No Make Up Challenge

Okay, I was recently nominated for the "no make up challenge" and apart from being annoyed at my newsfeed being filled with constant nominations, I have many thoughts about it. To start it off, I bet you didn't know that the whole start to the challenge was to raise awareness for cancer research and cancer foundations. Yeah, I didn't know that either because somewhere along the way that little tidbit got left out. Funny...

Here is the problem I have with the #nomakeupchallenge thing going around Facebook right now. It is just reinstating the problem that girls have been dealing with and have been taught for our entire lives: we are images to be looked at. We have to be beautiful. We have to show off our beauty. We are constantly having to compare ourselves to one another and the beautifulness of someone else. The pressure, the self esteem crushing and the sinking reality of what our female society is, has been amplified by the use of social media.

The epidemic of the selfie. All our worth comes from people telling us we're beautiful and liking our photos.

STOP.

The truth to this whole matter is that it is destroying the self esteem of other girls. When you post a picture of yourself on display saying "LOOK AT ME! This is what I look like without make up", you are giving permission for another girl to look at it and full on compare themselves to you. "oh I am not as beautiful as them" "they aren't even wearing make up, they don't even have to try" "I wish I could look like that" are all thoughts that girls are having right now looking at your photos.

"Oh I am way prettier than them... let me prove it" is another thought girls have which then starts the cycle all over again.

What happens to the girl who gets no likes? Who gets no comments or horrible comments? Who doesn't think their beautiful so they have to go searching for their beauty and their worth from other people's typed letters in a comment box? What happens to those girls?


Now, I am not saying "HOW DARE YOU TAKE SELFIES!" Selfies are fun. I'll be the first to admit that. Pictures of my face? GREAT! I just want all of you to think of what your objective is of putting these photos up. I am all for promoting natural beauty. But I am also all for promoting wanting to spice it up. But the question still is, what is your objective of putting up a picture of yourself? Are you doing it for the likes? Are you doing it for the comments? Are you doing it to show yourself off? Are you self objectifying? If the reason lies behind getting the comments and getting the likes, then yes you are. When we put our worth in the attention of a selfie, we make ourselves completely vulnerable to crushed emotions and lowered self esteem that can come with it.

Our worth should not be based on what other people think of us. Our worth should be coming from the one person that created us. And he is pretty darn good at what he does. We are all beautiful because we were MADE beautiful. Make up or no make up. Your value is determined by the one who created you. And you were created in the image of God. That's one heck of a value. If our worth lies within, and is thriving on our love for ourselves and through the validation of our Father we are stronger and wont fall to the shame and embarrassment we can get from social media and we can take a selfie without the need to have it validated by our peers.

So go ahead! Show off your beauty but consider this next time you post a picture of yourself or follow up on a "challenge". Be proud of who you are but make sure that someone else's opinion isn't the reason  you are proud of who you are. And ask the questions: How is it affecting you? How is it affecting others? Where is your worth being held?

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. 

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. 

-Franciscan Prayer

The Gleaners

Today our team was able to take a trip to the Gleaners and help out with the work there. The Gleaners is a place where they take all the vegetables farmers cannot sell to markets because they aren't perfect (although they are still very good). They chop them up and dry them out and make soup out of the vegetables. They then send them overseas to help feed people who are in need. Each bag has about 250 servings and each year they make around 12 million bags of soup. Isn't that AMAZING! We were told that 1 hour of work will make about 10 1/2 bags of soup. So each hour we work we are feeding about 2,500 people.

The majority of people who work there are volunteers and seniors. It was actually so amazing to see so many people giving back. It warmed my heart so much!

I worked most of the time cutting up peppers and making sure they weren't rotting or molded. I was working with a man from Holland and he told me all about his family, his kids, his grandkids and his wife. He told me when he moved here and what he used to do for work. He was such a sweet old man and really loved his coffee. When it was coffee break he was up and at it faster than the road runner running away from the coyote.

Nearing the end I spent my time sorting out the chopped, diced and mixed vegetables onto the drying trays. Some of the veggies were frozen and it wasn't long before my nimble fingers had lost all feeling. I kept shaking them out in the few seconds I had between each tray. One of the men working with me noticed and said to me "cold hands but a warm heart". Just that sentence alone made me smile. And it really made me think; that's what it's really all about isn't it? It didn't take long for me to forget about my fingers and focus on all the people who would be receiving food from the trays I was sorting. It doesn't matter what your hands, feet or back feel like, it's all about your heart.

It says in Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it"

It is easy for us to do these things with a bitter heart and complain all the time. But that's not how we are meant to do things. God also calls us to be cheerful givers. Take joy in the work you are doing. Know it is for God what you are doing and let him warm your heart with that. Let what flows from your heart be cheerful giving.

I quite enjoyed my time at the Gleaners. I enjoyed the little conversations I had about family. I enjoyed talking with one lady who used to work in Tofino and was explaining how much she missed it there. I enjoyed the joy that these seniors had in giving back to their community. I enjoyed forgetting about my frozen fingers and thinking with my heart. I enjoyed knowing where the food that we would normally throw away was going and who it was helping. Above all else, I enjoyed that we were doing work cheerfully for The Lord and his people.

Napping

Here at the Lifehouse, there tends to be a lot of napping on days we have off (or even sometimes on days we have on... whoops.) But it got me thinking; is napping too intimate?

I mean, think about it. You're in a room, it's dark, you know the other person could potentially be asleep, but also is probably not. This thought came to me when I sluggishly went to my room to go take a nap and behold! One of my roommates had already shut off the light and tucked herself in. I got a strange feeling in my stomach (one that usually causes it to sweat, but in this case it did not) and I left the room. Unable to complete my quest to nap. Because, well, it was weird.

But the strange thing is, at "bed time", it isn't as weird. We all fall into bed and sleep on our own accord without really thinking of the other people in the room. So why is it so strange for me to nap in the same room as someone else?

The answer is simply this : it is just too intimate. Full stop. When someone says "come join in the napping party" with the lights off and all tucked in, I feel like I am being invited to a restricted, secret group beyond my understanding of what is right and wrong. However, if the same situation were to arise in a public area such as a park or a living room, I would gladly take my place on the floor or ground and cuddle up and drift off into the unknown abyss of sleep.

I know it is weird and silly but I tend to feel awkward in these situations. It's too intimate without being intimate. It is like we are cuddling without cuddling. I KNOW it's weird! IT'S WEIRD! It's like when you first get a new roommate and have to learn how to sleep in the same room without it being awkward. Good luck those first few nights of "do we say goodnight now? Or do we just leave it? Sweet dreams? AH, I don't know!" And good luck with the next morning "So how'd you sleep? Is this a good time to chat? Are they awake enough to smile? Good morning? BLARG!"

Being a chronic napper myself, I should be okay with this. I can take a nap in almost any situation. This should be no problem. But it is. Get over it. It is too intimate. Especially with the lights off and the door closed. 

Christmas Challenge

This year, I want to challenge you.

Christmas is a time where money is spent. Abundantly. Too abundantly if you ask me. Growing up, I was always told "no expensive gifts" . It was part of our Wish List Rules. We didn't have an actual list, but we all knew the rules.  I always thought "THIS IS SO UNFAIR! All my friends are getting TVs and discmans (yeah remember those? Apparently they are so old discman isn't even a word on the interwebs anymore.) Now that I am older, I look back at my young, foolish, selfish self and think only one thing: how could you. 

Christmas is such a privileged holiday. Only people with money can get the "right" things. Other than that, we are just a bunch of greedy and blessed people. While at the same time that you are opening your presents at 8am on December 25th, there are children and families starving. Not excited about the day of gifts and Santa, but just hoping they can manage somehow to make it through yet another day with pennies to their name. How will they feed their kids? How will they afford to fix the hole in the roof where water constantly leaks? How will they get the money for that one immunization that could very well save a person's life. 

So this year I want to challenge you. Instead of spending your $600 on gifts, donate it. Give this Christmas to a family who doesn't have the means to save a little bit each week to buy that iPod. Give to a hospital where children, mothers, fathers, grandparents are fighting for their life with something so simply curable like diarrhea. Give to an orphanage or a school so that kids can be educated and get a well paying job to support their families so they don't have to live in the same situation. Give to a cause that gives hope to all of these hardships. Just give. According to Stats Canada, in 2011, 3.2 billion... BILLION dollars were spent on ONLY gifts. That money could do so much more than the little trinkets and toys that come out of boxes. I heard that it takes 3.5 billion dollars over the course of 5 years to cure world hunger and poverty. So what are we waiting for? We are practically there with one Christmas. All it takes is one Christmas to make a difference. Just one. So let's do it. Let's all take the challenge this year and give.

I challenge you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGHHy43ICzo&feature=youtu.be

As we grow up we learn that the one person who was never supposed to let us down probably will. 

You'll have your heart broken and you'll  break other's hearts. 

You'll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them and you'll forget that time is flying by.

 Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances. 

You just need to live your life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off.

 Speak it out, be sincere and say it with conviction and never forget where you came from, cause when you do, it's a long road home...

--Unknown




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Suicide

I had my first dealing with a suicide threat.

It happened just the other day. It was almost instinctive. Go into help mode. What can I do? How can I rescue? What do I say?

I didn't realize the aftermath. I didn't realize how I would be affected by it. Shaken up.

Growing up, I had my ups and downs, but for the most part I was a generally happy kid. A happy teenager. I had great friends, I was smart, I did extra curricular activities, I had a job. Life was good. I didn't have a perfect life. I had a few family struggles. I was bullied a bit. But I never let it take over my life. I was always positive and only focused on what I was blessed with. I have been blessed.

I had friends who had struggles. None of them threatened to take their own life. I knew it was a thing. I knew teenagers my age dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts. I knew kids struggling with bullying, sexuality, family problems, school problems, relationship problems would take their own life. But never did I think it would become a "thing".

After graduating, I heard a kid from my high school, who was well loved and well known, took his life because of the inner struggles he had and though he had a great group of friends, he felt lost, sad and alone. All I thought was I can't imagine feeling like there is absolutely no way out other than death. 

I wish I could say I understand. But I don't. It breaks my heart daily that these thoughts are so strong in so many of teenagers lives today. That feeling of "it would be so much easier to just be done" is huge and living inside an unimaginable amount of our teenagers. The pressures of growing up and getting through high school are huge in this day and age and it seems like more and more kids feel lost and helpless.

I walked away from the situation feeling scared, sad and hopeless. I just want to cry out to these kids, YOU ARE LOVED. They are so loved. We are so loved. You are so loved. I just want to shake them and make them look up and see hope, love, faith, joy in immeasurable amounts. I just want to make love a tangible and visible thing to hand out and spread all over their lives so they can just see it flowing through them and into them. But I can't. The only thing I can do is talk to them. And share this:

No matter who you are, what you did, where you're from...  you are LOVED. By me, by your teachers, by your friends, by your elders, by GOD. YOU ARE LOVED. 

There is hope.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life"