Beauty, Confidence and Everything In Between

I have been trying to write this post for the last two week but after yesterday morning I knew I needed to write it.

So, yesterday morning I was headed out to work and I happened to pass by one of the mirrors in my house. As I glanced at my reflection I think to myself, "Wow, I look skinny." Then I had to take a pause, because I just got back from my long weekend vacation and I knew I had put on a couple of pounds, I didn't get skinnier in reality I got bigger. So why did I think I looked skinny? And the more and more I thought about this I realized I associate the idea of "skinny" with pretty. But, what is ironic about this is that even though I don't feel skinny, I feel beautiful. I am confident in who I am, and who I am in Christ but I still sometimes struggle with what confidence is and what it means to live my life confidently...

Confidence is feeling pretty right? Or is it when other people think I'm pretty? Or, is it both?

Well in my experience, confidence is something that is much more than skin deep. Being confident means I can firmly stand on who I am and what I believe. But, I want to talk about what it means to be confident in myself, but also in Jesus.

Now, I was a chubby little kid, then I grew into an overweight kid, that transformed into a self-conscious kid. Which in turn, created a self-conscious teenager and now, here we are. When I look back at the person I used to be and how I felt about myself breaks my heart into a million pieces. I look back at the 6th grade girl who felt so uncomfortable in her body that she cried anytime someone made any kind of comment about her. I think about the 8th grade me that came back from six weeks at weight-loss camp and losing 30Ibs that still wasn't satisfied with her self-image. I think about the junior in high school who sat on the floor in tears as she stared into her closet and cried because she couldn't feel pretty in anything she tried on. I think about the freshman in college that looks at herself in pictures and mentally picks herself apart until there is nothing left than a heaping pile of one of Satan's most powerful lies: I am not good enough.

I am confident.

Sometimes. Most of the time.

I am self-conscious.

Too often.

Junior and senior year of high school I learned a LOT about who I am, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And, in my youth group we went through a series based out of 1 Corinthians that dealt with our spiritual gifts. Throughout this series we talked about how God created us all uniquely for a special and specific purpose in connection to His will. Even though the focus of this series was our spiritual gifts, it also taught me about the importance of my uniqueness as a creation of God. Having confidence is not something that comes naturally as a human being, at least not for me. I only learned to be confident once I learned to love Jesus and understood that I was made exactly the way I am because I fit perfectly into His plan. My confidence is something that without Christ would not exist. Period. Before I knew how important I was to Him and the Kingdom He created I lived a life of constant discomfort and perpetual self-consciousness. And there are some days (more than I would care to admit) that I still do feel insecure about myself, whether that be physically or otherwise. But by learning to lean on Jesus and all of His awesomeness I realized that because I am loved by the God who created the stars and the heavens I was made perfectly and I am perfect the way I am because He made me exactly the way He wanted me. Now I am not saying that I won't try to lose a couple pounds here or there or I won't change up my style (if I ever find some), but what I am saying is that my beauty is not found in my physicality it is found in Christ alone. And I think this is why so many women have a hard time with how they view themselves, because they don't understand that God sees us differently than any other human ever could. The thing that break my heart the most, is when I hear the people in my life who I know have true beauty in their heart and even on the skin still can't see their beauty. Tonight that is something I pray for you as you read this, that you would know how incredibly loved you are, how beautifully made you were and that you would know that you are God's perfect design. I pray that you build a relationship with the Creator of makeup and mirrors and let Him tell you how fearfully and wonderfully made you are.

Tonight I encourage you to look to God's word and let Him tell you who you are, how beautiful you have always been and let it sink in deep in every corner of your heart. Proverbs 31:30 says,

"Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised." - Proverb 31:30

I hope that you listen to what God is telling you; that you are beautiful and perfect in His eyes. True beauty comes from the heart, as they always say but more importantly it comes from Jesus and I hope you keep that close to your heart.

With lots of love and confidence found in Christ,
Kaitlyn

The Blessing of Intentional Relationships

I love people. And to some degree I think I always have. But, because Christ loved me I get to love people even more. The love of God has the power to change every part of a human being, especially the human heart. I have always loved taking care of others, I guess it's just the natural instinct within me but because of the awesomeness of the Holy Spirit that feeling gets amplified by about a million. I truly believe that intentional relationships are the result of God's overflowing love within us. God has gifted me many blessings within my short lifetime and quite a few of these have come in the form of intentional relationships.

Beginning senior year I found myself in an awkward place. Somewhere between the start of junior year and the August before senior year I looked up and realized I didn't necessarily enjoy the majority of people that filled my life. Not to say that some of them didn't bring me great joy, because I promise they did, but I craved something different, something deep, something with intention. Inside my heart there was a desire to love others with every ounce of Christ's overflowing love, but there were very few people in my life I got to share it with. Then God pointed me in the direction of acting intentionally toward those around me. And man oh man did He bless me! For approximately the last week I served as a junior counselor at Oklahoma Girls State. Basically this means I get to spend every second of my days with some of the most amazing twenty-seven women I have ever met. I enjoyed Girls State more than anything because of the relationships I got to build with these lovely ladies which came as a product of intention. But while I spent my week in Norman a huge part of my heart was left in Stillwater where another one of God's products of intentionally stayed. 

For some crazy reason God thought that as a senior in high school I should really get to know younger girls, specifically two sophomores that somehow ended up stealing every piece of my heart. Sometime between August and May, Kenley and Mac ended up being two of the most important people in my life. Yesterday was the first time I saw them for a whole entire week and I could not have been more excited to see them. Being someone who's love language is quality time, I can't really explain how great a feeling it was to sit and talk that night for a solid 30 minutes!

I have established in all the wisdom that fills my seventeen year old body, that God brings people into our lives for a reason. Every one of the people I have met in my life serve a purpose in God's incredible plan for me. So why not share Him with every one of them? One part of graduating high school I didn't really think about was all the gifts you get from people, and nine times out of ten, gifts come with cards. Now, my first love language may be quality time by my secondary is words of affirmation, and there is no cooler way to see all the things God has used a person for than what people write about you in a graduation card. Just like I have talked about before I really struggle with letting people in, but this year I REALLY tried to change that. And after reading the things people wrote to me I think I did a pretty decent job. Once I learned to love people intentionally, I got to see God work through me in awesome and unbelievable ways. 

When we learn to love people with intention God opens incredible doors. So whether that means you get to meet someone's mom as their "favorite person in the world" or you end up taking personality test at two in the morning, God will use you in ways you could never imagine. So tonight I pray that you get to experience this intentional kind of love. I hope you let God open these doors for you.

Filled with love, joy and coffee,

Kaitlyn