What Defines You

By now, you know how passionate I am about my relationship with Jesus and I know the value of having a close relationship with Him. You have seen through my posts how His power, mercy, grace, and love has carried me and reeled me back in when I have gotten off course. It's not about what religion you are, it's about relationship. He wants a relationship with you, the titles don't matter. When you know who you are in Him, you will ultimately know yourself best because He's the one who made you, He knew you before you were born, and He's the author of your life. How your story plays out is up to you! As discussed before, this life isn't perfect and there will be bad things that happen, but whatever comes, you are equipped to handle and you will always be victorious. 

Just as you are not defined by your mistakes, flaws, job titles, illness, etc. you have to be careful when it comes to those things, especially your passions. I say that because if you don't know how to keep a balanced life and become consumed by anything, you will begin to view that "thing" as your identity. I know because I have fallen into that trap and many times until I learned what truly defines me and who I am. You can even lose your identity, become lost, important parts of yourself can become stagnant, and you can lose sight of what is most important in life. I did all of that too, and I'm sure I'm not alone here. Loving yourself is crucial as well. You can't just discard what you don't like about yourself. You can become better and keep changing for the better continuing to grow into who God made you to be. As you learn, evolve, and grow you will keep changing throughout your entire life, and we should! I think for a lot of us, we define certain things about ourselves as "bad" solely basing it on what the world or certain people define as bad, good, annoying, quirky, weird, beautiful, ugly, fat, skinny, etc! And sadly that is always changing. We are too influenced by society. For example, Marilyn Monroe was a size 8, and now if you're an 8 you're not considered slender and skinny.  It's just a number!!! How you feel in your own skin and doing all you can to be healthy is all that matters. You can be considered the most beautiful woman or man in the world, but if you aren't beautiful on the inside, what your body looks like doesn't even matter and the luster is lost. Shoot for being the "whole package." How you treat people and conduct yourself is important. Something that's been on my heart is, teaching young girls up to young adult how to respect themselves, think for themselves, carry themselves, how to be successful and what true success and beauty looks like. I want to teach them how to love themselves and act like a lady. I don't care if you're considered [ again back to titles ], a farm girl, a diva, a gym rat, a model, a lawyer, a secretary, etc., how you carry yourself, care for yourself, and treat others is what matters.  I think you get my point! 

For so long, I let the opinions of others and the opinions of society control me. I was anorexic for eight years! There were other factors I mentioned in previous posts that played a huge part in how I viewed myself. I am hard on myself, but nothing like how I was before I really learned who I am. When I was heavy into body building [ no pun intended lol ], I was completely obsessed to the point where it became unhealthy. I pushed my body way too hard and if I didn't look the way I felt was acceptable, it was NEVER good enough! It had nothing to do with being vain or conceited, it was fear driven and how I felt about myself was constantly changing. I got so sucked into the body building world, I felt a TON of pressure, what I enjoyed became a job, and became so important to me that it was unhealthy and I'd made it a god in my life. Anything you put on a pedestal becomes a god. You lose balance and perspective and its not pretty!! All these expectations we have are just a setup for resentments and disappointments. My identity became all about being a body builder and there's so much more to me than that! 

I've come a long long way and there will always be more work to do, but you have to enjoy the journey to where you are going, not waiting until you've finally "arrived" to enjoy life. If you do that, you are in great danger of missing out on so many blessings in life that come along during your journey as well as lessons to learn. Every time my health issues have taken me out of the game, I have learned so much and have gained strength and also a changed perspective. I'm free now from worrying about what people think of me, thus removing so much pressure and giving me a larger capacity to not only love myself but other people and to care about what is most important in life........God [ of course ] family, friends, helping others, paying attention to those in need and the world around me. We all occasionally fall back into those traps because we're human, but you can quickly get right back on track. Keep the main thing the main thing, and remember that you're going to keep facing the same lessons over and over until you truly get it. I don't want to keep going round and round my mountains, I want to go over them and keep moving and growing! Eventually, those mountains become mole hills. 

I'm not defined by my mistakes, by my illnesses, job title, how much I make or any of that. I may feel like a hot mess because of all I have been going through, but I look at the facts.......this season of my life is temporary, and the best is yet to come! I hate carrying around a Cath bag, and I do what I can to conceal it because people really don't want to see my pee hahaha! I'm not afraid to go out in public and I am not embarrassed, nor is my confidence tainted. Go about doing life with your head held high and keep moving forward. The race may be slow, but it's never over. Whatever you're going through, don't blow through it, grow through it!

Today's pictures are from different seasons, being physically built back up and losing it again, what my tummy issues make me look like when it's acting, up and more.