Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

There are a lot of lies our society tells us. The media, especially, targets women and the lie that they have to be six foot two and weigh one hundred pounds to be someone. Every woman in America, every woman in the world, has felt the weight of this lie, looked into a mirror and saw ugly. 

In her blog Beauty Redefined, Lexie Kite shared an interview with her friend about how she views herself due to the focus media puts women and their bodies. Lexie asked her friend "T" when the first time she felt self-conscious about her body was. "T" shared her story about how when she was seven her and her cousins were comparing themselves. Even though she was skinny, she was solid because she was active as a child. When her cousins struggled to lift her off the ground they couldn't believe how much she weighed. This experience greatly influenced the rest of "T's" childhood and even into her adulthood as she struggles with body image. She shared that when she realized she wasn't skinny enough she turned to food. Her mother also played a big role in how she viewed her body because she was always on a diet and talking negatively about her body.  

How can people be so insensitive? And "T" isn't the only one with a story like this. 

Before I go any further, why is it that we as girls feel the need to "fix" ourselves up? Why do we want to fit this "perfect" body type, when that body has been so distorted that it is impossible to really look that way?

I'll tell you why and so will Lexie. All the media sells us the "perfect" body image and we buy into it. We look at the magazines and watch the TV shows and even the billboards tell us that we aren't perfect. News flash: there is no perfect body! 

Now, I am not telling you to stop exercising or to stop eating healthy. Trust me, I promote healthy eating! All I'm saying is don't let your body, your hair, don't let the mirror or society, define who you are. 

"To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are." -Anonymous

You can't live up to your full potential if you don't stop hating who you are. So stop the negative self-talk. Yeah, that's right, I called you out on it. I do it too. You look in the mirror and think, "Wow, what a train-wreck." It stops here. I want none of that! The more you appreciate yourself now the better you'll take care of your body in the future. 

A group of friends and I are reading a book called "The Truth about Guys" written by Chad Eastham (I know, it sounds pretty shallow, don't judge!). In his book Chad writes, "The perfect body is not what you see in the mirror; it's the one you are in. When you learn to love your body, it will love you back."

And that's coming from a guy! How cool is that?

Lexie advises us to "take up the lifelong fight against these lies, the time to start is now." I'm in! What about you?

Beauty Redefined

I recently found this blog (recently, as in today) called Beauty Redefined. It is written by two sisters (twins), Lindsay and Lexie, who are working on their PhDs in Communication and studying representations of female bodies in popular media. Their mission statement is to take back beauty for girls and women everywhere through continuing the discussion about body image, women's potential and media influence. Lindsay and Lexie also hope to help women everywhere rethink their ideas of beautiful and healthy that are shown in the media. Women who are confident in they way they look and feel take better care of themselves.

Their latest blog post is what caught my attention: "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. Let's Misbehave!" They got this title from a quote by Laurel Thatcher who won the Pulitzer Prize for her work about 19th century women who weren't considered "extraordinary" by historians because they were well-behaved. While Laurel's advice to miss-behave doesn't sound like a necessarily good idea, it makes sense. Name one woman in history who did exactly as she was told. Name a woman who followed the rules and didn't step outside her comfort zone. Name a woman in history who didn't stand up for what she believed in.

You can't.

The Life Book Project

I'm sure by now that you've heard of it. The Life Book. It's such a little book, how much information can be packed into one-hundred pages, anyway? Enough information to save your life.


On Wednesday youth groups in our area met together for a youth rally. We split off into our school groups and were able to meet other Christians who went to our schools. We talked about See You at the Pole (held on Wednesday, September, 28th) and were able to really get excited about what was going to happen in our schools.

(Honestly, I was a little disappointed in the turnout for my school. There weren't nearly as many students there as I thought there would be. On the bright side, this just means more Life Books for me to pass out!)

We are passing out the Life Books for one week. Our goal is that every student, every teacher in our school will have the opportunity to read The Life Book. We're calling this week Saturation week: a short term mission trip to our school.

If you received a Life Book this week give it a chance. Read a page or two, that's all I'm asking. If you have any questions let me know. I don't have all the answers, no one does, but I'll try my best.

Don't have a Life Book? Download an online version here.

Coasting Through

There's been something wrong in the past week. I just haven't been happy, not that you need to be "happy" to be "joyful," but whatever. One of the students in my class made a comment about happiness. He said that there are so many more things to be sad about than to be happy for. This broke my heart.

Ever since I got back from camp everything has been sky high: my relationship with God, my friendships, just everything. And then school started. (Is this only our fifth week of school?) I don't hate school, really! but when my alarm goes off in the morning the only thought in my head is I HATE SCHOOL! But I don't! So there it goes, and as happiness plummets, so do my grades. Although, that might just be because of all the stupid quizzes teachers feel are necessary to hand out. And that is when I know something is wrong.

I'm going to be honest with you here, up until this summer, I never actually read my Bible. I mean, yeah, I knew the stories, and I knew a few verses (I need to work on my memorization skills!) but I didn't get it. You know that feeling when you're sitting in math class and it feels like the teacher is speaking in Japanese? And then maybe you have a substitute teacher, or you just wake up on the right side of the bed for once and everything clicks. That's what happened this summer.

It was a week before camp and we were on our way back from a youth event two hours away. It was dark and I wanted to hear a ghost story, because I'm crazy like that. I don't know how we got on this topic but one of my friends started talking about heaven and hell and how people have been there and come back to life. I know there are books out there like 90 Minutes in Heaven and 23 Minutes in Hell and I can't say that I agree or disagree with the stories these people are telling because I haven't had the opportunity to read the books. What I did know was that if I died at that moment I would not go to Heaven. Needless to say, this was a very disturbing realization!

When we arrived home it was like one o'clock in the morning. But whatever, it was summer, no worries. I immediately pulled my Bible off the shelf where it had sat since eighth grade graduation. Yeah, it had been that long. I flipped to the Book of John and started reading. My dad always tells new Christians to read John first, because it's like the beginning of the world and Jesus' life all in one book. So that's where I began. It was amazing, the words came alive, Jesus' Words. When I had read a few chapters I flipped to the very back of my Bible and began to read Revelations. Now, I'm not sure why everyone says Revelations is  boring. It isn't! It is a little hard to understand at first, I'll admit to that but it is so amazing to think that Jesus is going to come back and take us Home with Him.

When I had absorbed more information than I had all summer I began to pray. And not just "Jesus, thank you for this day, Amen" pray, but really pray. After I had exhausted myself and my emotions I finally was able to fall asleep, knowing that if I were to die at that moment I would indeed find myself in Heaven.

Before I go any further I need to make something perfectly clear to you. I am not telling you this to brag or try to scare you into reading your Bible or going to church. I am simply telling you my story, the way it needs to be told. It is yours to do with what you want.

A week later I found myself at camp and had the most amazing experience out of the four years I have been going to Camp Table Rock (see blog posts Knowing Your Faith, Proving the Truth, Seeing the Face of God, Go Light Your World). When at camp we have accountability partners, someone to tell everything to and they are supposed to tell you the honest truth. This year I wound up being accountability partners with someone I knew and the way we were able to share with each other and pray for each other . . .  it's just something I can't explain.

When I got home I was so excited to share what I had found, Whom I had found, with everyone at school. I'm not sure if this is working very well but at least all of my friends know where I stand. Anyway, the whole point of all my rambling is that in the past week I've just been feeling blahh. And that's when I started feeling unhappy. Every night before I go to bed I tell myself that faith is based on fact and not emotions and every morning when I wake up I scream at my alarm clock to shut up because life seems so hopelessly pointless.

Tonight at youth group we talked about going outside of our comfort zones. Such a simple suggestion, but it's the only way to truly live for God. Starting Thursday, the youth groups in our community will be handing out "Life Books." It's the Book of John, in "teenage language." There are so many people who need God, who need hope. My prayer is that every student, every teacher in my school will receive one of these books and will read it with an open mind and an open heart and maybe, just maybe, God will work a miracle in your life.

Why Bad Things Happen

In the first chapter of The Evolution of God, Robert Wright writes about "when bad things happen to good people." According to hunter-gatherer societies, their gods are the cause of why bad things happen. The Ainu, a Japanese aborigine tribe, treated their gods like humans, threatening them when something bad happened and thanking them when it "rained" down blessings. This is typical to several hunter-gatherer societies, however when they do show ritualized respect they seem more fearful of their gods than respectful.

Wright then goes on to talk about the "Christian tradition" of believing that reality is governed by an all-knowing, all-powerful, and good God. The big question is why would an all-powerful God let His people suffer when He is above suffering?

I think Job (from the Bible, the Book of Job) has the best answer to this question. You see, Job learned the hard way what it meant to suffer. Job was "blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil" (Job 1:1). He was given everything, seven sons, three daughters, sheep, camels, oxen, donkeys, and servants. In Job 1:7-12, it says that God allowed Satan to test Job in order to prove that Job was truly a man of God. Job ended up losing everything: his children, all his worldly possessions, even his health failed; yet in the midst of all his suffering he was able to praise God and trust Him.

Suffering isn't from God, it's from Satan. God allows Satan to test us so that we know we know what we say we believe. With God we are able to overcome any obstacle because He has already overcome.

John 16:33 says, "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

Something about hunter-gatherers that I find interesting is that their gods aren't morally perfect. They resemble humans too much to be called "gods." An anthropologist said of the Klamath tribe that relations to the spirits [gods] have no ethical implication. Their "religion" wasn't about morals or establishing right from wrong. How could you follow a god(s) that isn't any better than you? In this world, I need something stable to hold onto, that "firm foundation" is found in trusting God and in His Word.

How great is it to believe that Someone was able to overcome the world!

Sir John Lubbock

After writing such nasty things about Sir John Lubbock in my last post I felt that I should get to know him better, so I went to trusty old Google and began to research his name. 

John Lubbock was born in 1834 and was the oldest son to Sir John William Lubbock, a banker and mathematician. At the age of fifteen (2), Lubbock stopped his studies at Eton College and became a partner to the family bank. He self-educated himself and focused mainly on natural history. Lubbock had the "privilege" to have known Charles Darwin, who took him in as a student. When Darwin worked on his treatise of barnacles, Lubbock helped Darwin re-draw his scientific papers on zoological specimens from the Beagle (2).

In 1858, Darwin submitted Lubbock’s account of the methods of reproduction in Daphnia to the Royal Society. The Royal Society (3) was a scientific organization in Great Britain that sought to find experimental evidence in medicine, botany, and the physical sciences. The leading scientists of the world were members in this organization including Sir Isaac Newton and Lord Rutherford. Lubbock was made a member of the Royal Society three years later (2).

Lubbock became a Member of Parliament in the 1870s (1) and introduced reform bills in banking. He sponsored the Bank Holidays Act in 1871 (2), which is now called St. Lubbock's Days. He provided an evolutionary framework for the accumulated archaeological remains about human beginnings and, for this, gained an international reputation (2). Lubbock also came up with the terms Neolithic and Paleolithic when talking about the Stone Age periods. During his lifetime Lubbock published twenty five books, over a hundred scientific papers, and gave many lectures on the subjects he wrote about. 

Sir John Lubbock died in May of 1913 at the age of 79. A century later, I have had the opportunity to "meet" Mr. Lubbock. 

As I was researching more about Lubbock I found one of his books called The Pleasures of Life. I went to chapter 11, Religion (4), and was surprised to see that he began with a Bible verse. Intrigued, took some time to read through the chapter. At the end Lubbock's rambling he came to this conclusion: "In religion, as with children at night, it is darkness and ignorance which create dread; light and love cast out fear."

I wish that Lubbock had realized that this "religion" he talks about takes less faith to believe that evolution does. The Bible explains how life happened, not evolution. Lubbock was so influential during his lifetime; if only he had been able to be influential for Christ.


Research:
1. infoplease.com
2. encyclopedia.com, John Lubbock
3. encyclopedia.com, Royal Society
4. The Pleasures of Life

Back to the Basics

Last night I was finally able to find some time to open the book I have been looking forward to beginning. "The Evolution of God" by Robert Wright is not at all what I thought it would be like. Wright starts out the introduction of himself by saying he was "denounced from the pulpit of my mother's church." The reason? His book "The Moral Animal," which talks about how human nature and the evolution of human nature complicates marriage.

As Wright talks about how he was found to be "godless" he explains that he thinks gods arose as illusions and that the subsequent history of the idea of god is the evolution of an illusion. This totally doesn't make sense to me. How is it that someone who grew up in the church his whole life, who became a born-again Christian, and who became baptized by the age of nine can honestly believe that God isn't real?

In his first chapter, "The Primordial Faith," Wright recounts the history of the Chukchee peoples of Siberia. The Chukchee had many different "gods," and like a lot of hunter-gatherer societies believed that every bad or good thing was from one god or another. The definition of "god" on dictionary.com is the ONE Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe and the definition of Supreme Being is God.

Sir John Lubbock, a late-nineteenth-century British anthropologist called these hunter-gatherer societies "savage" in their religion and way of life. Lubbock said, "The mental condition of a savage is so different from ours, that it is often very difficult to follow what is passing in his mind, or to understand the motives by which he is influenced." I have news for you Lubbock; we are all from the same species. You are no different from those "savages" except in the respect that you are educated and they are not.

A good observation that Wright made was that the word "religion" would be foreign to the Chukchee, not because they wouldn't understand modern English, but because "religion" simply didn't exist in their culture. Their society, everything that they were, that was their religion. 

I think we could all learn something from the Chukchee peoples. We are what we believe. That being said, shouldn't you know what you say you believe? Do you truly understand the extent of what you say? I hope this book opens my eyes to what I truly believe. And Robert Wright, I look forward to getting to know you through your book. 

Hebrews 11:1, 3 says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen." "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible."

A Fallen Soldier

Ten years ago we watched as the World Trade Center fell to its knees like a wounded soldier. Today, let us remember the innocent who were ruthlessly murdered in this act of hatred. Let us know that they will forever live in the hearts of those who loved them.

September 11, 2001 8:46AM

A jet, Flight 11, crashed into the northeast face of the North Tower, creating a hole that went from the 92nd floor to the 98th floor. The force of the impact shifted the upper floors ten feet and fireballs and smoke exploded from the building. The 10,000 gallons of fuel on Flight 11 remained mostly in the building and burned there. 

In one hundred minutes thousands of people were evacuated from the North tower below the crash zone. Everyone above the 91st floor in the North Tower is believed to have perished, whether it was from smoke inhalation, jumping to their deaths from a window, or dying in the final collapse of the building. At least thirty seven people in the floors above the crash zone jumped to escape the smoke.

9:03AM

Another jet, Flight 175, slammed into the southwest side of the South Tower. The impact hole went from the 78th floor up to the 84th floor. Fireballs exploded from all sides of the tower, causing it to sway several feet. The 10,000 gallons of fuel on Flight 175 exploded in fireballs from the southeast and northeast sides of the building. 

After the impact with the North Tower, evacuation started in the South Tower. This evacuation was more efficient than in the North Tower. Unfortunately, when the jet hit, only one stairway was accessible.

9:59AM

The South Tower began to collapse. In six seconds the top of the tower was engulfed in a huge dust cloud. 

10:07AM

When the South Tower collapsed a police helicopter radioed firefighters to evacuate the North Tower. However, the radios did not work inside the towers and 121 firefighters were killed when the North Tower collapsed.

10:28AM

One hour and twenty minutes after the initial impact the North Tower finally collapsed, spewing fire, smoke and dust.

America watched these events unfold, unbelieving. Our nation was thrown into chaos, everyone on edge. In this moment we were clinging to each other. Together we were able to rise above our circumstances and look towards the future. Today, lets remember the fallen soldier that is the twin towers, let's mourn for those who were lost, and let us rejoice in those who were saved.

Psalm 119:116 says: Sustain me according to Your word, that I may live; and do not let me be ashamed of my hope.

Research:
 9-11 Attack, North Tower

 9-11 Attack, South Tower