Raw Beauty

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Joy

“Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.” ~Socrates

How do you define beauty? How do the people around you define it? Especially the 13-25 year old crowd?

My 14 year old daughter came to me recently with a copy of a popular magazine in her hand. “Mom, how can I look like this?!” she asked.

“You can’t.” I answered. “This is not reality. This is an illusion.”

“You’re just saying that!” she exclaimed rather passionately.

Oh the drama that is a teenage girl searching for her place in a fallen world. How can she ever find it when she is surrounded by images that falsely portray perfection?

This is an argument as old as time. Should beauty be important? Does God care about beauty? Is it a sin to want to be beautiful? Is it ungodly to pluck my eyebrows, shave, have nice hair, wear make-up? My answer to these questions is, “Yes. God cares about beauty. Otherwise, I think, He would have made the world colorless and with much less detail. I truly believe the answer relies much on your definition of beauty. No. It is not (in my opinion) ungodly to accentuate your beauty.”

(I realize that there are a million different opinions for these questions and a scripture to back up each one. Many of them, I have heard. Please do not waste your energy sending me hateful messages about how God wants all of us to be ugly and poor.)

After making excuses and suggestions, I realized that Bella has seen the Dove ads and the how-to for Photoshopped images many, many times and she still sees that as professionally done (which they are.) I had to make this personal…I did what my ego hates…there was no other way…after all, this is my daughter and her friends and my friends and friends of friends. This is the very reason that I speak openly in conversation, workshops and seminars about a 12 year battle with bulimarexia.

I had to remove the veil of post editing and show her what a real person looks like without any touch-ups or enhancers. I knew that person had to be me.

So, I asked Chris to take a head shot of me with a 100mm macro lens. A lens specializing in all of the tiny details that one would otherwise miss. The point was not to have a perfectly set shot, but rather, a spontaneous moment, as one would capture in day to day life.

I must admit to you that I did not even like the fact that my physical flaws were so exposed to my husband! My vanity does not want him or you or my children or anyone to see the fine lines (or pores on my face) for that matter!

However, it is no longer an option for the number on the scale, the size of my jeans or the fact that my dimples have turned into lines, to define me. To find my identity in such triviality is not only foolish, but possibly fatal.

I did not use Photoshop on the images. I used Aperture. The goal was not to morph into a super model, but rather show how easy and quickly a simple editing program can “fix” my flaws.

As shallow and self-absorbed as I once was, I never would have thought it possible that I now agree with Audrey Hepburn when she said, “The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.”

Before touch ups using Aperture

After touch ups with Aperture

So to my friend who asked me the other day if I ever take a bad picture, I will say again, “It depends on how much time I spend editing.”

The sins of the father

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Joy

I have been told that the sins of the father, like some genetic curse, are passed down through generations. I’m not sure if I believe that? I have seen things that would indicate it is true and other things to disprove it’s validity. What do you think?

Do you have a father who does or did the things that you swear you’ll never do? Be careful what you think about. Wherein your focus lies, you will most certainly gravitate.

A recent conversation took me back 18 years to a time when I was thrown into the chaos that was my parents very messy, very public, divorce. I remember being furious at the judgement flying around. I recounted the headlines, the accusations and all of the nastiness from so called Christians. Within moments I was once again in the midst of one of the most tumultuous times in my life.

Wounds I thought had long since healed, suddenly begin to ache. Instead of a band-aid, I need a tourniquet. Pain that I have learned to disregard from years of unanswered questions now surfaces and I am left mentally struggling like a drowning person fighting the current.

I am no stranger to secrets. Secrets of my own as well as those of others that were never mine to keep. I have lived a life wrought with guilt and shame. I have stuffed mental and emotional closets full of regret until the door would barely close.

The problem with this type of coping is that one day, everything comes pouring out. And not gently, but rather forcefully. There is no way to prepare for when this happens.

The beautiful part about the sudden onslaught of contained darkness is that it forces you to sift through the wreckage. There is almost always one of two outcomes. Either the pain is too great and denial so deceiving that one is not able to rise above their circumstantial feelings or healing is found through a journey of painstakingly, rigorous honesty.

For someone who lived a life of secrecy, it is no simple matter to turn from the familiar and embrace the unknown. However, one reaches the point where the silence becomes deafening as it screams truth.

I began sifting through the wreckage ten years ago and here is what I have learned…

There comes a time when I must stop hoping for a better past, accept what is, make amends where possible, and live in the present, continuing to move forward.

Right here, right now, I release the sins of my father and the sin of anyone else (for that matter) that has been projected onto me, either by force or choice. They have no power over me, nor my children, nor my children’s children.

I am not beyond the reach of grace. When the voice of doubt shouts at me, I will turn my ears to the whispers of truth.

Today, I know better. And because I know better, I do better.

Everything I thought I knew I no longer know

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Joy

I heard something today that broke my heart
Shook me to my core
Turned my world upside down
Made me question everything I have ever known
Evoked feelings of anger, sadness, remorse, disgust, angst

I wanted to go into the bathroom stall and puke my guts up until I felt better
Until my insides were numb
Until I made this raw, scraping feeling in the pit of my stomach go away

I knew that kind of relief is temporary and soon fleeting
I also knew that
I didn’t want to feel the way that I felt

For those of us who have been through a season of escapism
and come out on the other side
We are fully aware that the only way to remain mentally, emotionally and spiritually sound is to sit in our feelings
No matter how difficult
No matter how long it takes
Acceptance is key

I find at times that remaining physically sober is much easier than
maintaining and nurturing spiritual, mental and emotional sobriety
These are the places where the atrocities begin
sometimes long before the action ever happens

If I do not face, sort and squash things where they originate
the outcome is always one of tragedy, personal or otherwise

Thankfully, I have an incredible network of individuals who know me
The real me
The person who is broken time and time again
Flawed and scarred

Those amazing souls
Living and passed
Some whose voice I hear audibly
Others I must feel with my heart and recall in my memory

A girl like me, has to surround herself with truth
Light that dispels the darkness
Wisdom of others who have gone before me

One of my favorite speakers is Jud WIlhite
I will frequently go to iTunes and listen to past talks of his
Today was no different
I needed to be quiet and listen

There was one thing he said in this session that struck me as deeply as the painful news I had heard just hours before, only it brought hope instead of harm
It was his response to a friend who had walked through a season of darkness and at the time engaged in a lot of self-injury
Now on the other side of it, she asked him how she would one day explain the scars to her daughter.

His response was this, “All you need to do is look her in the eye and say, these scars mean one thing these scars mean that your mommy survived by the grace of God and he’s done a work of healing in my life.”

So today, right now, in this moment
I choose recovery
I choose life
I choose truth
I choose hope
I choose love
I choose grace

How could I not?!
After all, that is what has been shown to me
Over and over and over and over again

“Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” Ephesians 5:1-2

If you would like to hear the message that I listened to today from Jud Wilhite click here

Five Minute Friday: Good-Bye

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Joy

Around here we write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We set a timer, throw caution to the winds and try to remember what it was like to just write without worrying if it’s right or not.

I wrote for 5 minutes… and then proceeded to look through pictures for about 2 hours.
As the words began to flow from my heart to my hands faster than I can type, my eyes began to sting as I felt the tears well up. “What is wrong with me?!” I wondered.

I realized as I was looking through years of pictures that it had all gone by so fast. Things that I remember as happening last week, were in reality, last year. How did I not see it in the moment. Those precious, fleeting moments…

There never seems to be enough time. When it seems that we should be saying, “Hello.” we are already saying, “Good-bye.”

Our good-bye’s are seldom “good.”

It is always bittersweet and at times involves tears and a lot of dark chocolate post parting.

There is never a time in the day when I don’t think about “My Bella.”
Not a moment passes when I am not wondering what she’s doing or if she had a great day… does she like a new boy? Is she remembering to accentuate her incredible eyes with the makeup she has been so anxious to apply, instead of caking it on? Is she being told how incredibly beautiful and gifted she is? Does she know how much I love her? Does she have any idea what a treasure she is? How I adore her? The prayers I say for her?

There are times when I miss her so much that my heart actually hurts inside my chest.

I have a new understanding for the word heartache as every time my little girl leaves, she takes an irreplaceable piece of my heart with her.

How fitting for the topic to be “good-bye.” Friend or foe, I know it’s capability of relief and also that of sorrow, all too well.

The following pictures were taken hours, sometimes minutes, before my Bella and I said, “Good-bye.”

On the airplane from Cali to Bama for visitation

At the Wiggles Live Show

Halloween fun

She's home from her summer visit in Bama

Milkshake in Brevard, NC

Happy Birthday!

At our house in Cali before she left for her summer visitation

Spreading Christmas cheer at CHOA. Bella wanted everyone to have an "I Am Loved" pin. She even handed them out in line at Starbucks.

Her first role as a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Sunday that is usually our day of "Good-bye"

Birthday

Summer visits make my heart happy

Silly faces

Crazy face!

Pouty face

Donated 12 inches of hair to "Locks of Love"

My heart

Whatcha got in that U-Haul?

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Joy

“Oh, don’t mind that, it’s just my spiritual baggage.”

I grew up going to church in a beautiful building with big white columns, ornate wooden benches, organ pipes floor to ceiling and a beautifully decorated soapbox called a podium where the minister in the long black robe stood.

I knew my catechism each week and would stand proudly in a handmade smocked dress as I recited them to the Sunday school class, annunciating the answers while smiling at the teacher. Manipulation at it’s best.

On Sunday evening, looking out the back window at that monstrous building, I would say, “See ya on Wednesday, God!”

I suppose I should mention that my dad was a preacher. Not the kind that has a church, but one that travels around speaking. Dad knew what was up and was more of a seeker than an organizer. What I mean by that is, there are those who seek Christ and there are those who organize religion. He is a seeker.

We would travel all summer to different conferences where he was speaking. Even as a very young child I can remember feeling a completely different presence in the auditoriums than what was felt in that big white building with the steeple on top.

I could not recite a catechism today if my life depended on it. Which begs the question, “Why did I spend all of that time learning Christian precepts instead of discovering who God really is? As anyone who has begun that pursuit knows, it takes a lifetime.

Well…because…I saw it as something else to check off my “see what a good christian I am?!” list. We “Christians” tend to do that. We put God on our “ways I get to heaven” to-do list along with things like, “Build up the courage to talk to that guy with all the tattoo’s. I could probably get bonus points for saving someone who has marked their body!” Or “Find a person who is living in a known sin and pretend to care long enough to ‘save’ them.”

Unfortunately many of us grew up with religious to-do lists, attending a church that was beautiful to look at, but left us starving spiritually.

What do we do with all of that? We put it in our “spiritual baggage” UHaul and take it with us into every relationship, every experience, every new perception of Jesus.

God doesn’t wait for me to show up on Sunday. He is wherever I am (and I have been in some pretty questionable places). I won’t find Jesus standing outside a building with a perfectly manicured lawn telling the homeless man, “We don’t need ‘your kind’ here.”

If you are like I was, hauling a bunch of misconceptions around everywhere you go, find the nearest cliff and throw it down, set it on fire, submerge it in the ocean, but don’t keep hauling it around. You don’t have to unpack it and sort through the reasons why. Just rid yourself of it and set out on your journey. You may be surprised who you meet along the way.

Does this make me look fat?

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Joy

Ladies, why do we even ask this question? We know when we look fat. We are setting the recipient of our insecurity, up for a no win situation.

Here’s the deal, I’m tired of feeling things jiggle when I walk.
I have been bartering with myself for the last year when it comes to dropping some lbs.

It sounds something like this. I will pay closer attention to what I eat and don’t eat…
If I have to go up another pants size
If I have a roll under my bra
If I ever have a “gut”
If I’m uncomfortable naked
If one of my children ever says, “Am I having a baby brother or baby sister?

The list goes on, but that’s the gist.

Well, today was the day. I stopped making excuses. I decided to make a change. I dusted off the shake mix that I bought last year for this very reason and I made a shake as a meal replacement.

Doesn’t sound like a big deal, does it?

Well for someone who has never had a “working relationship” with food, it’s a very…big deal.

I have never thought of food in a positive way. In fact I rarely think of food at all. Which sounds funny coming from someone who is as big as she’s ever been.

For 12 years I had a condition called bulimarexia. Weird huh? I always liked being unique. I couldn’t just have your ole run-of-the-mill bulimia or anorexia, I had to have a combination of the two. I think it’s the bipolar of eating disorders.

Sometimes I would restrict for days eating a mere 165 calories and then I would switch it up by binging anywhere from 2,500-5,000 calories in one sitting and then stick my finger down my throat until there was nothing left but stomach acid. When I was feeling extra bold I would throw down a few boxes of laxatives (30-75 pills.) I still remember the way the pink candy coating tasted, especially when I would take too many and forcefully vomit.

BUT, I was skinny.

My family would say things like, “You’re killing yourself. You know that, right?”
“Well, at least I’ll die skinny.” I would say.
Talk about shallow, insecure and egotistical all wrapped into one dysfunctional package!

Without turning this post into a share at a support group and in an effort to shine light on this that I like to keep hidden, I wanted to be forthcoming about the monster within who rears its ugly head any time I consider focusing on the daily ins and outs of eating.

If I’m being completely honest, I’m scared.
Scared that I’ll fail. Scared that I’ll return to old habits that show results more quickly than doing it the right way. Scared that I have screwed up my metabolism so much that there’s no going back. Scared that I will become obsessed with the calories, portions and fat grams again.

So here, in the quiet of morning, when it’s only God and me. I ask Him to whisper His promises when I need them most. I ask for His protection from the monster within. I ask for His guidance as I walk this road to a healthier me. I ask for His grace when I am frustrated and want to quit.

This is a lifestyle that I am learning. Not a diet, or the newest craze. It’s a way to live in harmony with something that I need to sustain me.

In case you’re wondering, I gave up the eating disorders when I put down the booze. That was October 19, 2002.

Why did it take me so long to embark on this challenge to have a positive relationship with food? It’s like any other toxic relationship. I never wanted to return to the place of making an effort to control my weight.

The difference is, I don’t need alcohol to live, but I need food to survive. So, here I am…at the beginning…looking ahead, not behind. It’s going to be hard for me. The discipline to be healthy and not cut corners, will be difficult.

I’m ready. Today, I begin a new life.

If you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, please, please, get help. It is serious and it wants to take your life. You can start by visiting the National Eating Disorders Association.

The Ultimate Exchange

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Joy

As human beings, we want to be heard, noticed and affirmed. We want to know that we matter. There are multiple opportunities throughout the day to connect with strangers in a way that says, “I understand.” without using words.

At times I am blind to those right in front me… within arms reach. When I begin to view myself through the distorted lens of my ego, I will quickly think myself “better than.” I must thoroughly and swiftly diffuse this misconception.

When I come to the end of myself is when my eyes are opened and I can readily relate to the pain of another. “God, open my eyes to see what you see.”

By asking God to direct my thinking, the simple, seemingly mundane, happenings throughout the day take on new form. Instead of judgement, I can see myself…

~ In the eyes of the elderly lady in the check out line trying to separate her coupons one by one with shaking hands, as the line behind her grows longer and the faces appear more agitated while the exaggerated sighs confirm disapproval.
~ In the little boy on the corner awkwardly waiting alone for his bus.
~ In the driver with aggravated hands in the air and a marred expression on her face, showing her disdain for the fact that the person in front of her is turning left when she needs to go straight.
~ In the expression of the little girl, just scolded by her mother, with tears running down her cheeks.
~ In the suit walking across the street falsely exuding the confidence that he so desperately wishes he had.
~ In the cashier at the deli with diamond earrings too big to be real, red fingernails and enough makeup to think she’s hiding how desperately she wants someone to see her for who she really is.
~ In the lady pumping $4.39 worth of gas into her car, praying that it’s enough to last at least a couple of days.

Throughout my day, I am capable of relating, encouraging and projecting light onto others. Isn’t that what God called me to do as a follower of Christ? After all, it wasn’t that long ago when I was the one sending silent screams of desperation to anyone who would notice.

I assess my day on the drive home. What could I have done better? Where could I have chosen compassion? How will I live tomorrow differently?

On this particular day, my heart is heavy and my thoughts are many. I pull into the garage, walk into the house, slip my shoes off at the door and head up the stairs.

There it is.

I pick it up and run my finger along the intricate work in the beautiful silver adorning the wood. I can remember when I saved enough money to buy this cross. I had been eyeing it for weeks.

Today, I see myself in it as well.

This cross was bought with a price. I cherish it. It is strategically placed in a part of our room where I see it multiple times a day. A visual reminder of the beautiful gift that Christ gave, in giving His life for mine all those years ago and then saving me again not so very long ago.

It all comes back to the cross.

As I rest the beautiful symbol back in it’s place, I smile, exhale, and bask in the eternal security of the ultimate sacrifice of my Savior. His crucifixion on a cross (made from a tree that His Father created), stained with His blood (that sanctifies my sin), displaying His body (naked and vulnerable), beaten beyond recognition… for me… and for all of those I see throughout the day, coming and going.

We were all bought with a price, much too high for my earthly mind to comprehend. Imagine the possibilities if we were able to fully absorb and then exemplify to others the meaning of the cross.

It changes everything.