independent and prideful
• I want more than a life consumed with ed
• I love to laugh
• I enjoy good food and that scares me
• I want a husband and kids
• I fear being alone
  

      So the next question is why do I feel this way about myself?  I believe this answer is simple, probably too simple for my liking, but sufficient in explaining why I feel the way I do about myself... I feel the way I feel about myself because I do not fully trust the Lord with every aspect of my being-- His love for me, what He says about me, His faithfulness and His sovereignty.  If I can just let go of what I think I know is best because obviously it has gotten me nowhere and step out blindly trusting Him, what do I have to lose??

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;  in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."  --Prov. 3:5-6

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
 declares the LORD.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  --Isaiah 55:8-9

By walking by faith and not by sight I am trusting that this walk will bring me to a place of deeper trust and relationship with the Lord as well as a healthy, more loving and accepting sense of myself.  Through establishing these things I hope to discover my true self and God's purpose in my life....

Day One- Beautiful You

I mentioned in my goals for 2011 that I would like to do a few exercises a week from the book Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance.  I had stumbled across this book on Dana's blog before Christmas and received it from my family for Christmas.  It's a neat book if I do say so myself and the author, Rosie Molinary, created this video about her inspiration behind the book.

 

So today's exercise asks what are your hopes both personally and for the world with regard to body image and beauty perception and how can you begin to live your hopes today?

For Myself-

• See and love myself as God does; be kind, gracious, loving and merciful to myself just as the Lord is to me... a good metaphor for me is to treat myself as I would this precious, innocent, little Meagan...

 

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17).  

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. (Psalm 139:17-18)

• Treat my body as God's temple
• Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1Cor. 6: 19-20)

• Be a good steward of my body so that He may use me
• self-care through nourishment, hydrating, exercising, vitamins...
• For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)
• Let go of weight, clothing size and the identity I find in them.
• I am chosen of God, holy and dearly loved. (Colossians 3:12)
• Accept myself at a healthy weight for me and maintain this long-term.
• For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:13-14)

• Believe in my heart that my beauty has nothing to do with outer appearance, but God radiating through me.
• Don't depend on things like fancy hairdos or gold jewelry or expensive clothes to make you look beautiful. Be beautiful in your heart by being gentle and quiet. This kind of beauty will last, and God considers it very special. (1Peter 3:3-4)

• Remember that the people in my life who truly love and care about me will love and accept me no matter what I look like, but more importantly I am loved and accept by my God.

For the World-

• I want the same for the world as I do for myself.  I think that people would be so different, more peaceful and joyful, if they could just love and accept themselves right where they are at and quit trying to be someone else.  
• I wish that there wasn't so much focus on size, image, agelessness, food, diet, exercise, I could go on and on and more positive focus on who we are as people not as bodies.  We are not our bodies (I say this for you just as much as I say it for me), they simply house our true selves.  I believe by acknowledging this we are better able to take care of ourselves based on God's desires for our entire being rather than on the world's.  (this is not easy, trust me, I know)

Action Plan-

• Renew my thought life through the Word
• Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  -Rom. 12:2

• Choose to think happy thoughts
• Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.  -Philippians 4:6-10

• Be a good steward of my body, mind, soul and spirit.
• Do what's right even when it doesn't feel good... feelings are NOT facts!!! 

• Allow Christ's grace, mercy and unconditional love in my life overflow into the lives of others so that they may truly experience Him and come to a place of accepting and loving themselves. 
• Be active in helping others see their true inner beauty. 
• Leave 'You are beautiful' notes as part of Operation Beautiful

  

Beautiful By: Mercy Me