Your Beautiful When You are....

What is beauty.  I have recently been challenged to think about what my idea of beauty is.  I started to think of all the things that I see as far as physical beauty.  Long hair, smooth skin, thin, strong, stylish.   I thought back over all the people that I thought were beautiful in my life.  I realized that they did not always have all, or sometimes any, of these physical characteristics.  What was it that made them seem so beautiful to me.  I can think of 2 specific cases.
  One was a boy I had a crush on.  I thought he was so handsome.  He loved God, He was so good with children, he was kind and funny.  A few years later when the crush was over and I was able to look at him without rose coloured glasses, I realized that physically he was not a handsome boy really, but the wonderful things about his Godly character (which I eventually saw differently) is what had made him so handsome to me at the time.
  The second was a woman who one day I looked at a photograph of her that just really captured the essence of who she was to the core and I thought "Wow, she is so beautiful".  Something that I had not noticed before.  She is not the picture of traditional Hollywood beauty, but she really was and is gorgeous.  I realized that the photograph had really just captured her heart.  She is a sweet, kind, hilarious, patient, amazing Mom, who is truly seeking to grow in Christ and seek Him in everything. I could see every  ounce of that inner beauty shining through in that picture and I saw a truly beautiful woman both inside and out.  Her inner beauty had translated into outer beauty.
  There may be purely physical things that make a person beautiful, but, at least for me when Godly characteristics shine through a person can be absolutely gorgeous.
  So what does this all mean for me on my journey to be healthy and beautiful.  Well it means that while I will never be a picture of Hollywood beauty, I can radiate the beauty of our Lord to those around me; so as I am working on the outside of this body I must also work very hard and improving the inside as well.  I need to seek Christ, and become more like him each and every day.  I must draw near to Him so that I can see what I need to do to imitate Him more thoroughly in everything that I do.
In conclusion - Your Beautiful when you are Godly.

A selfish heart

So I have been trying to do some thinking about why I eat for comfort.  Trying to think back to the first time I ate to satiate my feelings instead of hunger and I honestly can not remember.  I have been  racking my brain for almost a week and can not pinpoint that at all.   But one thought has kept coming back to me.
Selfishness.
 No matter the reason it began, to continue is selfish.  I think I am a good wife and good mother, but I look at my husband and my children and think,  good is not good enough.  I want to be the Best wife and the best mother I can possibly be and I am not that right now.  I am not able to do all the things that would make my good marriage, amazing,  or all the things that I could do with or for my children that I could if I would make more selfless choices.  You always hear the experts say that you can only succeed when you are doing it for yourself first. Now don't get me wrong when I say what I am about to, I think you do need to care about yourself enough to change behaviours; but to say it is for you only or even first is a selfish mindset.  I truly believe that it was a selfish, self indulging, and even self pitying attitude that got me here in the first place in this area of my life.  I hope that those around me would not say that this mind set carries over into the other areas of my life, but it is clearly the ruling attitude in this part of my life.
 Going forward I am trying to remember my husband and children and the other people in my life, and pray for the strength only God can give to help me to remember to make the unselfish choice when it comes to my food choices.  I will fail, I am human, But with God's grace and perseverance I will make more and more selfless choices and become the wife my husband deserves, the mother my children deserve, and most of all the woman that God wants me to be so that I can serve Him in every way that he honors me by giving me the chance.