Struggling to Find Beauty

         We hear it all the time don’t we? The fact that our beauty as women is being manipulated and distorted every day by the images we see on social media, on the fronts of magazine covers, or on the frontlines of protest. We are conflicted daily on what exactly we should anchor our ideals of beauty to.

         Personally, for me I’ve always struggle with this, most of my friends have struggle with this, and most of the women I know struggle with this. We anchor our worth to our families, our friends, our physical appearance, or our mental capacity. And when we are confronted with someone who is prettier than ourselves or smarter than ourselves, or more put together than ourselves, we often resort to self-loathing, women bashing, or both. At least I do.

         Since early on I can remember this vicious cycle but since my Freshman year of college though I have tried to channel both my self loathing or others bashing into self improvement. Even though as I sought to be better disciplined or more educated or prettier I did it out of selfish intent. Ah the human experience. Truly though I was faced with this bigger question of Why that loomed over me. Why do any of it? What was my motivation? Most of the time my answers were superficial and often related back to some societal conviction that I had that told me I wasn’t good enough. Even though it’s not society’s problem or doing that tells me I’m not good enough. Many of the magazines that tell us who to be are around because we buy into it. Celebrities with photo-shopped bodies are still around because we fund them and the magazine’s ability to pay for photo shopping. We fuel the top of the pyramid that floods over onto our social groups. Then girls think it’s okay to point out other’s flaws. Boys think it’s okay to objectify women. And so on. However the problem falls on me. Amanda Nicole Larson thinks Amanda Nicole Larson is not-worthy and Amanda Nicole Larson finds her beauty in fleeting people and things.

         As a God-fearing women though I am taught in verses like Song of Solomon 4:7 that I am “altogether beautiful”. There are verses sprinkled throughout the bible that talks about God’s deep love not only for me but all of those who He calls His. Yet I struggle daily to remind myself that I am beautiful not of my own doing but the work that Christ does in me. I am a beautiful new creation because of what Christ does in me.

         So today I write this blog to bid to you to join me on this journey to find beauty in not what lays in the mirror or what shows up on a test score or for some of you how your children act towards you in the grocery store but what God has in store for you.

XOXO

Amanda

The Sun's Going to Rise

The Sun’s Going to Rise

            I laid on the bed trying to steady my heart from beating out of its cage. I sympathized with it. I too was once caged, caged inside the lying words spewed over me like the hot rays. I gripped my phone with a photo on its screen. The sun beating on our backs both my future and my past collided the way her friendship collided with my face.

            She held the key to the cage. Her words became the unleashing of my passion for life. Passion that had been told to sit down and shut up; passion that coward in the corner. I overlooked the balcony onto my new life. New friends. New dreams. A new sun that had been promised after a long night.

            Her hands ran through my hair, she rattled on about how crazy the night had been. It was a dangerous cocktail of drunkenness and love and the relinquishment of teenage dreams. Adulthood collided like a gaseous explosion tormenting us with our childhood fears. I too was tormented by such fears. Fears of loneliness were met in the bitter night as I gripped my bed anticipating what it would feel like to fall out of this nightmare called life. The fear of not being loved met my face like a cold wet snowflake in the middle of September, rare and unknowing, leaving you confused and longing for the sun that’s no where to be found.  

            My mind drifted back to the poolside where we laid before. Sand sunk in between my toes. I watched as the golden lightening raged on the court. She was angry, angry of lack of attention and insecurities that plagued her soul. It came out in the way she struck little boys with her charm and with her lips. She burnt down steel homes and replaced them with hay huts. She threw her desires down into swirling water. She laid her pride down low. I sunk to the floor the weight of carrying the lightening became too baring but thunder followed. He crashed into me begging for sanity. He roared with laughter mocking his own position. I crawled into corner praying the storm would not find me. He grasped onto me. I covered my head grasping for shelter. She saved me. She carried the thunder on her back even after he rattled in her ears to loudly to bear. He protested with loud bangs and explosion. He grumbled out profanity and pushed against the wind. His drunkenness had taken light fun and destroyed it in a swoop.

            My phone buzzed in my hand the reminder of my normalcy. I rushed past the calming of thunder and lightening and into rain. He stood there a big cloud. He reminded me of an old cloud. The sort of cloud that brought loneliness and worthlessness into my life like a flood. He pushed against me and whispered into my ear. The words fell over my body as the wind does when you stand on the edge of the ocean. I wanted so bad to splash around in his puddles and allow him to fall over me. I was the sand and he was the tide engulfing me and pulling me in. I fought back hard and furiously. I pushed back. He pulled harder. My mind rushed in a whirlpool of confusion. My passions created a hurricane inside my soul. I closed my eyes as I fumbled for safety.

            I remember the sun as it lit my face, warm and safe. My life may be a storm for a night but it wasn’t a storm day after day any more. Even in the storm of night I anticipated the sun rising over the horizon. The intermingling of life’s desires burning red into orange’s happiness and blue’s confidence. I arose seeking the cheerfulness the sunrise’s yellow brought and the friendship that was promised in the hues of pink. She was the mark of the rising sun, the exchange of the depression of night for the joy of the day. Though her herself was not the force that propelled me into a fresh day but rather the rays gripping me and fighting for me though I laid there unwilling and unknowing of the change.

            She brushed her fingers through my hair. Her laugh rang throughout the night in disbelief of the storm that was that night. Twenty years plagued by storms and sunrises I never saw a sunrises as warming as her. Her strength picked me up and carried me through the storm with the simple words: I love you best friend.

**** I wrote this for my final piece in Creative Writing*****