Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's maybeline..

I think we've all looked in the mirror some mornings and thought.. 'errrgh'..

We inspect our faces, check out the spot the size of Mount Vesuvius thats managed to errupt on the end of our nose overnight, look at the untamable hair that makes us look like we've been dragged through a bush backwards.. the eyebrows that need plucking, the blemishes that need covering.. and... is that a few wrinkles I see appearing??
With a sigh we we go take a shower, and then we can't help but notice our wobbly bits, like our tummy's and thighs ( that seem to be getting more wobbly as the days go by) and remind ourselves again that we simply must start our diet tomorrow..
Then we get dressed and put on the make-up.. desperately trying to disguise our flaws.. hide our blemishes and make ourselves.. beautiful. Thats the whole aim isn't it? To be beautiful...
To get a man you must be beautiful.. to keep a man you must be beautiful... to be popular you must be beautiful.. to be liked you must be beautiful..
There's a well known saying 'Beauty is only skin deep'... but is it really? It may seem that way because our culture has limited the meaning of the word 'beauty' to physical appearence..

When I was a child I used to love reading Roald Dahl books... and this quote from 'The Twits' has stuck in my mind since then..

"A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." — Roald Dahl

Beauty is a lot deeper than Maybeline, L'Oreal or Rimmel would have us believe... Yes, in part it is about how we look.. but it doesn't just stop there.. it goes into the depths of who we are, what we do, how we treat people, and how we think...

Now I've noticed something whilst walking to Uni over the past few weeks..
To get to my campus I have to walk down a dual carriageway.. and Ive found that I can get a feel for whether I'm looking good or not that day...

If you're looking good you get quite a few beeps from the creeps in the white vans.. and if you're not looking so good, you don't get any.. or maybe one at a push..

Depending on my mood that day sometimes the beeps go over my head.. but other days it really bugs me.. so these guys are so shallow that one minute, when I'm in jeans and a hoodie and havn't put much effort in, I'm invisible.. but then.. the next day, when I've spent a bit of time doing my hair, and maybe I'm wearing something a bit more fashionable.. I'm suddenly 'beep worthy'... this type of behaviour from men only reinforces the idea in our heads that we're not beautiful unless we turn heads... (or get a few beeps) .

Now don't get me wrong here... I'm not a feminist and I'm sure all ladies (including myself) agree that its nice when a guy finds you attractive... we want to be attractive and there's nothing wrong with that.. but it becomes a problem when we think that catching a guy's attention is what makes us beautiful...

There's also nothing wrong with make-up ( thank goodness for it! I think I'd scare quite a few people without it) It helps us make the most of ourselves and gives our confidence a bit of a boost.. but again, is that where our self worth lies? Without it, do we ever or can we ever feel beautiful? If I'm honest I struggle with that.. for me if I don't have my make-up to hide behind I usually use my hair instead, pulling it close to my face.. staring at the floor.. somewhat resembling cousin it..
The adverts, the magazines, the T.V shows all tell us 'you're not good enough!' Not unless you have shiny flowing hair like cheryl cole, a bootylicious bum like beyonce, lips like angelina jolie and a figure like a supermodel...

Over the past few days I've been at St.Davids in west wales and there's a little retreat by the sea that's run by Irish nuns. I met them for the first time the other day and they were absolutley delightful.. and what struck me was that, they wear no make-up, they wear simple, plain clothes and they're all 60+ and yet they're beautiful...

The peace, kindness, and love that emenates from them is just beautiful.... who they are is beautiful...
They had many quotes pinned up around in the hallways, and this was one of them:

'On the sixth day God created woman, and God said to her I shall give you; A heart full of compassion, a spirit to fly with the birds, a vessel to carry life into the world, courage to rise above opression, wisdom to know great truths, strength to move mountians, gentleness to kiss the earth, passion to set the world on fire, a playful nature to dance with children,vision to repect the earth that bore you, laughter to fill the valleys, intuition to know the unknown, tears to wash away the pain, desire to be that which God created her.. and God said to her 'woman, I have created you in my image and likness and you are good.'
-author unknown
Beauty is so much more than skin deep.. the only problem is, today's society will try (and a lot of the time succeed) to convince us otherwise... More value seems to be put on the way we look rather than who we are as people...

There's a quote in the film cool runnings when the coach is talking to one of the team members in the bobsled team about winning the olypic gold medal and he says 'If you're not enough without it, then you'll never be enough with it.' And I feel its the same with our whole image thing.. if we don't feel enough without the make-up or expensive, fashionable clothes and jewllrey...if we don't feel that we are beautiful without all the tricks and gimicks, then we definatley won't be enough with them because we think that our self worth lies in them and not in who we are.. and we'll constantly be striving to be prettier, skinnier, younger etc.. trying to get to this unattainble perfection...
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that yes its good to keep in shape, eat healthy, excerise, wear make-up and nice clothes and basically make the most of yoursellf, there's nothing wrong with that, it great!.. but the problem starts when we think that that's all that beauty is.. Maybe we should stop asking 'mirror mirror on the wall' and ask our Creator what He thinks of us.. what does He consider beautiful? He says we are 'fearfully and wonderfully made'..

The scipture Ephesians 2v10 says 'For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.' The greek word used in this scipture for workmanship is poiema which translates as 'masterpiece' or 'work of art' and its where we get our word 'poem' from.. ( and of course this goes for guys too )

We need to believe that we are beautiful.. We are God's 'work of art', His 'composition', His 'poem'.. made in His image and likeness to express His beauty here on earth.. To represent His love, kindness, forgivness etc.. Maybe we really should stop asking 'mirror mirror on the wall' and instead start focusing a little on mirroring His beauty.

(wow oestrogen overload) lol

Why So Serious?

Life is far too important to be taken seriously- Oscar Wilde


Some people don't take anything seriously.. others take everything too seriously.. and sometimes, its hard to get the right balance. Being not serious enough can turn your life into chaos, whereas too much can rob you of actually living..


However much I'd like to think otherwise, now and again I keep finding myself leaning more towards the latter... being too serious, and sometimes making 'mountains out of molehills'.. and I've asked myself why..

Have you noticed how kids never take things too seriously? Novel situations are more likley to evoke exitement, not fear. They try their best to make everything fun! I was walking up the Brecon Beacons the other day, and I walked past a family. There were three young boys and a beautiful little girl, and as I walked past them I watched how they played. They ran through the mud and puddles, chasing eachother and shrieking with laughter. They didn't care about their muddy clothes, they weren't worried about what I, or anybody else thought of them, they were just having fun.


It reminded me of how me and my brother Rhys used to play in those mountains when we went there as children, as I looked over the grass I could almost replay it like a video in my head. I could see us fighting with sticks, I could see Rhys shoving me into the nearby prickly bushes and laughing, me tripping him up into the mud, or him throwing a snowball at my face at point blank when it snowed.... all part of being siblings lol! :) And it just made me think back to when I was a kid... sometimes its easy to lose/forget that childlike sense of freedom and fun! Sometimes as we walk through life we pick up all these hang ups, issues, burdens. What is it about kids, that they turn everything into 'fun?' Does that childlike sense of fun become lost over the years? or is it just suppressed? Or is it robbed of us as we experience the hardships life can throw at us?



I say childlike because there's a big difference between being childlike and childish. We're not mean't to be childish, forget our responsibilities, throw tantrums when we don't get out own way etc... but I don't think there's anything wrong with being childlike. Sometimes its good to remember what it feels like to not put much emphasis on what people think, not to care too much about weather you're skinny/pretty enough, to not care if you get a bit dirty when you're out and about...


Isn't it odd how when we get to a certain age, its gradually stops..the climbing up trees, the playing with play dough, the 'making dens', the playing hide and seek/tag, or playing 'pretend'.. all seems to stop.. But does the desire stop? Quite possibly for some of us it does .. maybe I sound crazy but if I'm honest, I still wanna do some of those things sometimes! haha!



But no, we're 'grown ups' now.. people would look at us like we're crazy if we decided to roll down a hill, make a 'den' out of the bed sheets, play sword fights with sticks, or play on the swings..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APhS2wDTIrw

( this is a little off the subject but a very funny clip of Dylan Moran, talking about the differences between adults and kids)

Its not even just the silly children games or anything for me.. sometimes I just find myself being too serious.. too worried about what people think, too worried incase I 'offend' someone, sometimes too serious about trying to be 'perfect' instead of just 'being', too precoccupied with the 'bigger' questions in life. But the key word we need here is 'balance.' We can't be careless - say what we want, act how we want etc.. and we can't (shouldn't) ignore the 'bigger' questions in life. Its all about balance..

Sometimes its easy for little anxieties and worries to hijack our brains and preoccupy them so much that we forget to just have fun.. forget to put things into perspective and just say.. 'in the big relm of things, what does this matter?' My dad made me laugh when we were talking on this subject once... he said he has a 'shit filter'... when he finds a few things worrying him he stops, considers them all, and asks himself if they're really worth worrying about - if they really matter in the wider picture.. all the rubbish he disregards and just gets on with it..
and I think thats actually a good idea.. because without realising it, we can get uptight and serious about things that are just not that important, we end up wasting precious time and energy.. so sometimes its good to just take a minute, pause.. and put our worries through the 'shit filter' and not take life so seriously lol!

( Please don't get me wrong here by the way and think I am belittling real serious issues.. there is of course a time to take certain things seriously)

So sometimes we may be feeling a bit down, maybe we're a little bit low on money( I know how that feels as a student lol ), maybe we're worrying about body image issues, exams, maybe we're lacking in confidence, maybe we worry that 'so and so' doesn't like us, maybe we did a bit of a 'faux pas' the other week... or perhaps we've been thinking too much about something. I'm a deep thinker.. love to reflect, but as crazy as it sounds there can come a point where thinking over something can become counter productive. If we dwell on certain things too much they can end up dragging you down, because they get magnified and put out of perspective. I suppose an example for me recently would be death. ( sorry if I seem like I'm being all morbid but I'm just trying to make a point) When my nan died, I began to think about it.


Thinking about it and coming to terms with it was good in a way.. I realised death was a part of life etc.. and it gave me the revelation of how its good to make the most of our lives 'cos we're not on this earth forever. But for a while before I came to terms with it it was counter productive.. I started to think 'what's the point?' etc and fear entered my heart. It seemed to be constantly in my mind. And it's those times you gotta tell yourself 'stop thinking about it so much'.. or maybe perhaps not so much stop the thinking but what you're thinking about.. but that's a whole other blog I think lol


So I guess all I'm trying to say is that sometimes in life we should just stop, check what kinda things we're worrying/thinking too much about, thank God for all our blessings and and ask ourselves... why so serious? If you can't give yourself a good reason then just let it go..





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU <--- Very good song :)

Cast all your anxiety on Him (God) because he cares for you - 1 Peter 5v7

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years - Abraham Lincoln
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive - Elbert Hubbard