Category: FemmeFeatures by JMathis

Loving Yourself When You Don’t Feel Beautiful

On By femmefuelIn FemmeFeatures by JMathis, LoveLeave a comment

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By JMathis

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (New Living Translation ©2007)

“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”

I don’t feel beautiful when I have my period.

In fact, I find myself feeling downright unlovable during this time. Plus, I’m not exuding that much love towards others during my “ladies’ days”, as all this self-loathing makes me grouchy and surly towards anyone who crosses my path that week (yeah, I admit—not my greatest WWJD moments). Every cycle just seems doomed to present itself to me in exactly the same way:

1)      “Huh??? My period is here?” (This is despite the fact that I am as regular and consistent as the rising and setting of the sun each day.)

2)      “What is on my face, and why is it growing a pair of eyes?”

3)      “To heck with my diet. Find Ben and Jerry and get them here—STAT!”

It is at this point that I feverishly calculate on my abacus-like fingers if my weekend plans to drink Bloody Marys will be ruined by the arrival of, well, Bloody Mary, herself.   

While New Agers would love to see menses as a time of cleansing, rejuvenation and meditation, it’s very hard for me to focus on all of that hooey when my jeans won’t zip up that week. Frankly, loving myself is just not on the menu during my period, especially when my face is covered in acne-fighting gunk and chocolate syrup goop (cut to pity-party scene from Bridget Jones’s Diary, where Renée Zelwegger is singing “All By Myself”… “Don’t Want to be…All by Myyyy…Self…Anyyyy…morrrre!!!”)

Yet, without fail, the day after my period is done, there is an extra spring in my step (translation: doing the Running Man in front of my bathroom mirror) and a special song in my heart (“Oh yeah, Destiny’s Child!! Gimme some of that Independent Women!!”). The cramps and road rage from three days before are just a distant memory. I find that I’m in love again…with myself. (“Hey, baby, you come here often? Why yes, I live here–remember??”)

Bring on the weekend!! I feel beautiful once more! The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and I’m ready to embrace the world with open arms!



“Now, why can’t I just feel this way all the time?”

I guess I’m just one of those ingrates who will never fully appreciate menstruation as an expression of God’s brilliance in masterfully crafting a woman’s body for the role of procreation. In fact, I will always have some choice words for Eve around the same time every month (suffice it to say, *love* is not one of those four-letter words I scream at her).

However, when life starts beating me down, when my love for all of my quirkiness turns into disappointment over all of my failures, and when everyday starts feeling like another day “on the rag”, it is then that I must remember that God loves me madly and passionately, and that I am fearfully and wonderfully made in His image. According to Psalms 139:14, everything that God makes is breathtaking. So, guess what? That makes me beautiful, even when I don’t feel beautiful and no one else thinks I’m beautiful. That makes me lovely, even when I don’t feel loved and no one else thinks I’m loveable.

This year, I have to learn to love myself—without criticism, without judgment. This is the year that I choose to see myself the way God sees me, and to love myself the way God loves me. I just have to trust that God’s redeeming love makes all things beautiful in their time. Even me.

Prayer: Lord, I have no idea what you’re about to do in my life this year, but I trust You and I love You beyond measure. Help me not to second-guess Your ways when my world starts falling apart all around me. I know that You are transforming me into something beautiful, even when I don’t feel loveable. Make me beautiful and help me to accept Your all-encompassing love for me. Make my words beautiful so that I can love others around me; make my paths beautiful and let my steps be adorned with Your love; make my life beautiful so that Your love shines through me and brightens the darkness that surrounds me. Make me beautiful like You, Lord. Make me lovely like You.

So Much Can Change Within a Year

On By femmefuelIn Best of JMathis, FemmeFeatures by JMathis, Transform YourselfLeave a comment

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By JMathis

As each year passes, I come to the realization that so much can change within a year. Triumph can turn to despair. Prosperity can turn to lack. Passion can turn to disdain. Peace can turn to chaos. There is the relief of finally receiving a job offer after months of job searching, only to be laid-off four months later. Last one in, first one out. There is the joy of a new pregnancy, followed by the anguish of delivering a stillborn child. How, God? Why? There is the glimmer in your eye when you think you have finally met ‘the one’, just to find out later that he’s trashing you as clingy and desperate at the office happy hour. I thought real men didn’t kiss and tell.

I think back to one such manic year in my life, where I felt the agonizing pain of my first, real heartbreak. I remember being sucker-punched and blindsided by him, feeling that there was no fair warning of the impending hurricane that was about to upend my days and my nights. Crying so much, I felt my core was being ripped to shreds. I envisioned that even my molecular fabric was being crushed and destroyed, cell by cell. February, for me, was the cruelest month, and every Valentine’s heart I saw on display was just a painful reminder that my own heart had been shattered and left for dead. March was the month I gave up Kleenex, since pillows were way more effective in mopping up my tears. April brought with it a blustering rainstorm where I walked three miles in the freezing rain, wheezing and praying to get hit by a car or just succumb to hypothermia.

Then one day, it was October. It was a crisp, fall morning and I distinctly remember humming show tunes from The Sound of Music. (Yes, people, you heard it here first. I am a complete sissy for The Von Trapp Family. And musicals. And Glee.)

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens…

I remember sitting in front of my desk, lovingly stroking the keys of my computer. (I know I sound like a loon, but indulge me a bit further.) I searched for the letter ‘A’. Thank you, Lord, for my beautiful friend, Asha, whose smile warms my day.

Doe- a deer, a female deer
Ray- a drop of golden sun…

I searched for the letter ‘B’. Thank you, Lord, for bagels, especially cinnamon-raisin bagels smothered in cream cheese and strawberry jelly. I searched for the letter ‘C’. Thank you, Lord, for Christ who saved a wretch like me. And then, it went on and on, letter by letter, with my heart bursting at the seams with thankfulness over how much God loves me. Thank you, Lord, for zebras, because I can’t think of anything else that starts with ‘Z’.

I have confidence in confidence alone!
Besides which you see, I have confidence
In me!!!!!!!!!!!!

After going through the entire alphabet on my keyboard (and singing the entire Sound of Music soundtrack in my head), I realized I was a mess. Sane people just don’t gaze dreamily at letters on a keyboard. Yet, I was a good mess. Not the same mess I was months before, but the kind of warm, gushy, yummy, chocolatey mess you find in the middle of a hot, molten lava cake. The kind of mess that embarrassingly gets all over your fingers and your face, but whoa, is it heavenly. My broken heart was finally healing; not totally healed, but it was healing.

What had happened between February and October? What had changed from the beginning of the year to the end?

Resolve.

The Resolve to live and not die. The Resolve to breathe and brush my teeth every day. The Resolve to say, “Lord, fix me, because I can’t. I just can’t.”

So much can change within a year. This year, let your resolutions be resolute. Resolve to resolve. Resolve to push through fear. Resolve to push through insecurity. Resolve to push through doubts. Resolve to push through anger. Resolve to push through bitterness. Resolve to push through a bad year.

re·solve (ri zälv′, -zôlv′)

1. To make a firm decision about. (God, I put You first this year.)

2. To change or convert. (God, make me more like You.)

3. To find a solution to; solve. (God, I know You have the answers.)

4. To remove or dispel. (God, take away anything that is not of You.)

This year, resolve to resolve. Resolve to heal. Resolve to forgive. Resolve to let go. Resolve to love. Resolve to get messy and resolve to just trust…trust in God’s life-transformative promise to you:

Jeremiah 29:11-14. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.

So much can change within a year.

The Ugly From Last Year

On By femmefuelIn FemmeFeatures by JMathis, Transform Yourself1 Comment

imageBy JMathis

Ugly. Over the years, that word has been attached to a whole host of images. When I was three, ugly referred to the monster lurking within my closet. When I was thirteen, ugly was the name I gave to every single pimple on my face that dared to defy acne medication (oh wait, was that yesterday?). When I was twenty-one, ugly was the “troll” on the dance floor who just couldn’t take the hint that I wasn’t interested in grinding the night away.

Unfortunately, as I have gotten older, I tend to pull out the word ugly a lot more, to refer to a whole range of irritating nuisances in my life. For the past few years, I have found myself using the word ugly as a commentary on the year that I am experiencing. More often than not, I catch myself saying, “This year can’t get any uglier; I can’t wait for it to be over!! Next year has got to be better than this.”

In fact, as I look back on every year of my adulthood, I don’t recall ever saying, “Wow! This past year was just SO incredible, there’s no way that next year can top it!” More often than not, I am just itching to put a close on yet another ugly year. I know that many of you feel the same way, since I read a multitude of Facebook status updates that said: “Good Riddance, 2010!”

Sadly, even when remarkable milestones are achieved in a single year, such events continue to be shrouded in anxieties over what the future will bring. These anxieties quickly cloud and shape one’s resolutions for the upcoming year. While I was over the moon about launching my own business, worries about finances made me resolve that I needed to horde every penny that was earned, without giving purposeful prayer and thought as to how to build my company’s future. When I experienced the gift of childbirth, I didn’t allow myself to enjoy being a new mom as I was too busy juggling work pressures, post-partum depression and feeling sorry for myself that my former, carefree life had vanished. Instead of confiding in God, my family or friends that my life was really out of whack, I just convinced myself that I needed to make a new year’s resolution to engage in more “work-life balance”. What does that mean anyway??

Not always, but perhaps we make these resolutions because we are not content and at peace with the already complete life God has given to each of us. Why is it that we are unable to hold onto a spirit of thankfulness throughout the year? Why can’t we remain full of faith that God will continue to supply all of our needs year after year? Why is it so difficult to recognize that life is already full of God’s blessings and evidence of His continued faithfulness? Why are we always so quick to flush last year down the toilet?

Are resolutions our way of taking matters into our own hands, since we just don’t trust God to provide a solution in time?

Perhaps the concept of crafting a new year’s resolution is faulty to begin with, as it is almost always a man-made aspiration, rather than a God-inspired desire. Maybe we have it all backwards when it comes to new years’ resolutions.

Now, I am not saying that it is incorrect or fruitless to aspire for bigger and greater, and to believe for a better year than the last. I’m not even saying that you should kiss new years’ resolutions goodbye. However, when your new years’ resolutions are in fact the SAME resolutions every year, and you find that your new year is turning out to have the SAME exact problems as the year before, then there’s something wrong.

Have you ever considered asking God what your resolutions should be this year? How about asking Him what ugliness you need to change about yourself in 2011?

Do we avoid doing that, because we’re just too afraid of hearing God’s answer?

What if your resolution is to expand your lucrative medical practice, while God’s resolution is for you to work for a free clinic in the inner city? What if your resolution is to spend more time in the gym, while God’s resolution is for you to spend more time mentoring homeless kids? What if your resolution is to move the heck out of your parents’ house, while God’s resolution is for you to let go of past grudges and make proper amends with your family members? What if your resolution is to fix everything that’s wrong in the church, while God’s resolution is for you to just sit down, shut up and have a heart of thanksgiving? Thanksgiving for the roof over your head, thanksgiving for the clean water you drink, and thanksgiving that God has already provided you with everything you could possibly need to positively impact another life on this earth?

Maybe the ugly from last year is just the ugly truth that we don’t really care what God wants for our future.

Maybe the ugly from last year is that we don’t want to hear what God’s still, small voice has to say about the upcoming year.

Maybe the ugly from last year is that we complain about everything and are grateful to God for nothing.

Maybe the ugly from last year is YOU.

Psalms 51:12: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”