Setting the record straight

In an earlier post I talked about my future in Italy and what I was going to do in the coming years and even next year. Apparently this has started something because I've received a couple of inquiries from friends who want to know what's going on and if I want to live with them. So, it seems to me that I need to clear some things up...

When I wrote that post it was shortly after my mom left. I don't know about you, but whenever I leave my family (even when I was living in Phoenix and was only an hour and a half away) I am always filled with a sense of homesickness. I love my family. They are the most important people in the world to me and we actually have fun together. I like spending time with them...my mom's one of my best friends. So, after she left I found myself in my usual "homesick" funk not to mention that she left a couple of days before students returned from spring break so it was quiet and a bit lonely here. And that's all it was. Once students returned and we got back into the "swing of things" I felt better and felt good about where I was and what God was doing in my life. I decided shortly after I published my post that I was staying for sure next year, but didn't do any kind of an update here.

What I reminded my friends was that this blog is sort of a fluid journal. While what I post at the moment may be true, it may not be after I hit 'Publish Post' because I was able to express what I needed to and get it off my chest. Since I am a writer and this is how God created my brain to work, I use this blog as a way of processing my life...of thinking through what God's doing in my life and where I'm at. Nothing more. Nothing less. So please know that while I miss you all and there are days when I recognize that life at home was easier, I know that this is where the Lord has me and I am happy to be here. Ciao for now and Happy Easter!!

Catching up...

I spent some time this evening talking to a friend on Skype. We have a standing "Skype date" on Wed nights. I cherish this time and look forward to it every week. It's one of my week's highlights.

Normally after we finish talking I go to bed, but tonight I was on Facebook for a bit and ended up chatting with a friend that I haven't talked to in a while. He moved back to CA several years ago and got married recently so we've kind of lost touch. It was so good to 'talk' to him! It was just fun hearing about what's new in his life and talking about old times.

You Are Beautiful!!

Since my time in treatment for my eating disorder I have become impassioned about making sure that women, myself included, know that they are beautiful...AS THEY ARE....not 10 pounds lighter...not when their hair is cut...not when they've got the perfect outfit...not when their make-up is aptly applied....but AS THEY ARE. Because we are made in God's image. He is by definition beautiful. Look at all He has created! The sun, the oceans, the mountains, flowers, sunsets. Our God is a Creator of all things beautiful. This includes you and me. We are beautiful because we bear His handprint.

I was looking at a friend's Facebook page. This is someone I knew while I was in treatment. She has continued to battle her ED since I discharged 3.5 years ago. She has been in and out of treatment since that time. She was released several months ago from an amazing program that has helped to turn her life around. She seems to be in a different, better place than she's been. I'm so proud and thankful. Anyways, she had this website posted on her site. It's called Operation Beautiful and is a campaign started to remind us that we are beautiful...AS WE ARE. Check it out: http://www.operationbeautiful.com.

And remember...You ARE beautiful...just as you are.

Thinking things thru

My mom was here visiting for a week and she just left yesterday. As has been the norm since people have come to visit me here, I am struggling with a bad case of homesickness today. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss home.

My mom and I talked about my future while she was here and what the next couple of years look like. As of now the plan is to be here at least one more year, but quite honestly I don't want to be. It's not that I hate it here or my semester's been miserable because it hasn't been. Rather, it's just that I've come to realize just how important my family and friends are to me and how I'm not someone who was created to live away from them. This is the longest I've ever lived away from home and I hate that part of it. I don't know what to do. Frankly, I don't even want to stay past this year, but I feel obligated.

Whenever anyone hears what I am doing the automatic response is "that's amazing! How can I get that job?" And to some degree, it is amazing and this has been an incredible experience, but at the same time reality and the romantic notion of living/working abroad is so radically different. The reality is very lonely and very hard. My expectations and what is real are worlds apart. This is not what I thought it would be.

 So, I guess for now I am praying about where God wants me. Here or there?

God answers fast!

I wrote the email. I said no. I sent it to a friend to look over first....and then I got an email that no longer made my email necessary. All I can say is Thank You Jesus! He knew what I needed and saw to my care. I know that I will eventually have to deal with this and respond, but for now...it's not necessary!

Advocating for me

I am in the midst of trying to know how to word an email. I have very strong feelings about the subject of the email, but I can't seem to get the words out. I think it's because I am afraid. I'm afraid to stand up for myself and use my voice. I have learned the importance of doing this, but in this instance with this person I am finding it difficult.

I think it's because I don't feel safe with this person and I, more often than not, feel taken advantage by this person. I feel like they're more apt to point out all of my misgivings and failures, but not protect me, foster an environment where I am cared for...allowed to rest. And so because of that I don't feel like I can say "No". I want to, but I don't feel like I can. What's being asked of me, though, is fairly comical. I feel like such a non-entity, but so much is expected and almost demanded of me. I am happy to give 100% so long as I have some time to me and some time to recharge. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

It's funny because last night at Bible study I made the point that in the notes from our previous lesson it said  something to the effect that we should not fear the judgements others make of what they may perceive as our failures because Jesus knows who we are and we can trust who God has called us to be. Huh? So, I shouldn't fear as I write this email because I know who God made me to be and who He has called me to be. Didn't think that God would provide me a tangible example of how to apply the Truth that He revealed to me so soon. Still....what to write? What to write??

Waking life

I watched perhaps one of my favorite movies the other day and I'm still processing what it is that it stirs up inside me. Penelope is a fabulous movie about a young woman who bears a family curse in the form of a pig nose. Her parents, ok her mom, is so distraught by her daughter's "deformity" that she keeps Penelope hidden from the world and goes so far as to fake her death. It is believed that the only way to break the curse is for Penelope to be accepted by one of her own...so her mom sets out to find her a blue blood husband to break the curse. In the end, it's not a man, or anything like that that breaks the curse....it's....well, I hate to ruin the ending for you...so let's just say that Penelope learns the true meaning of beauty and acceptance.

And that's what I love about that movie. It reminds me that no matter what anyone else says or how anyone else judges me, I am beautiful because of who I am and who I am in Christ. That's it. I could have three eyes, two noses, and orange hair and still be beautiful.

The first time I saw Penelope I was unable to leave the theatre after it was over. I literally sat stunned in my seat until the credits were over. It struck such a nerve within me that I found it hard to process anything else. I was the chubby kid in my family. I was the one who carried her baby fat into adolescence. I mean I was very active in that I played tennis and soccer, I swam and I danced, but because of how I was created my bones held on to a little more flesh than say my sister's did. For my mom this was sometimes hard to reconcile because she was fairly thin all of her life. To have a daughter who wasn't was hard for her. I remember going shopping with my sisters and her and she would tell me that we would wait to buy "nice" (meaning more stylish) clothes for me until I lost the weight...because it was only a matter of time. Well, she didn't know that I was in the midst of a full blown eating disorder and secretly bingeing all of the time....she didn't know that when I stopped playing all those sports, stopped dancing that the weight that had been kept off would suddenly appear. And so I learned that because of my weight I wasn't worthy of wearing beautiful clothes..of being seen as beatiful. This is what I took from what was said. Don't get me wrong, I don't think my mom said those things to me because she wanted to hurt me, she just didn't know what to do with me. And so I wore baggy clothes, non-descript clothes. I rarely wore make-up and let my hair grow really long and stringy.

It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I began to take ownership of my body, what I wore, and how I presented myself. I learned that even though I may weigh *** I could still treat my body as my canvas and use clothes and make-up as my art supplies. I'm not suggesting that clothing and make-up make us pretty or beautiful...rather I'm saying that until I began to carry myself with worth, acceptance, love...I wasn't able to appreciate that which God gave me. I had to accept myself. Just as Penelope did.

My heart is still stirred by that movie. It still resonates deep within me. It is a good reminder for me in a world so focused on the external that when all is said and done...what we look like on the outside doesn't matter. It's who we are, whose we are, how we love, and how we live that makes us beautiful...the rest is just icing on the cake.