My guest blogger for today is a dear, dear friend from college Christene Catlin. Christene and I are sorority sisters and she was a huge mentor and saving grace for me during my first two years at Monmouth. Life has given her some struggles, but none that she hasn't fought through and come up loving life and loving her family. Here is Christene's post for today!
I was reading Melinda’s blog about saying enough and I wanted to expand. I think the hardest thing for women to do is look in a mirror. First we look to see if we are all put together. What I mean by this is if you are a mom to small children at the moment you look to see if you have all the appropriate clothing on and then you look at your make-up to see if you completed the task. Sometimes I have walked out of the house fully clothed but not a lick of make up on. I usually figure it out when I get to my sitter’s and she asks if I am feeling ok.
However, if we have that rare extra moment to look in the mirror we look again and look for all the imperfections. How much gray do I have (by the way I really need to wash that right out) or wondering how many wrinkles I can fit around my eyes. Normally we though start with our head (why not we have all been head cases at one point or another) and work our way down. It is when we get down that we look at the “style” of our clothes or the fit of our clothes then the criticism and deprecation of ourselves really begins. So why do we do this every morning and as Melinda said when do we say enough?
I have come to realize it starts young and it starts with us ladies. Let me give you a little background first to what I am talking about. I am currently a stay-at-home-mom but I use to teach junior high student. The opportunity of teaching this age group opened my eyes to the “not enough” syndrome. I had that very feeling growing up: not smart enough, not talented enough, not pretty enough and just over all never meeting what I thought others expected. I learned early on to apologize early on for what I felt I was failing at because I could never quite meet those expectations. It is a pit fall that is very hard to avoid. I find myself dealing with trying not inflicting those feeling on my 8year old son but still encouraging him to do better. (Does this mean what he is doing is not enough now?? – I struggle with this)
Teaching junior high students opened my eyes to the cycle we fall prey to at an early age by society, our peer s and yes our family. I watched girls starve themselves because they didn’t look like the magazine covers, or boys try to do more than they were capable of doing just to show they were better. I always questioned them and asked why they felt they weren’t enough for themselves. None could ever give me an answer because they see it in terms of: I want to be popular or stronger or smarter. When did an A- become not enough or a size 5 not small enough?
Scripture helps me find peace and I have tried to find the passage I am looking for but I am unable. However it speaks of being created in God’s own image. Scripture also talks about God seeing the beauty we carry in us. I am not saying I am succeeding in this but I try every day to be enough for God. I try to accept who I am because only when I can do that can God and others truly love me and see me for who I am.
So here I am ladies in all my glory – I have more gray hairs than I can count, I am two sizes bigger than I was when I got pregnant, I have a scar that travels from my navel to by pelvic bone, my legs are covered in varicose veins and a little hairy , around my eyes I have dark circles that never seem to go away and my teeth are yellow. So what am I going to do I am going to eat better to lose weight, maybe dye my hair and I will find a whitener for my teeth. The other things I will have to live with and accept because I refuse to seek medical procedures to get rid of them.
In the end, though I also know that God loves me no matter what so for today I will remember Matthew 6:34 (New International Version)34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Thank you my friend, so beautifully said!
Peace~
Melinda
1 comment:
What you said rings so true Christene! The one thing I noticed right away when I started at the Rape Crisis Center was that women want to care for their kids, their sister, their family and friends, but not themselves! Women are twice as likely to be sexual assaulted then to get breast cancer, yet no one wants to learn what they can do for themselves. And the apologies...one of the examples of "our weakness" is that we feel responsible for everything and so it makes us targets. How many times have you said - sorry about the weather, sorry about the lines at the restaurant, sorry...like we have control...we teach our girls these things and I think we can do better to give eachother support and not guilt for not being perfect.
Post a Comment