It has been a year since I last posted on this blog. 
But I haven't been sure what to post, a lot has happened. We've bought a house, we now have a puppy, moved churches a few times, been on holiday, decorated the house. So many things. 

I guess the one thing you could say, is God has been a constant. That is wonderful. It's been such a roller coaster with my mental health and to be able to say God is a constant is what has helped me the most it is the most comforting thing.

My mother in law shared the most comforting and hardest to settle with passage at church on Sunday. First Jesus said store up treasures in heaven, then he goes on to say: 
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

How do you managed to live these truths out. Because it's easy to know the theology. We know the facts, but on Monday, Tuesday, on dark days when I can't get out of bed, when I'm in a room full of people and anxious thoughts come in. 

The only answer I can give is by the spirit living in me. I have to trust that by God working in me, I can daily begin to be shaped to trust him more and more. It is not something that I can do myself, it is all up to my father, to work in me. He will protect me, he will nourish me, most of all he will provide spiritual food for me. I must only seek his kingdom, to seek what he wishes for me to do, to serve him. He will provide the rest. 

So how do I live these truths out? Continuous prayer, Ask God to work in me to draw me into his comfort and teach me to hand him my anxiety.

This is not an overnight change, this will take my whole life and is a continuous work in me. But I need to take comfort that God is my constant, God will sustain me. Everything else may change, shift, move. God will not. I must rest in that truth.

What is the ideal Woman?

What do we think about when we think of image? 

What we should look like?

We’re comparing ourselves to this illusion of the ideal woman aren’t we. 

Well the average woman is 5’4” and weighs 10 stone. The average model is 5’11” and weighs 8 stone. 

That is a truly scary and unhealthy statistic. Only 2% of women are models. And we’re expected to aspire to that?! That’s ridiculous. It's a false standard. 

So here's what I think:

I think we need to forget what the media says to us and focus on the real women around us for a start! That is the reality, not some magazine. We can’t aspire to be like 2% of the population when we have been made to all be beautifully different.

Just pause and think

What are some of the issues that we struggle with when we think about our image?

Most of these things happen because we are comparing ourselves to someone. But why are we comparing ourselves? Well I think there are three underlying reasons which have come from Sophie De Witt's book, Compared to her:

• o Significance: making sure you’re worthwhile
• o    Satisfaction: making sure life is as good as it can be
• o    Security: making sure we have what we need

I’ve been reading this book and Sophie talks about something called Compulsive Comparison Syndrome or CCS for short, and I honestly believe we all suffer from it, I’ve struggled with it all my life I know that. But for me it all came to a head in my first year of university when I tried to change me and having the “ideal” body and being the most like this unrealistic expectation l I could be became the most important thing in the world. 

I found myself hating the body God had given me and trying to achieve the false ideal. Thankfully I kept going along to church and summer camps and God slapped me in the face with Psalm 139 in my face over and over again.

READ PSALM 139

God made us and knows everything about us. The creator of the whole universe made you and me exactly how we are supposed to be. We are made in the image of God, when we look in the mirror we see the image of God!

How does that make us feel?

How does that change how we view ourselves?

He has made us all differently however we look, it’s how he made us.

He has created a temple in us.