Shake It Up

I feel like as I get older I begin to realize how difficult it is to be a woman in our society. Our culture is so fixated on making sure you stand out and make a name for yourself. I’m sure your newsfeed is constantly filled with ads for beauty or fashion articles. I’m sure if you explore on Instagram, you see countless amounts of women who have thousands of followers because they’re good at picking out great clothes, hair, makeup, nails, and etc. Turn on your TV or open up a magazine and I’m sure you’ll see someone raving about a female celebrity and what she wore to an event, how she did her hair, and so forth. Girls see this and believe that being really put together on the outside is what will get them noticed.

We believe that if we look a certain way it’s what will help us make something of ourselves.

Now I’m not a perfect person. I appreciate fashion and on occasion I like to do my hair, nails, or makeup. I’ve taken a few selfies over the past years. The issue that pains me is that I see so many girls who obsess over this. Think of how many selfies you’ve seen your friends take and post. Girls will spend all of their time and effort taking the perfect photo to represent themselves and the beauty they possess. When someone gets a numerous amount of likes on a picture, it justifies that they’re worth something.

We become fixated on taking a particular snapshot of us that depicts who we are. A snapshot that we try so hard to come close to perfection.

What do you see when you really look at your reflection in the mirror? What’s past the surface level of who you are? I’m sure you don’t see perfection. Most of us see brokenness. Many of us know that brokenness won’t get you anywhere in our society. Brokenness is something looked down upon. Here’s the cool thing. God loves brokenness! He loves to use your brokenness for something greater. If anything, brokenness makes you become more real. When I look at girls and how beauty is portrayed on the Internet, I feel insecure and that I can’t relate. When I see a broken girl trying to make a difference in her life, it makes me reflect on what I’m doing to make my own life more meaningful. It makes me feel that I too can overcome the struggles in my life because someone who’s regular like me is doing it.

I can’t stress this enough: there’s more to us ladies.

As a leader in my church, it frustrates me that we can’t find women who are willing to lead and serve. I feel like the numbers are so scarce. I’m not sure what it really is, but a part of me feels like it’s because we’re too involved in things that don’t really matter and will soon fade away.

When it comes down to it, God wants to use you. He wants to use every single one of us. However, we have to make ourselves available to Him. In order to do this, we need to start focusing on chasing after Christ rather than the approval of our society through superficial things.

I encourage each of you to really analyze yourselves and what you find your worth in. Let’s become women who will change this world and shake things up.

Let’s become women of worth.