Incredible

Be blessed, be amazed, be inspired, be humbled.

Ball, you suck.

So it's ball season, and everyone (mainly girls) are flipping out about their dress, hair, make-up, date etc. A lot of the friends I have talked to have brought $500-ish dresses, and the way they describe their dress makes me a tad bit envious because I havn't found mine yet. Or have that kind of money to spend on one.

Because everyone was stressing out, it eventually caught on me aswell. Suddenly I became anxious, thinking about it nearly every waking moment and every night before I go to sleep. I worried about my skin because of my ezcema and what people would think of it. I worried whether or not I was going to find a dress that could cover up my skin. I went everywhere to search for the 'perfect dress,' the one that will make everyone at the ball go, 'Wow, she looks absolutely stunning!' Except there was one problem. My mum is my allowance since I'm not working at the moment, so she gave me a budget of $100 to spend on a ball dress, max $150. Every dress I excitedly pick up and try on I found was too expensive. I found that the dresses within my budget I wasn't happy with, and I felt a little defeated. Why is it so hard to find a cheap ball dress?

I tried a million dresses on today with my mum at a expensive ball dress store, even though I knew I couldn't buy any of them. It doesn't hurt to try them on right? Even though I tried pleading, my mum still wouldn't budge on extending my ball dress budget. And you know what, I'm okay with that now.

I was watching a video on a musician talking about a song he wrote for Amnesty International after I got home from ball shopping, and a simple sentence he said struck me really hard: 'I think it's so easy to get caught up in the small things that are happening just around us in life that we miss out on the much bigger things that are going on around us.' Wow, talk about God trying to slow me down and look at the bigger picture!

I realised then and there, what the heck am I stressing out so much for? For a 5 hour night. For a stream of compliments on how well I dressed up. For a dress that could sponser a poor child in Africa for a year. It's pretty flipping crazy when I look at it like that.

I'm not saying that the girls who are stressing out about it are really superficial or whatever. I totally understand why. Which girl doesn't want to look and feel like a princess? Which girl doesn't want to be 'oohed' and 'aahed' at, to have boys thinking she looks beautiful? For one night, she could be that girl that shines and stands out from the crowd. For one night, maybe she could be happy. I think it's normal for a girl to want that.

I guess I just think that there's a fine line between wanting to look beautiful for the ball, and doing anything and everything to look beautiful for the ball.

I forgot, in the midst of all that ball dress hunting, that there are girls out there who never had a chance to go because of slavery, because of poverty, because of shame. It may sound cheesy, but what about those who are lost and poor and in pain? I'm forgetting everything I work for and I'm forgetting one of my passions in life- to bring justice into this world, to bring love, to bring peace to those who desperately need it.
On top of that, I'm forgetting what is important in life: family, friends, personal goodness, health, nature, love, God. This ball season stress has damaged each aspect of what is important in my life. It's not worth it.

I feel glad that my mum gave me this budget now. I feel okay just to borrow a friend's dress, or buy that $150 dress that looks simple and classy. I feel grateful that God has made me realise how insignificant this really is in comparison to Him and the greater world. I went into a bad mind set where I knew everyone was going to look amazing at the ball, and felt I had to look amazing too, or look more amazing. This is from Satan.
I am called beautiful, stunning, gorgeous everyday, and I do not realise it. I think I have to be in the finest, most expensive ball dress with immaculate make-up and perfect hair to be called that, but in reality, I don't. In my case, I don't need to have perfect skin to love myself either, and for God to love me too. I need to understand fully that the people who have a problem with it don't matter, and the people who don't have a problem with it do. Peter 3:3-4 says that we should not adorn ourselves with clothes and jewellery and such things to make us beautiful, but to let the gentle and quiet spirit which God considers so precious make us beautiful instead.

Oh, as princesses, each and every daughter of God, we should feel like we are at the ball in our finest everyday. We should feel beautiful from the inside out, the kind that truly matters. Everything else that you put on the outside is simply just a bonus.

God, you are all I need.

Let Your name be lifted higher

I've been pretty down lately, and I've been feeling uninspired. I would say I'm like a buoy being tossed around at sea, unanchored, unphased. Day and night are undistinguishable.

I talked to a beautiful friend of mine last night, and it gave me something to think about.
I realised that no matter where you are in life, no matter how much crap you have been through in the past and in the present, no matter how stuffed up you think you are...there is always this wonderful, dangerous thing called hope. I get this tingle inside of me when I think of this word because it is a strange concept.

It means, to me, believing that there is something worth holding on to, worth fighting for, worth living for when you are in the deepest darkest pits of your life.
It means trusting in God and his promises and plans for your life even when throw up your hands in desperation and think, 'What's the point in even trying?'
It means believing and seeing the good, the pure, the beautiful in life when you are surrounded by the darkness around you.
It means being thankful for the good things in your life, even when you are spiritually short-sighted because of all the bad stuff that has happened or is happening in your life.
It means knowing that your life is in God's hands and that everything will be okay, because it will be okay. This is so important, especially when bad news just keeps coming in hard and fast out of nowhere.
It means taking the hard road of life, even when you are justified to turn to things like drugs, alcohol, sex and hate. If you've been screwed up because of your past or maybe your thoughts, it is understandable that you do that. But it's still the easy way out. Hope is knowing that there will be a reward for your long suffering. There is a prize at the end of the hard road. There is a light.

Hope.

So often I forget that it isn't about me, so often I forget that I am in God's hands, so often I forget that He loves me, in the deepest way love can be. Giving it all to God, I feel like I'm ready to start new again. Not with my life in my hands, but my life is His.

There is nothing more liberating, than simply letting go.