I'm NOT a Hanger!

Recently, I saw a picture depicting the different types of body. The first one was labeled "normal" and had non-touching legs, flat tummy, and small chest. The next one was "chubby" and depicted a not-so-flat middle, touching legs, and a larger chest. It went on and on until the person was unhumanly large. The entire post made me quite upset, naturally.

To label something normal means there has to be a norm to begin with. We would say that it is normal for someone to have all the appropriate body parts. We would consider it abnormal if someone was born without arms or legs (but we love them nonetheless). We consider it abnormal for a parent to hate their child, because parents love their children. To say that a certain body type is normal shows a narrow-minded view of the diversity of the world. It is no less insulting to say that a certain skin color is normal and all others are abnormal and should be changed. Why should we give a pass to someone who thinks everyone should be skinny?

I have come to the conclusion that the reason they use skinny models is because they are not powerful enough to take on the clothing they wear. I saw a plus size swimsuit model recently who was so beautiful that I didn't notice her swimsuit at all. I could only focus on how radiant she was. She oozed confidence! The swimsuit didn't own her, she owned the swimsuit! It was no longer about the clothing, it was about the person. On the show "Ugly Betty" one of the main characters said "Designers only want to put their clothes on skinny hangers" and it is true. Nobody noticed the hanger, they notice the clothing. I don't want to be a hanger!

Today, I was talking to my students about the importance of being happy with who you are. I told them that there is no such thing as a normal body because God made us all different. I also shared a truth that was told to me by one of the wisest men I have known: the late Preacher Burdette, the pastor who started the church I attend. When I was coming into my teen years, I tried so hard to fit in. He noticed this and said to me "When you try to change yourself or cover up who you really are, it's like you're telling God 'Thanks but I don't like what you'e created'. So be happy with yourself." Even though it was forever ago, that advice remains with me, and I was happy to pass wisdom on to my students.

Now, I make a vow. I will be happy with myself and who God created me to be. Thick, thin, tall, or short, I am just who God wants me to be and I will be thankful that He created me that way.

What I Wanted to Be

Growing up, every girl has a dream of what they imagine growing up will be like. From the kind of hobbies you will have to the man you marry, a girl who dreams can create some big standards for herself.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a cheerleader, but if you know anything about me I couldn't do that for health reasons. I was 12 and in Rec Department cheerleading when I found out about my scoliosis. The coach was my cousin and knew I wasn't going to be held back by it, so it was never an issue, even with the brace. I was just so happy to finally be a cheerleader!

Then comes age 16: the first (and only) time I tried out for cheerleading.

I made the JV squad since it was my first year and was beyond happy, however I wasn't popular and was the new fish in the sea of pom poms and hair bows. Naturally, I tried my best to smile and come out of my shell in order to fit in. I had a cousin on the squad, which made things easier as far as making friends went. I was welcome by everyone... except the captain. It wasn't anything negative about my cheering or my personality that bugged her. It was the threat of competition. It was made very apparent that she was not captain based on her cheering capability.

I know this sounds like bragging, but I am just speaking truth. All my friends and family told me that I was definitely one of the best on the squad, even the varsity coach said so.

Why is this such a big deal? Isn't this a bit juvenile for you?

Maybe... but that isn't the end of this story.

As time went on, her jealousy turned me against cheerleading and ultimately led me to quitting the squad, a decision I will regret forever.

I did try to reconnect with my inner-cheerleader during college. There were a group of girls who resurrected the Emmanuel cheerleading squad. I had befriended them at the gym, and, after some impressive dance and cheering exercises, they wanted me to join the squad. The unfortunate part was I could never be a cheerleader again. The summer the squad was to debut at camp, I would be having my spine surgery. This was a devastating blow to my mantra of not letting anything hold you back.

Reminiscing on what I wanted to be, life isn't how I expected it to be. At age 13, I wrote down a list of goals I wanted to accomplish in life. Somewhere along the line, I lost the list. To this day I don't have much to show for it. As hard as one may try, there are always limitations that will cause your goals to go unmet. The limitations can be physical, mental, or even spiritual. Whatever the limitations, one should never give up simply because a goal was unmet, or a dream ended. Limitations are not the end of the world. They are a chance to back up and start over.

Maybe now is a good time to reassess my life goals and start a new list, a more mature list. Maybe one with more depth than my 13 year old self had.

Decay (WARNING: CONTAINS OFFENSIVE MATERIAL)

For some reason, God is wanting me to write a novel. I told this to my husband yesterday as I was filling up yet another page of notes. Provoked by three messages I heard yesterday, this post comes with a warming label. It is offensive. It is cold. It will make most people mad, but then again so did Jesus. Why do you think they wanted to crucify him?

I do not apologize for what I am about to write, but don't say I didn't warn you about the hard truth you will find in this post.

Today's topic is the decay of a once moral society we call America.

50 years ago, it seemed like everyone went to church. Why? Because the Bible says to do so. Children respected their parents because God told them to in the Bible. Women were much more modest and respected the authority of their husbands because they wanted to please God. Everything in America was directed back to God.

"Well that's not what the TV says."

I asked my grandmother, who witnessed firsthand the respect Americans had for Jesus and His church. Yes this time period had their evils, but it was nothing compared to today.

"Where has all this so called evil come from and who gives you the right to call it that? After all, your life is defined by you and not what some old book says."

On the contrary, this book - the breathed and divinely inspired word of God - has clearly defined what is right and wrong according to God Himself. He was the one who told the recorders of His word what to write. He was the one who guided the canonization of the Bible.

In the beginning of the Bible is the story of Creation, and the Garden of Eden. This garden was magnificent. It was so perfect, in fact, that the name Eden has come to be a label in which we give to any place that is beautiful and perfect. Within this garden, Adam and Eve were free to do whatever they wanted except one thing: not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They had one job to do... and they failed. It was because of their desire to become equal to God, they each ate the fruit and condemned the entire world.

The consequences of that decision and the desire to be equal to God are forever ingrained in the DNA of humanity. Ever since The Fall, mankind strives for one thing and one thing alone: to feed their selfishness. We always want more. We always want to put ourselves over everyone else. We focus on on our failures and our needs and our wants before we would ever consider another person's. We are selfish human beings.

Why do you think babies cry? It certainly isn't because they are happy. We are brought into this world with selfish desires! How then could we ever say that a baby is innocent when it would choose its own happiness over yours. It wakes up in the middle of the night screaming because it wants its needs fulfilled. "Forget sleep, mom, come feed me!"

Can you imagine never making a bad decision? That would be great! Well, that is how Adam and Eve lived. They didn't know about bad choices so they never made any. They only knew good. I have always thought that the name of the tree in Eden was very fitting. The moment Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they knew of evil for the first time.

Because we have now obtained the knowledge of good and evil, we now have the ability to manipulate what is considered good and evil. We have perverted the definition of good so that we can yet again fulfill our selfish desires and hold no accountability for our actions. We have blurred the line between the two, and in doing so we have created three poisons to a moral society: relativism, humanism, and tolerance.

Relativism is one of the most prominent poisons of young adults. In college, I saw relativism at it's finest. Even on a Christian campus, I had so many people tell me that my beliefs may be fine for me, but it isn't something they choose to believe in. Like it would make a difference! Choosing not to believe something is a terrible choice to make. I could choose not to believe that if I drive 100 miles per hour through town in front of a police officer, I won't get pulled over. Whoever tries that, let me know how it turns out for you.

Choosing not to believe in what God's word says, especially if it has been read to you, is the same as saying you choose not to believe in the law of gravity or that the police won't pull you over for breaking the law. One of my favorite things to tell people who say they like to choose what you believe is this: God is not a buffet. You can't pick what you want and leave the rest.

Another poison to a moral society is humanism. The dictionary.com definition is:

an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems

Hmmm. This sounds familiar. Again, I would like to direct your attention to the story of Adam and Eve. What was it that the serpent said to Eve? Oh yeah! If you eat of the tree then you will be equal with God. The serpent not only appealed to Eve with the potential to be her own god, but also placed doubt about God and His rule. "Did God really say that?"

This right here, ladies and gentleman, is the start of Humanism.

You are your own god. You make your own decisions about what right and wrong is. After all, you now have the knowledge. Who needs some spiritual being telling you what to do?

Another point Humanism makes is the focus of the goodness and potential of humans. Remember that baby I mentioned? I'm pretty sure that selfishness is not a trait I would consider good.

When dealing with someone who thinks their goodness is enough, ask them have they ever hated someone. Have they stolen? Have they lied? Have they ever lusted? If they say yes to those then remind them that they are a hating, lusting, lying thief. How could that be considered good?

The last poison that I will discuss is tolerance. Tolerance is the acceptance of any lifestyle or belief that you do not always agree with, but you coexist with. I think of tolerance as being like a glass box. You can see what is going on in the life of the person, but because we are supposed to be tolerant, we cannot touch them.

Now aren't we supposed to be tolerant? I mean, not everyone is supposed to agree with everything. That may be true, but by saying that you are surrendering to that lifestyle of belief. The Bible says that we are constantly at war on a spiritual battlefield. Tolerance is the white flag. When Christians declare tolerance, they are surrendering to whatever they are fighting against.

If you have made it this far into the post, then I congratulate you and thank you for your time. All the points I have made are hard to swallow, but if you will open your heart to them, you will see that this society has injected moral poison and has now decayed into a self-loving, self-worshiping society. America is no longer the superpower it was due to relativism, humanism, and tolerance. It accepts anything that comes down the pipe.

Except for one thing.

Jesus.

If American Christians can repent of their selfish ways and come back to God, this country could see a revival that would change the course of history. But until that day comes, we will continue to deteriorate into the shadow of what we once were.

Wake up, America. Wake up, and pray.

Snow White Syndrome

Ok so I have already expressed my love for Snow White. I am a Disney dork. Get over it.

Throughout my life I have been picked on, exiled, and have befriended people that would be considered "beneath me" according to my morals and social class. Why is this? Because of jealous girls.

I call this Snow White Syndrome (S.W.S)

Think about it: Snow White was shunned by the queen because of her beauty (not saying that is the reason I was shunned by others) and befriended those who were outside of her regular circle.

My S.W.S. occurred because of my high moral compass. It all began in grade school. If you were to meet me back then, you would notice immediately that I was not like the other kids. I was mild mannered and wouldn't play with others in my school group. Most often, I would be off singing to myself or playing alone. Why? Because I found my classmates to be crude and annoying. I did not like the games they played or the jokes they made. I was teased for not being like them.

To combat my loneliness, I would read, draw, or pull a Disney Princess and make up songs to sing. My classmates would make fun of my innocent behavior and tried their best to corrupt me. Of course I refused to be like them and separated myself even more from them. I was actually sent to the counselor because I wouldn't socialize.

I finally decided that if I was going to make friends, I would find others who felt the same way I did. I find two lovely ladies: Anastasia and Ashley. They stuck with me through the rest of our grade school days. In middle school, I transferred schools because the bullying was so bad. I though t I was safe, but it only took one girl to undo all of my happiness. She was so jealous of me that she filled my perfume bottle with pine sol, ruining one of my favorite things. She was later dismissed from the school due to other issues.

The bullying didn't stop. High school brought on new pressures: sex, drinking, drugs, leaving my beliefs in order to be accepted, you know the drill. I was able to withstand all of this due to my high moral compass. Yet again, S.W.S was rearing it's pretty little head and labeled me as a goody-goody.

College was the one place where relentless bullying was nonexistent. I was at a Christian school that accepted me just as I was... sort of. Even there I was labeled as a goody-goody with too rigid and narrow-minded beliefs. I guess when they said liberal arts college, they meant it! I wasn't bullied in college, but the label still held me back.

So here I am, a teacher at a private school that accepts my Snow White Syndrome and sees it as valuable. If you suffer from S.W.S in any way, shape, or form, do no try to change your wonderful ways. There is nothing wrong with the way you think, it is the world that has the problem.

Take just a moment to think of the Fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, and all the others. Galatians 5:22-23 lists these nine character traits as something all Christians should posses. I see all of those traits in Snow White. I admire this Disney Princess because she shows the perfect personality of a Christian (minus the constant singing and overly dramatic gestures. That's just Disney). Even through the hardest of times, she never once displayed a disrespectful attitude, nor did she dwell on the fact that the queen wanted her dead. She lived her life with a positive attitude and was grateful for everything, even while being treated like a slave girl and and outcast.

To all of those who have S.W.S of any degree, please do not change. Continue to do good deeds, to have a positive attitude, to see the good in others. Be trusting, be kind, be friendly. Bring joy into the lives of others. Make up songs to sing. Be a Snow White!

~*Beth*~