Princess Shan

Every little girl wants to be a princess. When you grow up this doesn't change but you just don't tell anyone. Girls love dressing up and being told they look pretty. I feel like there is nothing wrong with this...however, for most women I know this is a real struggle...the desire to look beautiful. We spend hours getting ready, stare in every mirror we walk past, compare ourselves to others, go on crazy diets, and then in the end we are left feeling inadequate anyway. I have heard a saying that I think is very true, "Vanity is to women, what lust is to men". It doesn't help that so many people promote this ideal, one no one could ever reach.

I feel like I used to be a fairly confident person. Then someone I cared about deeply told me that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't pretty enough, that I wasn't skinny enough, my hair wasn't long enough...blah, blah, blah. But I listened to this person, as they tore me down time and time again. This has lead to the ultimate destruction of my self esteem. I am currently working to rebuild what this person destroyed. It makes me sad too because I have realized that true beauty cannot be attained through make-up and your dress size. It's something more, something on the inside. There is a song by Bethany Dillon and I think she puts it best. She talks about what most women tell themselves:

I want to be beautiful
Make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart,
and be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
Just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful.....

Then she talks about how true beauty is found on the inside, it comes from God. I know so many women who have such beautiful hearts for God, it shines in everything they do. It can be seen in the love they have, in their actions and speech, they are truly stunning. I want to be one of these women, whose love for God and others is so powerful and beautiful that it can't help but to be noticed. The second part of the song by Bethany Dillon says this:

You make me beautiful
You make me stand in awe
You step inside my heart, and I am amazed
I love to hear You say
Who I am is quite enough
You make me worthy of love and beautiful

God is the one who gives our life meaning, He makes us beautiful, He makes us worthy of love. If we look for beauty else where, we are surely to be disappointed. It's not worth it to lose oneself to attain the kind of beauty that will eventually fade. The world may give praise for outward appearance but if there is no beauty in our hearts then we will truly feel insufficient. And those who are so critical and judge only by the out-word appearance are not worth our time, they are fools. This is what I am learning.

The Art of Running

I run nearly every day. The place I run is out in the country, it's beautiful out there. Running is my escape. My escape from stress, from real life, from people. When I run, that's when I do my best thinking. I get really frustrated when people ask me to run with them. It completely contradicts everything running is to me. Most people don't seem to understand this and are often offended when I tell them that I hate running with other people...I am not interested in having a conversation when I run. We can go for coffee after I am done and talk then. Until then I just want to enjoy the scenery and day-dream. I'm not sorry.

Today on my run I was thinking about what I would do if I could do it all over again. I've always wished I could be more artsy then I am. I wish I could be a professional dancer, or an artist, or a photographer, or an interior designer. Then I would chop off all my hair and dye one strand red and wear glasses with thick rims. I would change my name to Nyree or Phoenix and I would date a punk rocker who played lead guitar in an indie rock band. I know this sounds completely ridiculous...but that's my fantasy. Sometimes I want to jump in my car and take off to the West coast and become someone else entirely. However, I will never do this...I just think about it.

One thing that scares me about running is men. When I run in the country guys drive by in their trucks and on their motorcycles. They shout inappropriate things and sometimes drive by several times. I've heard the horror stories of girls getting raped or killed out in the country. It happens in those small towns where you think something like that could never happen, especially not to you. However, when some guy in a crappy old truck drives past five or six times and stares me down it freaks me out a little bit and I am forced to think about these kinds of things. I don't understand why people hurt other people. Everyone is broken about something, everyone suffers, everyone hurts...some more then others. This is no excuse to use your brokenness to hurt someone else. The world is a dark place, I don't understand.

Inside my head, a place few people travel

So I have decided to start blogging. (Obviously) I was reading a friends blog the other day and I felt inspired. I feel like a lot of the blogs I have read have been boring and shallow and not something I would read on a regular basis. Hers was honest and genuine and you could tell it was her exact thoughts. I think that I often have trouble expressing my feelings. Typically if people don't ask specifics I don't tell them. Often I interpret their not asking as not caring. I am not sure how true this actually is but that's how it feels. Few people really know all about me, it takes me a long time to open up. This has a lot to do with the way I was raised and maybe even more to do with things that have happened to me throughout the years. I am hoping that this blog can help me with that. Learn to open up a little more and explain what goes on inside my head...scary.