The Loss I Thought I Will Never Mourn

Every morning after I pass my pee, I would go to specific corner in my house to greet a silent but day-changing dweller, the weighing scale. I tap one of the round metals on either four corners and wait for the "0.0" to appear on the small horizontal screen and the moment I step on the glass board is the moment my diaphragm stops moving. I hold my breath thinking inhaling air would increase the number on the horizontal screen which I dreaded. That's how I feel every morning. I face the weighing scale's derision at the start of my day. If my weight increases from yesterday's, I would not eat a hefty breakfast and would "punish" myself for overeating yesternight. I would be a pauper during breakfast but then I would starve at the middle of the day so I would eat like a prince at lunch and a king with a big appetite at night because I feel "deprived". So the cycle goes on, an unhealthy, misguided cycle. 

Why do I let the weighing scale dictate my day? Why do we want to be thin...thinner?
Society, the media, the world, made us believe that if only we can have a Coca-cola body then we're beautiful. Any dress would look good on, any angle on the picture would be perfect, the skinny jeans would fit, oxford shoes would match, swimsuit would be "legal" to wear, heads would turn, and the lies go on. Why do we buy those lies? Why do we let the standard of the world shape us? Why do we fear the scale and turn away disgusted at ourselves when the weighing scale shouts "FAT" with the numbers it shows? I like this picture.. Why do numbers make us cry? Why do they define us?

The villain..

I wanted to be thinner. I wanted to weigh 115pounds and then I would be contented and would feel good about myself. But I doubt that. There's always just a little more. Just a little more weight loss and I would be ok, just a little more tan, just a little straighter, just a little whiter, just a little taller, just a little fairer. Just a little more is not just a little. It's a lot and it goes deep into your system and develops ungrateful, discontented, greedy, insecure heart.

We always compare ourselves with people who have a little more. They are thinner, fairer, richer, etc. We see ourselves as someone inferior. We doubt ourselves and throw away our value to the dogs for them to feast on. Media has warped our view on ourselves. It poisoned the little girls' dreams and turned them into nightmares of self-obsession, insecurity, envy, discontentment, low self-esteem.

I still struggle with wanting to be more acceptable to the "society". But I want to stop trying to fit in a box I am not meant to live.

I want to encourage myself and you to stop seeing ourselves so small and not good enough. We have to stop wearing the skimpy clothes where we could hardly breathe and move, to throw the skinny jeans and stilettos that's holding us from  doing pirouette. Stop depriving yourself, stop unhealthy diet that's sipping your energy for fun. Beauty is not on the outside. I still believe and would always want to believe that beauty is on the inside; it starts on the inside and reflects on the outside.

This should be on every weighing scale, don't you agree?

Don't let the weighing scale weigh you down! Don't allow the tape measure to make a corpse out of you. Don't let the society define your worth.

Find your worth in Jesus. He died for you. He saved you. He didn't die on the cross so you could paddle in the puddle with pigs. Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10). See yourself in God's perspective. You are the apple of God's eye! (Zechariah 2:8, Psalm 17:8)

Instead of exhausting yourself on being like the Victoria Secret's angels, be a Proverbs 31 woman! I am sure that when your Coca-cola body inflates, your wrinkles show, and your arthritis attacks, your character remains. And I am certain that every man wants a wife worth keeping for a lifetime, not a barbie doll stuck in a cabinet for display and then thrown in the trash when stained.

Bodies will decay but not character and the relationships nurtured.

Be beYOUtiful. Lose weight because you want to be healthy for yourself and God. You are beautiful because you are fearfully and wonderfully made by God (Psalm 139:14). To say that you're ugly and a reject is same as calling God a fake artist and a liar. Believe God when He says your beautiful.

My prayer for you is that you will see how much God loves you through His Son Jesus.
His love defines you.

The Good Stuff

Blessed Christmas everyone! :)

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift, Jesus Christ :)

It's been more than a year since I started working as a nurse in a mental institution. Tomorrow will be our deliberation day where the theme is "Who will stay?"
My contract will come to an end in less than a week and the outcome of tomorrow's deliberation will finalize whether I will stay and be a regular employee or I will bid the mental institution goodbye.
I still don't know whether I'm for this and I haven't heard from God about it or I just "refuse" to listen.
I don't know but I'm not very anxious about tomorrow. I know that whatever the result may be, it is willed and permitted by God. Nothing I can do to stop what He planned for my life.

In my devotion tonight in Luke 1, it's about Zechariah seeing an angel of the Lord on his duty as a priest in the temple. Zechariah was chosen by lot to go into the Temple to burn incense. A quick background: Zechariah was a priest and Elizabeth was his wife. They were both upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children because Elizabeth was barren and they were both advanced in years. When the angel appeared before Zechariah's eyes, the emotion he first felt was fear for the angel may bring good news or bad news. Then the angel assured him to not be afraid for his prayer has been answered. His wife Elizabeth will bear a son who "will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:14-17). What a great promise that is! It's a sure deal because an angel of the Lord delivered the news. 

But Zechariah doubted and asked "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years." In reply, the angel said "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time."

A promise was told, the recipient doubted, he was silenced, the promise was fulfilled. 

Our doubts cannot change what God has planned. When God gives us a promise, it is not to give Him permission to fulfill it or not but to change our heart. It is a privilege to be a witness of God's good promises but when we start to doubt them and God, the joy in being involved in that promise is lost. Yes, the promise will happen but our hearts will remain unchanged.

In the case of Zechariah, he was silenced. for 9 months he couldn't proclaim or share his joy in words with people. The privilege to shout God's goodness to people was taken away from him because he doubted. Let us not waste the opportunity to take part in God's promise. 

I doubted God's good promises most of the time because I fear disappointment but it's God we're talking about here. Just who am I to doubt God? Who am I to demand things from God? Who is God?

Never doubt what God has told you even when the promise seems impossible because we serve the God of impossibilities. 

Who is God to you?

Let God be God. Not just a Sunday God, a Genie, a Busy Father, or an Old Gramp. He is God and He is bigger than what we can imagine, He is immeasurable and indescribable., the Alpha and Omega, the Creator.
 
To be honest, I don't know if God has already given an answer whether I stay or not in my present job but one thing's for sure, He is God. 

Never doubt God's love for you. If the Cross isn't enough to convince you of His love, what would?
Christmas is not just about happy carolers and giving gifts. We have Christmas because Jesus, the Son of God, was born into this world to redeem us.
Jesus gave up His life to save you, what else would He withhold from you? God desires what's best for you. The best may not be what we initially want but it's the best. And if you have Jesus in your life, what else do you lack? Nothing.