you are lovely | miranda

i have another installment of the you are lovely series for y’all today.

i’m so excited to have Miranda join in on this series.
she has such a beautiful and honest heart – and is never afraid to really speak her mind.
i have enjoyed getting to know her through her writing – and i know you will too.
enjoy.

Somewhere along life’s journey, this is the motto that I adopted for myself. It must have been at a pretty early age too, because I have been feeling like this for as long as I can remember.

Don’t worry, no one has ever actually told me this. My family always made sure to tell me just how beautiful they thought I was. And they didn’t just tell me, they meant it. Me actually believing it was just a different story.

I have always been very self-aware. Since childhood, I have been able to tell you my positives and my negatives. My main negative has always been my weight, and everything else has stemmed from that as time has went on. Being so self-aware ultimately led me to adopt a “wallflower” mentality. I accepted the fact that I was “nothing special,” and made the decision to spend my life blending in instead of standing out.

When I was 10-years-old, my battle with trichotillomania began. This OCD disorder was a result of my anxiety, and within months I had pulled out the majority of the hair on the crown of my head. I was bald. I was made fun of. I was incredibly vulnerable.

That period of time didn’t last forever of course. My hair grew back. I left that awkward phase behind, but the mindset remained with me. To this day, I feel uncomfortable in large crowds. Being in a group of girls automatically makes me feel unattractive. Making eye contact with strangers is difficult.

I’m still fighting to learn how to love myself, and that is a huge reason that I wanted to participate in Amy’s amazing mini-series.

The fact of the matter is this…I know that I am lovely. I just want to remember it all of the time.

I feel the loveliest when I am completely at peace with myself and whatever situation I am in. Do you ever have those days where you spend extra time on your makeup, have an awesome hair day, and somehow pick out the perfect outfit? That’s a great feeling, right? What about when on top of that, you have super fun plans with people you love, and you spend the day (or night) genuinely smiling and laughing? Those are my favorite periods of time. I feel absolutely beautiful during every second.

100% yes. I always find myself being very selective about pictures. I will sit with my camera, zooming in and pointing out every single thing that I hate about my face or my hair or my outfit. It was really hard for me not to do that with these pictures, especially since I took them at a time when my eyebrows seriously need to be waxed, ha ha. No, but really…I feel like posting the vulnerable one will be a very freeing experience.

I guess my initial struggle is always the thought that believing I am lovely, or beautiful, makes me conceited or self-absorbed in some way. Women have somehow given each other the false notion that loving yourself is okay, until you believe it too much…because then you’re just obsessed. This is not true at all. Then, on the other hand, I will start having thoughts like, “Yeah, you are lovely, but you’re not as lovely as so-and-so.” Comparison is such a dangerous thing.

Society wants us to base our ideas of beauty on one particular example instead of showing us that beauty comes in many, many forms. Hollywood shows us that we should want “this” body, and “this” hair, and “this” bra size, rather than saying, “This is just as beautiful as this, and here is why.”

Whenever I get really down on myself, I think of two things. The first being, God createdus in His image. We are created by an incredibly loving and majestic God. How can we be anything less than beautiful? Secondly, He has uniquely designed each of us. This means that the way we are, the way we look every single day, is exactly how He dreamed we would be. We are one of a kind creations. No one on the planet is exactly like me, or you! That is what I call a masterpiece. Alovely masterpiece.

isn’t she such a beautiful blessing?
make sure you swing by her blog and say hello.

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