Perfect

That word alone is daunting. It scares me. It makes me run. Why?

Because I will never attain perfection. I will never make it there alive.

"If you try to be perfect you will fail."

That is what we hear every day in our society.

But what if we are already perfect?

What if we don't have to attain perfection, because we are already there?

I have been asking God to show me what He sees in me, what does He see when He looks at me. And the other night, He said, "Perfect."

I was just sitting there like, "Whoa, God, that must have just been my brain making stuff up cause you didn't really mean that....right??"

"Perfect," He whispered again.

Again I was baffled. I am SO far from perfect....Could He really be saying this to me?

So I opened my Bible to prove to God that I was anything but perfect...and He brought me immediately to the word "perfect". First word I read in fact.

"This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God."

Genesis 6:9 (Emphasis mine)

Umm....Okay, yeah God but that was Noah. Not Chiarra. Noah was like a wonderful person, he did everything right. He had to never do anything wrong! You called him perfect in his generation....

"No, My child, He walked with Me."

"Noah walked with God."

"Oh, okay... so what does that mean then?"

"The Lord will perfect that which concerns me;

Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever;

Do not forsake the works of Your hands."

Psalms 138:8

 "I perfect that which concerns you. I make you perfect. You just have to walk with Me and let Me work and finish the perfection that I have already started."

Then I got curious what perfect actually meant...Cause I thought that maybe I was thinking about things all wrong...

Conforming absolutely to the description or definition of an ideal type

Excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement

Entirely without any flaws, defects, or shortcomings

Accurate, exact, or correct in every detail

Exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose

Don't believe me? Dictionary.reference.com, type in perfect...I swear I copied it right from there....

Stop for a few moments, read that again. Let those words flow over you... They are nothing you have to work for, nothing you have to work to prove. You are God's daughter and He sees you as perfect. Perfect is not something that we earn, not something we try to achieve through our beauty, our academics, our sports, and our weight. Perfection is given by God the second that you were thought of... thousands of years ago.

That means, if perfection was given to you way back then, nothing you do now could change that.

It was given without you working for it. Before you were even born and knew what it meant to be perfect. God formed you. And why would God waste His time on making something that was not perfect?

You are the definition of the ideal type. You are excellent beyond improvement. You have no flaw, no defect, and no shortcomings. You are correct and accurate in every detail.

The definition that gets me the most is:

You are exactly fitting the need for a certain purpose.

You have a purpose. You were created in fine detail with no flaw, not needing to add anything. You are perfect.

Say it in the mirror with your name...

Chiarra is the definition of the ideal type. Sophia is excellent beyond improvement. Nicole has no flaw or shortcoming. Jessi is accurate in every detail. You are exactly fitting a purpose.

 So stop trying to work for it.

Walk with God.

Allow Him perfect that which concerns you.

See that He created you perfect and that is how He sees you now.

#ProjectYouArePerfect

Meet Addrianna

Bald is beautiful.

 

 That's how all this madness started. My baby sister, my youth pastors' daughter, and I were all very fed up with the way society advertised beauty and the desire to achieve it. Anorexia, bulimia, self hate, suicide, and absolutely no sense of self worth were and still are some results of not fulfilling society's "beauty standards."

The three of us got to together and contemplated for months what to do about this. What would make a statement, make people question and realize how AMAZING they are, not only to us, but to God. My youth pastors' daughter said with confidence that we should shave our heads. Being a victim of self hate, and having no sense of self worth at the time, I had a real struggle with this. I held confidence in my hair, make up, and 90 pound body as a sophomore in high school. I prayed long and hard and the three of us decided to go through with it.

 

 

As I sat in the chair and my aunt shaved my head, I felt my confidence fall of my body and into my soul.

 

 

The journey doesn't end there, we promoted the idea! We told all the people we could! We took it to the public schools, to home school groups, our church, our friends and random strangers. We told every human we got the chance to talk to how amazing and beautiful they were made! Their beauty lied within not on their face or body. Still, the fight goes on. We still promote true beauty! We leave sticky notes on bathroom mirrors and push as many buttons with society as we can to get our message across!

 

#ProjectYouAreBeautiful

Hope in the eyes of Haiti...

Disclaimer, the content of this post might be a little graphic and emotionally deep for younger audiences. Please use discretion before reading.

For those who did not know, I recently got back from Haiti. And I can't tell you how much it changed everything! All that I hold dear is no longer as important to me. All my problems and things that I let consume my mind are a distant memory to me now. When you see people living in such poverty yet raise their hands and still praise God, you won't ever be able to to look at life the same.

How much do you really know about hope? And how much does it truly affect you daily? Does hope consume your mind, does it change how you feel about the world? Does it transform your vision? Does it create light in your heart and joy in your soul?

Hope is something that lights up every aspect of your face, it is something that brightens your smile and leaves you glowing. Hope is something you can't explain to others, it is something that is shown through everything that you do and are.

Hope.

Hope is beautiful.

And there is hope in Haiti.

In the place you least expect hope you will find it stronger than ever.

Haiti is a beautiful country, full of warm and welcoming people, villages of children that will melt your heart. But Haiti is also lost. It is a country overtaken with voodoo and witchcraft, where your sacrifices to the witch are more important than food in your child's belly. It is a place that I could not leave without being heartbroken.

I often wondered while I was there, where the little girls I was holding would end up in three or four years... What would happen if their parents hit hard times and had to sell them into sex slavery to pay debts? Or worse yet, what if they felt that was the only way that their child could have a decent life?

What would you do if you were a little kid, living in a place ridden with trash and bugs and destroyed from an earthquake, where one little scrape could kill you literally, wondering where your next meal was coming from, and wondering what happened to mommy and daddy, why these strange men were beating you tonight when just yesterday you were playing in the village? You have no idea why you were abandoned and you have no where to go. There is no government to put you into any kind of home, no one cares if you live or die. You are simply another body breathing and taking up space and air and food. All you are wanted for is your body, every night beaten into submission until you are nothing more than a skeleton laying on the bed waiting for the next man to rip your little body to shreds.

Now imagine being a teenage girl about 15 and not having a period for a few months, not knowing whether or not you will live through childbirth. Half of the time it is either the mom or the kid who dies in childbirth if not both. Imagine not knowing who the father is, or worse yet him having nothing to do with you. You not only have to provide for a baby with at most a dollar a day in salary, if you even are lucky enough to have a job, but you also have to find a place to raise a child. You are scared, homeless, and alone. And there is no one to help. No shelter you can go to, no crisis pregnancy center, no financial aid, no food stamps. You have signed the death certificate of your child before you even sign the birth certificate. Can you imagine how that would feel? You are invisible and you are alone. You have nothing to give you hope.

Now look at your life right where it is at. Your problems probably and hopefully seem very small to you now. When I was in Haiti I had no access to drama AKA Facebook and Twitter. I did not even turn my phone on for a week. You want to know what I found? The less I was consumed with myself, the more my eyes were opened to other people and the hurts that they were going through. The more that I focused on others and not on my own issues, the more that mine paled in comparison. Not that what I was going through wasn't an issue to me or it still did not need to be dealt with, but it wasn't consuming. I could look at my life and see the bigger picture beyond my temporary frustration.

As I was holding a little girl by the name of Francesca,  I felt my heart beat in a way that it never had beaten before. I felt it beat to the pain and heartache of another.

I felt her life and her past just throb in my arms, I wanted to weep at her joy even though she was lighter than a 3 year old when she was probably close to 10 or 11. I wanted to hold her and love her, pour everything that I was into her frail little body, covered with nothing more than a thin t-shirt with holes. Her smile made my life seem so frivolous and ridiculous, all my worries and cares seem absolutely absurd. Her joy and her laughter made me see that I was but a fleeting breath, placed here for such a time as this. I have the opportunity to do so much for people and yet I do nothing.

As I told Francesca goodbye, my heart stayed with her. My love stayed with her. I miss her more than I would I miss my arm if it was cut off.

While in the midst of unthinkable poverty and destruction, the people of Haiti still have hope. They hope in a God that is bigger than we as Americans imagine Him to be. They hope in a God who does miracles and heals the sick and raises the dead to life. They put their hope in a God even when they have nothing to prove that He is there. They put their faith in the fact that when they pray, it will happen. It may not be today or tomorrow, but God will show up. They never lose their faith in God, they never lose hope. That hope is spreading from a few people in Haiti to everyone. That hope is contagious and it is growing, despite the grim circumstances that would put any of us here in despair. They have hope in God because He is all that they have and all that they need.

So I want to challenge you, put down your phone for a day and tune into people's lives for real. Take time to look into people's eyes, ask how they are, and truly listen. Take your siblings to the park and play with them, cherish the fact that they are healthy and have the ability to smile and laugh and run.

Learn from the kids and people in Haiti, have hope in even your darkest times. Smile when you are hungry, pray when you need help, and find joy and laughter in the smallest things in life. Give hope. You have been given so much in this life, stop complaining and realize that you have every reason to have hope.

Your life is but a breath. And you are more than blessed.

#ProjectYouAreHope