beyond every flaw or imperfection.

:: by Meshali Mitchell

“I was 13 when I first took note of my body and began to compare it to other girls.  In the middle school locker room, the other cheerleaders and I stood in front of the mirrors and began to take note of how we all differed from each other.  Standing there in my uniform, I realized my body was different from the other girls.  All of ours were.  They all differed from each other.  Megan made the statement, 'I just want to be skinny and beautiful like the girls on TV.'  My mind began to wander.  So, what was considered beautiful?  What was the gauge of beauty?  What did boys like?  These were the questions that ran through my mind.”

'BEAUTY' …what is it anyway?  In today’s culture, we see it everywhere.  It’s hard to get away from the question.  Image.  Beauty ...what does that really mean?  Who is the judge of it?  Where does my worth really come from?  Supermodels and photoshopped movie stars are at the forefront of our daily view.  At the grocery store standing in line, on billboards as we drive, on commercials when we sit to watch TV, we are bombarded with it.  Fifteen years later, after standing in front of that locker room mirror, as a 28 year old woman, I’m right there with you.  Trust me, I have been confronted with it, too.

Here are a few steps I take in my own life to help keep perspective on what “beauty” is:

1. Guard your thoughts :: Proverbs 4:23 Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts.

It’s so easy to get caught up in appearance.  So many become consumed with it.  Don’t let the enemy sit on the throne of your life in this area.  Do not bow your knee to what he and this culture says about you.   A powerful tool Satan uses is to attack our self image through our thoughts shaped and influenced by culture.  I’ve realized throughout my life that in every area our culture seems to naturally push the agenda of negative thoughts on us.  If the enemy can target our minds and win, the trap is set and the pulling grasp gets hold of what he needs to shape and diminish.  He is powerless until we give him room to rule in certain areas.  We CHOOSE who we give the right to rule in our minds.  I encourage you today - think on good things.  Here are few verses to dwell on when you battle these thoughts::

:: Romans 12:2 Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

:: Philippians 4:8  Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious-the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.

:: 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 The world is unprincipled. It's dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn't fight fair. But we don't live or fight our battles that way-never have and never will.  The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture.  We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.  Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.

2. Surround yourself with encouraging, life-giving friends :: Proverbs 12:26 One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.

The last thing I want to do when I feel down is surround myself with people that always seem to drain the life out of me.  I encourage you to give place to Godly, life giving friends.  Let these few choice people speak thoughts of Hope and God’s amazing purpose into you!  Allow their love and encouragement to give you support and RIGHT THINKING for your life.  Godly people sharpen each other.  Others have a warped view of self image and their ideas could affect you in a negative way.  Godly friends have made the difference in my life!!

3. Work out!  Strive to live healthy and keep a good balance :: 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

We all probably need a little work in this area.  Along with healthy thought patterns, build healthy habits of working out and eating right.  This is a good, solid habit for healthy living and will help keep us in shape.  Strive to honor your Creator with how you treat your body.

4. GOD SEES YOU AS HIS ::: Beautiful Daughter.

Realize that as God’s people, we live in an upside down kingdom.  Beauty is so much deeper than the skin.  God constantly longs to tell a beautiful story by rewriting some of the things you’ve been through.  He takes the wrong things we’ve been through and makes them right and beautiful.  Our flaws can actually benefit us in God’s kingdom.  When we allow the Lord to re-write our story, He takes the imperfections, the broken things, and makes a masterpiece.  This is the REAL BEAUTY :: the irreplaceable that makes you one of a kind :: we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  The beauty is that God has placed His fingerprint on each of our lives.  There is no greater story than that, no greater or truer beauty.  He loves us and has made us daughters in His Kingdom.

Let's do our best to live basing our view of ourselves solely and completely on what God says about us.  The whole and precise view that He loves us right where we are at and sees beyond every flaw or imperfection.  There is no pressure to 'PERFORM' in His Kingdom.  He is our greatest fan.  Let’s live like it.

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Based in Dallas, Meshali is unapologetically "southern" in her personality and style.  Her work has been described as timeless and sophisticated.  Mostly, her art has a southern charm and honest reflection.  Passionate about capturing the expression of the moment, Meshali approaches her craft with artistry, creativity, vision and professionalism.

Meshali is also passionate about life.  The roles she plays as a Christ-follower, daughter, sister and friend all contribute to her craft.  She is an avid reader, prolific blogger and her own worst critic.  Fortunately all of these come together to create a personal story unique to the photographs she captures.

website // meshalimitchellphoto.com  ::  twitter // @meshali

Daddy's standard.

::  by Rachel McGowan [gallery link="file" columns="5"]

The reason I have such high expectations in my future husband is because of the way my daddy loves me.

I am my father’s first born, his only daughter, a full-blooded daddy’s girl, and the second most important woman in his life. When I was little, he used to call me “pumpkin”, and I loved it. It still slips out from time to time.

Days after I was born, he wrote a song for me on the guitar. It’s a sweet little melody that rocks my soul to sleep and fills me in the best ways.

From the start, my daddy has loved me well. He tells me I am beautiful at every opportunity. He always answers my questions, and he laughs at my jokes. He calls me to say hello and remembers the details of my life when I tell him. He fights for me against all odds; he would take any bullet for me, just to know I was safe and happy.

He supports everything I do. When I went off to college in another state, he helped me get there, so that I could have the opportunity of a lifetime. When I worked in a restaurant, he frequently asked me about work, so that I could feel purpose behind what I was doing. When I wanted voice lessons, he paid for them in an instant, so that I could grow my passion for music.

But the most important thing my daddy has every done for me is pray for me.

In the song I mentioned he wrote, my daddy asks God to keep me safe, to watch over my life. My daddy submitted me to the Lord before I was even cognitive enough to know it. And as I grew, he discovered my heart, and showed me where it aligned with God’s promises. He showered me with prayer, in any situation. He led the family in a way that put God first, above everything. He so passionately delighted in praising God, that it compelled me to know Jesus deeper. He pursued my heart over the first 24 years of my life in subtle and consistent ways that I am only now beginning to realize. And he never stopped getting to know me. He still takes my heart’s corners and points me back to God’s promises.

I wish I had known that if a boy couldn’t hold a candle to my daddy’s love for me, then he wasn’t worth a second of my time.

As I look back now, I can see ways in which I am sure I broke my daddy’s heart. I spent time with boys just because they were cute, boys who did not understand guarding my heart or preserving my purity. Of course he knew better than I did, but I did not listen to him. So he graciously and gently allowed me to expand the spectrum of my experiences, and allowed life to teach me lessons that only life can. He was there for me when my heart was broken; he stood up for me at all cost.

I have met the man I want to spend the rest of my days with, and I am not surprised that he reminds me of my daddy.

He is kind to all, giving to all, and loving to all. He supports whatever I do and he cherishes me as incredibly important in his life. He values my purity, and is a consistent source of grace, joy, and love. Our relationship is so sacred, so patient, and so focused on God’s promises.

But the most important thing this man does for me is pray for me.

He wraps up our evenings or our conversations in a prayer. He loves Jesus so furiously and passionately, that I am compelled to know Jesus deeper. His love for God inspires me. His showers of prayer strengthen me, and point me back to the meaning of it all.

My standards for a man were set long before I knew it. They were set before I even knew I wanted to get married. Before I knew what I would need in a relationship, before my heart would be broken by boys who were undeserving of my attention, before I undoubtedly recognized my own inner beauty, my daddy instilled those truths within me. My daddy planted deep-rooted seeds in my heart that harvested good fruit in my life. With constant, “I’m proud of you, exactly how you are.” moments, my heart knew what kind of ground to stand firm upon.

I know my worth because my daddy never let me believe I was anything less than wonderfully made; cherished; lovely; enough.

A girl is worth a daddy who resembles the steady love of Jesus, and she is worth a husband who reminds her of that love.

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Rachel is a writer, reader, laughter, dreamer, shower-singer and car-dancer who lives in Dallas, TX and works with hundreds of college students who are figuring out life. She is passionate about women’s issues, the struggles of faith, and is seeking ways to give a voice to the untold stories that have the potential to change lives. She believes in the healing powers of authenticity, acoustic music, and whole bean coffee.

She blogs at www.sincerelyrachelchristine.com and you can keep up with her here:

Twitter:: @_rachchristine Facebook:: www.facebook.com/whistlingrachel

4 guests, all girls.

From the very moment air first filled their lungs and released vulnerably, admittedly I knew fully well the expression 'in over my head'.  I held each of them with measured caution as if they could break too easily, but with an intrinsic familiarity I stood awed and somehow presently aware they were of me.  Bone of my bone.  Tethered by blood and strands that make us who we are. The joke common, ‘When will you have another?’  The boy.  That was their question.  We were done.  Complete.  And we had our fill.  Three little princesses distinct and beautiful.  The want of a boy shallow compared to another child.  If we ever had decided on another child, God would again have had opportunity.  Whatever granted would have been fully embraced, the responsibility fully accepted.  Still, it felt a bit peculiar to have all three children be daughters.

As a father to daughters, I pray often, as often as I think to.  There are so many questions, countless unknowns and variety of ways in which we do not connect.  I try as best as I can to empathize with them in tears that seem insignificant to me.  I don’t always get it.  They don’t always get me.  But we are here together figuring out life, piecing together the day now and ahead and loving each other deeper with each step.  Clothes don’t necessarily need to match, sometimes a fight is in order to right a wrong and feelings do get shrugged off as mushy when the air hangs too heavy.  You’d swear I’m raising boys, but I’m not.  I’m grooming little girls to hold strong the name that will forever be within them.  Not my name for the sake of my pride or my legacy, but theirs.  Ethos.  The essence of who we are now in this moment, who I am in their little opening lives, that is what I passionately desire to hold strongly within them.  Forever, they will bear the scar of death.  Once a wound open, now evidence of pain soothed and wounds healed by life.  A loss unbearable in my thinking.  The nights come when tears do fall pouring from their hearts wishing for life different, their mother’s death to be reversed somehow.  They do feel lost and unsure at times.  I can tell it in their eyes.  Gazing off only half alert, they step back into memory or sideways to fantasy.  But in this moment, they are found by me found by grace.  They are mine.  My responsibility to teach, show, lead and guide them to Him.  Them being mine does not leave me as sole voice in their lives.  There are others, women in particular, whose perspective and insight I value and admire.  And so, I want my girls to hear from them of struggles, insecurities and strengths from the hearts of women conspiring against issues weighing many down.

This week I will feature four such posts.  All will be guest posts written by women as a sort of open letter to young girls growing and struggling to find path in today’s culture.    Four friends sharing from their lives.  I am ever so thankful.

And with each post, I will add a bit of information about each.  I’d encourage you to read each day and then visit the guest poster’s website for more amazing perspective.

As a preview, three websites are listed below.  The fourth guest is a surprise:) felicitywhite.com || meshalimitchellphoto.com
 || sincerelyrachelchristine.com

things she wants to say.

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It's in the remembering that we live braver, hungrier and more convinced of hope and grace and beauty swallowing.

I have noticed small bright pink post it notes lying around in the same spot.  At first glance, I paid little attention, but a stack began forming messy demanding better attention.  For days I moved right passed the tiny little heap until my walking by caused a couple pieces to stir and drift off the counter top onto the wooden floor.  I have a tendency to sort of stack papers.  It’s my way of cleaning the kitchen or anything actually.  My process is quite simplistic.  Dispose of as much as possible as often as possible.  I tolerate clutter in a compartmentalizing sort of way.  Or maybe it’s procrastination.  The latter is honest response.  Compartmentalizing simply sounds more together, in control and sophisticated.  As a telling side note, procrastination is mode of operation for me.  It is a chronic characteristic I am working out of my life.  There simply is not enough room in the life of a single parent for much procrastination.  Bright pink landing on wooden floor.  The contrast unmistakeable in both size and color.  Leaning over to reach the few fallen, I could see that each brightly colored little piece of paper held scribbled words, messages deep and searching.

A daughter wandering through day, lost in thought and dream of a life different, the undisturbed continuing of the life she knew.  Sometimes dishonest with her smile bright and affectionate, hiding when she hurts or needs or wants but thankfully, bleeding out words that grab to find home in her heart wishing to grow only darker and deep.

“I wish I could tell her all the things I’m doing.” “She’d smile real big and be hugely proud of you, sweetie.”

Still reforming and in the piecing back together in beautiful miracle the life so disturbed by one quick blow, we wade through the unknown and questions lingering.  The trust that weans in days lasting too long makes us stronger together.

One easy to recognize evidence of her heart once devastated now growing stronger in the day to day is her courageous heart.  She’s braver in the bleeding, risking for reward and foregoing shadows.  On the basketball court for the first time, lined wood giving direction to game and position, the sound of soles shuffling, a ball bouncing, hands raised, the game still so foreign to her, I saw her heart laid bare.  She positioned herself vulnerable in front of yelling parents and strange onlookers for shared experience and enjoyment of game and friends.  In the confusion of plays and rules and game, she jumped right in determined to know and participate.  For her, it’s discovery, of who she is undeniably and deeply wound within the DNA.  It is also an aim at who she wants to be and is traveling toward.  All in the game, in the experience, she’s finding and becoming.  My heart soars quietly sitting in the stands each time.  Camera clicking.  Recording her evolution.

One day Elizabeth Marie will look long behind her and gaze upon a field of flowers in the wake of her pursuit.  In ways out of my reach, she is cutting a path for us all, not around, but straight through heart and mire and questions with unfitting answers.  Their hearts remain resilient even in the distance and miles away from that life.  Just last night, we talked about her notes and basketball.  She smiled honestly in the sadness revisited.  But together we left it again coming and going as visitors both stronger.

“Nothing will ever replace her.  The thought of losing mommy will always cause sadness, but both the memories and the life we live will always be brighter.  Promise.”

what makes love live.

“Well, do you love her?”   Quiet. Blank stare. Long.

His look part anger, part remembering, part brokenness.  I had no wise words to offer greater than the realization settling back into his world.  Something blocked it all, what he once loved so much in his own way, her.  Little things had been building.  Arguments kept, offenses recorded in their minds, every identified wrong used as weapons to cut.  They were both injured and now insecure, quick to cut and easily run.  What brought them back each time?  Love and all that had been invested.  Life together.  Imperfect indeed and sometimes twisted, but not easily dying either.  And there he sat in love.

This could be anyone’s story.  It is one, but also the story of many.

Relationships crumble when scores are kept left to be settled one day, lurking in every wrong and hurt and offense.  What once was so beautiful and full and giving, now a pit sinking and a hole keeping.  Two people convinced things have irreparably changed live in a dead love.

Deepening relationships meaningful and lasting are complicated always.  Two individuals whose lives are colliding and merging in hopes of achieving the greatest sense of belonging and being hinges on giving.  Giving stands in direct contrast to getting.  One cannot get love no matter how persistent the attempt and/or pursuit.  You can’t make someone love you lastingly.  They choose.  You choose.  That’s how love works.  Just because you buy her flowers today does not mean she’ll love you tomorrow, or even later that evening.  She will undoubtedly enjoy the flowers, attention, effort and maybe even creative detail, but that’s like, not love.  Too many of us buy flowers but do not give love.  There’s a bit of truth and good perception to the argument that Valentine’s day is merely a consumer driven industry, a golden opportunity for businesses to capitalize on people trying to buy love, but only the smallest bit of truth and good perception.  The ones holding tight fisted and defiantly to this argument defending their lack of romantic effort on this day to a somehow believed track record of loving their wives in the everyday typically seems to boil down to tightening a screw here and there, taking out the trash most nights, keeping a good roof overhead and so on.

Love is about more than doing.  It is giving in every chance and never noticing who gave last.  Love is blind in this regard.  It has to be.  The moment you start keeping notice and record of who gave last, your hand empties held out waiting to receive.  Love withers.  Wilting in the waiting.

Some of the best advice I ever did receive in regard to relationships succeeding, Be quick to forgive, and forget.  Hurts are sticky and offenses are clingy.  Allow them room in your heart and love will be strangled to a death.  Forgiveness is what makes love live.

Forgiveness is typically defined as the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution.

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.  Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force itself on others, isn't always "me first," doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.  Love never dies.  (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, The Message)

one word. what is it?

[gallery link="file" columns="5"] One word, singular and bare, complete and roaming still, shadow cast deeply, widely into future sleeping.  A word, one, that stands tall and soars at its mention and holds hope, fear and all forgetting.  Cutting honest through cluttered thoughts and old vocabulary not aging well.

Manna ...what is it?

If you had one word ...only one, to speak defining love to her, to him, to them all over again, what would it be?  No explanations, just one word to say it all.  What is it?  No ornate words fluffing flat folded hearts, but one cutting straight to her heart releasing love new, holding strongly and true.

Where is it?

Is it gone, lost in shuffle, let go of during the thinness of life together, bruised in traded blows?  Or forgotten?  Or mistaken for smiles only?

Love is work always of the most beautiful and worthwhile kind.  Like a garden springing abundant, teeming life and fragrance captivating, love is made strong in the dirt where eyes can see no beauty.  It never just happens.  Love is made.

Be it a name or a place, a memory, quality or symbol catching, there is one word that finds them all.  One word synonymous with love that is more precise, calls it common and undoes those four letters, l-o-v-e, as generic, misstated and overused.

Find that word.  Work for its discovery, not for a day or a moment manufactured romantically, but a connection far deeper than the life we see and know.

One word precise and exact for love. What is it?

Your word.  One. What. is. it?

love in words.

hearts collidebruise | bend | break | bellow to be free to know at the edge holding hands finger in knuckle lost in grasp feet planted dirty want. to give. scenes and history blurred into one beautiful mystery escaping love is a weight heavy for one held easy by two a euphoric finding grandest completion mess of years compounding erased with glances belonging held by stronger than wanting desire longing to be found to be loosed to be free

“Take away love, and our earth is a tomb.” Robert Browning