It's a Privilege to be a Women

My heart and soul have been broken and not in the good way. I feel God has laid it on my heart to share this with you.
So many times, especially this past week, being a women has made we want to cry. This troubles me because never should a women feel dejected, substandard, or regretful because she is a women.
Being a women is a privilege, and so it should be. Femininity does not equal weakness, as many women in today's society are convincing themselves. Men and women, although they are equal in ontological character, have been made different by God. Different yet complementary. Each sex has its strengths and weaknesses. Husbands and wives are to help each other overcome these weaknesses.

"Women [...] are the guardians of purity. This is already clearly indicated by the structure of their bodies, which chastely hides their intimate organs. Because their organs are "veiled," indicating their mystery and sacredness, women have the immense privilege of sharing the sex of the blessed one: Mary, the most holy of all creatures" [as believed in Catholicism]. A women "knows intuitively that to give, to nurture, to care for others, to suffer with and for them -- for maternity implies suffering -- is infinitely more valuable in God's sight than to conquer nations and fly to the moon," (Von Hildebrand).

What has happened to the generations of this world? What ever happened to chivalry and respect?
I am so sick and tired of the perverted, vulgar, disrespect towards women. I am so sick and tired of men constantly looking at me like I'm dessert. I'm appalled, sad, and sick of the molestation, rape, and domestic violence towards women.
Ladies and gentlemen, please have a voice take a stand. Show chivalry, give respect. Treat women like the ladies and princesses they are, for crying out loud!



References: http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=530&page=1

Where are you?

Ask yourself : Are you where God wants you to be? If not, then pray and sort out where the Lord wants you to be, do your best and get there. If you are where the Lord wants you to be, then ask yourself : Are you doing your best doing at where you are? If not, then evaluate what you are doing and what you must do to do you your best. If you are doing your best, then there is nothing more you can do but to continue what you are doing at where you are. Please, don't get lost in the ways of the world, but rather in Christ's Kingdom. You will always fail trying to meet the expectations of the others; however, you will always succeed trying to meet the expectations of the Lord.

Be content, be happy. Be beautiful, be you.
Most importantly...love.

dear friend

Oh dear friend the trials we face. I pray God to be your strength in this time; that you perservere with the Lord at heart. Know that HE LOVES YOU! These trials are not to hurt or harm you but to prepare you; to mold and shape you for the Kingdom of Christ to come.

Beauty

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.
You don't love people because they are beautiful, people are beautiful because you love them.
WE are beauty, beauty is what lies inside of us. A women is beautiful by her heart.

^These are just a few thoughts running around my head as I ponder beauty.

I was watching Oprah the other day with Jessica Simpson as she talked about beauty and her new series soon to premiere on VH1 titled "The Price of Beauty: Beauty Around the World." Let me tell you, I think it is going to be a most phenomenal series after seeing some preview clips and hearing Jessica and her two friends, Cacee Cobb and Ken Paves, talk about their experiences.
As I listened to Jessica and Oprah talk, it really got me to thinking about beauty and what it means. As Oprah said, "You can't define beauty." And it's so true, you absolutely cannot define beauty for beauty is what you make it. What beauty is in one culture may not be beauty in another culture (visa versa).

As I continued to watch the Oprah episode I became upset and saddened by a number of things.

1) When Jessica was plastered all over the magazines for her infamous "mom jeans," people were calling her fat. This upsets me because A) Jessica was a size 4, yes you heard me. She as never been bigger than a size 6, and yet people have the nerve to call her fat. B) Who is anybody to tell somebody he/she is fat? I mean really! If Jessica is setting the standard for fat scales and beauty scales, etc, then we're all screwed.
[I am so thankful for Jessica and her sensitive and strong heart. I pray God may continue to use her to raise awareness of true beauty.]

2) Later in the episode, Oprah showed film reported in China and the rise in plastic surgery. Many of the Chinese are having plastic surgery on their eyes to rid of some of the excess fat and give them more of an eyelid like eyes of those in the western culture. Others are having surgery to be made taller. This is done by breaking the legs and takes about a year once the surgery is complete to go through rehab, to learn it walk all over again, etc, etc.
The host went to the worlds first barbie store located in China and surveyed some girls. One little girl didn't like Asian dolls and preferred barbie. Two teen girls went on to say they [Chinese girls] cannot change their eye color, hair color, etc but that if they can do their best to look/be as much like barbie then that would be good.

This episode of Oprah made my heart break. Our world's idea of beauty is so messed up!
My prayer for every women and every man is that she and he find peace, confidence, love, and happiness in how God has designed them and who He has made them to be. Please do not let the weight of this world bring you down, rather let the kingdom of Christ lift you up.
Be beautiful, be YOU!

Follow Your Heart

"For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11

Two common questions asked to college students:
1) What are you studying?
2) What do you want to do with that when you graduate?

Both of these questions can be very annoying and frustrating to college students for two reasons: 1) you are asked these questions a dozen times a month and you're tired of answering the same thing over and over again, and 2) you haven't selected a major and/or you don't know what you're going to do when you graduate. It's not like we have jobs picked out and waiting for us when we apply to college.
When anyone asks me these questions, I just want to throw my hands in the air yelling or sighing "I don't know,"- or at least that's how I felt over the past couple of months. Until just recently, I have had some clarity. No, I still have no idea what I am going to do or where I am going to be after college. However, I have found peace and sereneity in not knowing what lies ahead in my future. I have no idea what I want to do after college, but I know the Lord has a plans for me. Although, I don't know what the Lords plans are for me, I feel okay about not knowing. Now, I have this sense of being at ease, this confidence that I am going to be okay where ever I go; where ever the Lord leads me. As long as I am where the Lord wants me and I am doing my best at where I am, I am content and I am happy. I acutally find it rather exciting not knowing what's next in my journey. It's like the rest of my life is an adventure full of wonderful, unexpected surprises (and if you know me, then you know I really like surprises).

So don't think too much and don't worry too much- in fact don't worry at all, let God carry your worries and your burdens. Follow your heart, follow Christ, and serve the Lord.

Hold On

"Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." -James 4:13-15

God has been teaching me that I need to let go of all I am trying to hold onto and hold onto Him. One of my professors told me a metaphor that I would like to share with you about holding on with open hands.

Hold your hands out in front of you, palms facing up. Now, imagine both hands are full of sand. Take your right hand and begin to close it. As you close your right hand the sand begins to fall out the sides and between your fingers, so when you open your hand again there is very little to no sand left in your hand. Now, looking at your left hand that has been openly holding the sand; although the wind may have blown some grains from your hand and a some might have fallen off the side, it is still full with sand.

This was a visual that helped me better understand the sayings like "hold on with open hands," and "hold those you love closest to you with an open palm." Lately, I have been obsessed with trying to sort out my future plans. I want to know what is in store for me after graduating from the university like where I'm going to live, what I'm going to do, who I'm going to marry, etc. etc. I have actually given myself headaches and have lost much sleep from thinking about it so much. I have begun to understand that I am doing all I can do and the best I can do to prepare myself for whatever my future may hold in store for me, and that is all I can really do.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." -Proverbs 19:21

My challenge for you is to let go of something you have been holding onto and hold on with open hands.
My prayer for you is that you may hold on to Christ and the Lord's promise.

Oh and P.S. I was llistening to this song titled Hold On by B*Witched from the Princess Diaries Soundtrack when it hit me- I guess you could say it was kind of like a revelation and I really seemed to grasp the whole concept of holding on with open hands.
Have a fabulous day!

l o v e ?

I find that Love is probably the hardest concept in life to master. Strip away every bit of artifice that you can place upon Love, and when you do, what remains is something quite simple and nearly impossible to define. We speak of Love for country, for family, for our partner, for ourselves, for innocents, even for the condemned, yet, rarely does our Love approach the un-ceasing Love that God grants us without compromise.


Ask yourself this question:

“What is Love to Me?”

If your answer includes anything conditional, then it is not Love. In therapy years ago, I mentioned that I felt unconditional love for someone. My therapist started laughing out loud, and said that such a thing does not exist with the human race 99.999pct of the time. He went on to explain that we place conditions on our love relationships, no matter how magnanimous we think we are. His question to me was, “Would you love this person the same if they murdered your whole family?” I had to pause to think about it, and that moment alone proved his point. My conditions for Love were laid bare in my hesitation.

Let us assume that, if there is a Heaven, then God accepts all sinners there, no matter what their crime. Let’s evolve that idea to God not recognizing anything but Love, so He doesn’t know what a sinner is. Let’s evolve that up to God being oblivious in His perfection to the silliness of His children. Let’s evolve that up to ‘none of this is happening and it is all a dream’. Let’s evolve that up to the idea that this whole cosmos is just a single teardrop from God’s eye. “How are any of these ideas helpful?” you might ask.

Because each thought should nominally provoke a small response in you set against what your belief system is. I say, does it matter if we know what is happening around us or within us if we cannot accept the basic principle that all life is based on Love?

Take a relationship in your life that is puzzling or difficult, and approach it strictly from the standpoint of loving that person unconditionally. Your #1 goal then should be to help in any way possible to demonstrate Love in the forms of boundaries, or support, or encouragement, or even silence. If you can find the courage to Love someone as they are and not who you wish them to be, you will find them within a whole new light. The Universe will support your thinking by allowing miracles to occur among your interactions, and you will learn to enact change properly. Love has no shortcuts, and that is why our partnerships are our great teachers. They force us to understand properly that Love cannot be manipulated. Love is a condition of Is-ness, always becoming, widening further, until you feel you just might burst from too much.

by WilliamPatrickCorgan

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