"She's Beautiful!"

  

Recently I had the chance to speak at my boys’ school for their Spiritual Emphasis days.  I actually did two workshops for girls only.  The title of my session was “She’s Beautiful!”  The emphasis was on how to build a healthy self-esteem. 

I started drafting my thoughts a month in advance.  I had awesome props, great ideas for group involvement, and a dynamic presentation prepared.  All went well until half-way through my first workshop.  In the middle of sharing my voice became weak and my speech began to slur.  I noticed I was having trouble putting my words together.  This was all too familiar for me.  I was having a flare up and this was a bad one.

  

I explained to the girls what was happening to me and that I needed their help.  They jumped right in to assist me.  I had different ones read scriptures I prepared, some parts of my notes, and even lead out in song (I was never planning to do that!  Nobody would ever want to hear me sing!).  The song was beautiful! 

The girls listened closely as I attempted to share what God had put on my heart.  They had such sympathetic and caring hearts.  I felt bad, like I ripped them off on their workshop even if I couldn’t do anything about it.  It was frustrating.

I had a two hour break before my next session so I thought I might be okay.  I was hoping it would give time for my voice to recover.  I had no such luck.  I could tell before beginning the second workshop that I would have trouble so I improvised.  I found a dry erase marker and wrote tons of stuff on the board behind me.  They were main ideas I wanted the girls to take home with them if I couldn’t present things very well.  By the time I was done, it was covered with truths I hoped some how landed inside their hearts.

  For the second workshop I started off explaining my dilemma.  The girls seemed very sympathetic and wanted to help me as well.  For this one I couldn’t get very far into my teaching before my voice started falling apart.  I had many different girls assist me in reading main points in my notes, scriptures, and this time we sang the whole song together of “Good, Good Father” (Listen to the song HERE).  It was SO beautiful!  I wish I could have recorded the girls singing for you to hear.

After each point we discussed, I would have the girls say out loud… 

“I AM BEAUTIFUL!”  

The first group was very quiet all along when they said it like they didn’t believe a word they just said.  The last group (with more of the older girls in it) said it loud and proud.  They even shouted it at the end for everyone to hear down the hallway in the other workshops.  It was powerful!

At the end of each workshop I had the girls share something that stood out to them from my teaching time.  I wanted to verify in some way that something I said got inside or at least they heard it.  From what they shared, many of them had been impacted by my attempts to communicate with them.  What God had put on my heart had gotten into theirs in bits and pieces!  God is faithful!

I headed to work immediately after my last workshop to finish up paperwork.  I was lucky to even get off to be there this year to speak.  The minute I hit the parking lot at work I called my doctor’s office.  If I didn’t get this flare up under control, things would get out of hand quickly.  By the time I got home that night my voice was pretty much gone and I was very weak.  The dreaded autoimmune disease strikes again!  Boo!  (To read more about my condition click HERE).

 As I got home, I began to re-play my day in my mind… mainly those workshops.  I prayed the girls got something out of it despite my personal issues and limitations.  Just saying that frustrates me.  Each workshop had about 17 girls in them.  The first group had more of the middle-schoolers and the second one had a good mix of middle and high school girls. 

I thought back over the day… I started each workshop off by giving the girls a sheet of paper to fill out while we waited for everyone to arrive.  It was entitled, “5 things I like about ME”.  Some of the girls did a double take.  They thought it said “didn’t like”.  They were hoping it said that because that was a much easier list for them to write.  As I walked around the room, I saw many blank pages.  They couldn’t think of anything they liked about themselves.  It was sad.

For many of us, this would be true of us too.  The struggle is real.

Once they all arrived I introduced myself and jumped right into my teaching time.  I shared how if God was here in the flesh today beyond a shadow of a doubt I know He would brag on you and say… “That’s my daughter isn’t she BEAUTIFUL!”

I told them that we were going to talk about Beauty, Barbie’s, Boys, and the Best daddy ever. 

I wanted to help them answer 3 questions they might be asking themselves

1.  Who do others say that I am?

(What do others think of ME?)

2.  Who does God say that I am?

(What does God think of ME?)

3.  Who do I say that I am?

(What do I think of ME?)

Since this post is getting long, I’m going to push PAUSE.  I want to be able to share with you all of the specifics I did with the gals on that day.  It was powerful and life changing! 

  

Be watching soon for more details to come in my next post called, “What if Barbie was a real woman?”

If you struggle with your self-esteem, care too much what others think, have daddy issues, or relationship troubles, you won’t want to miss this post.

If God was here in the flesh today beyond a shadow of a doubt I know He would brag on you and say… “That’s my daughter isn’t she BEAUTIFUL!”

(and for the guys reading he would say…”That’s my son, isn’t he HANDSOME!”)

Believe it, its true!  God is bragging on you!

Living to leave a legacy,

Julie