Don't "assume", it will only make an ass out of you and me...........

I have had a lot of practice making "assumptions"....Some haven't always ended up so nicely for me. Like the times I've guessed people being pregnant and they so totally were not, now you can be in labor and I won't dare ask until you ask if I want to hold your baby! OOHHH is that your child? lol There's never enough humor in this world.... So as many things as I've assumed incorrectly I've learned it is the "Devil's Dare" if you choose to go down that road. It really just means that the world of communicating by asking direct questions and waiting for some sort of answer is dead whilst the people play coy. I HATE THAT GAME. Make a note of that. I will be the first to tell you that it is not easy for anyone in the beginning to ask someone a direct question concerning a deep or tough subject if they have never seen it done, but it's not impossible. In this world a lot of assumption comes from large subjects like sex, money, religion just to name a few. Sooooo admit it to yourself first, when someone starts dating you decide in your head whether or not they will have sex or are having sex the longer they are together. It's natural to do considering the genetic makeup of our bodies, then you factor in if they have faith in God, or the Holy Bible and you decipher whether or not they will break the rules. Or I'm the only human who has ever walked the planet factoring in all the info. I think not. I needed more than Luis in my life. I needed to feel whole and at the time it seemed to fit. It was a lie. It was a tactic to break me away from the "kind" of man I needed. I said I wouldn't change a thing about my life and I meant it. It doesn't mean though that every course I was on was helpful or positive in my everyday life. I have come to consider the tender years of 20-30 a decade of learning who you really are. Some of us do not use the decade wisely by determining what was our parents or beginnings and what is truly us or "ours". Your truth comes from taking full responsibility of all your choices and decisions. You need to grasp all things that make you you. I was on that wretched journey. It felt like I was on that road by myself. Many times you can feel like you're on that road by yourself. That is where your awareness of your relationship with Christ fits in. Christians will tell you it should be your first thought. Said the careful Christian. I've yet to meet a politically correct Christian who will let you see all sides of them including swearing when you stub your toe or lose at fantasy football. You can't learn how to put him first or if he is first until you see RELATIONSHIPS for what they truly are. How can you be in a healthy relationship with the Lord but no one else? YOU'VE LOST YOUR MIND IF YOU'RE TRYING THAT CRAP. If you can't see that the toxic relationships around you mirror image the one you have with Christ you'll never be able to grow. On the contrary you'll fester into a diseased ridden bupkis. Everyone will pass you by without a moment's notice on the streets or in buildings where people pass one another constantly without even so much as a "hello". Unless, of course, there's an underlying want like sexual attractiveness or money. Prove me wrong email me later. I want you to know I assumed so many incorrect things based on other people's behaviours even about myself. What you have left in your brain to work with, won't factor in "REAL LIFE". It"s similar thinking to attending math class and then not being able to budget in real life. Who cares if you know 2+2.......if you've maxed out every credit card you've owned trying to buy your happiness. That's right accounting doesn't teach you that Target doesn't sell peace of mind. If we had been given half a chance in knowing who our creator was and why he created us, I believe that the people should mirror image the true genuine hope and purpose behind it. I want that for us all. I thought I was going to be different, I was in some cases, but most things I needed to turn over, investigate, and determine for myself what it all meant. Sex, since it isn't perverse or odd when it is applicable to your naked self, seemed to fit at the time and feed the darkness I had in not knowing my own worth. Damn Chubbiness kept my eyes focused on the outside when it was the inside I was looking for the whole time. WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN????!!!! Well think about it, Yes I was chubby but it was what I was taught not chose. If I could just find the mind of the thinner girl each choice I made from there on out would have me thin in no time and stay thin for the rest of my life. Although it took me longer than I thought to find her, I did find her and she's here to stay. I not only found her I patented her. You can't have her. You can't be her. You can be who God created you to be without assumptions and decisions that aren't reallly yours. Stop living in the "it will work itself out" line. People actually die in that line waiting for it to move. You will always need to take action. You will never bypass the intentions of who God created us to be. We can not get out of taking action. Stop assuming and take action against what isn't working. I'll be the first to tell you the minute you decide to do something about it you'll lose 3 friends........Think about that one.

THE DEVIL HAD MY GOLDEN TICKET

I had no idea what it was exactly that I had in front of asking God instead of myself. I didn't really know what a reeaal relationship looked like with the Sovereign God that created me with a true purpose. I mean come on who talks about this stuff???!!! I do, but I totally get it if you're not experiencing that. You will have SOMETHING that the Devil will use against you that will be your "Golden Ticket". He will be able to pull this out and draw you in once he figures out just exactly what it is that you suffer from feeling completely in control over. He will use it against you to harm you, and push you even further away from asking God to give you peace and understanding. I never felt like I could ask my parents together for peace and understanding, why would I then ask a God I couldn't see for it?? I talked to God very easily, it just got easier and easier to use my weakness against me the older I got. Considering my Golden ticket was "Lust". Since I so needed to be liked and desired by a man having a boyfriend is extremely dangerous in the sex category. I mean you can't hold out for very long when the one thing you have wanted your entire life was finally happening. You have to remember the attention I was getting wasn't bad, it wasn't perverse, it wasn't unnecessary. It was new. Had I had been encouraged my whole life to love myself completely including my body and how it looked, I wouldn't have been so overweight and needing assurance in a way that only a young man I was attracted to was giving me. Not everyone's parents know how to encourage you to be your best and walk the walk with you so that you know how to rely on God for all your other needs. I am NOT SAYING BECAUSE I'M CHRISTIAN THAT I WOULDN'T HAVE STRUGGLED WITH HAVING SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE. I'm saying it was my huge issue and strong hold in my life that made it easier to use against me because I had gone without it for so long. I was so hung up on wanting his beautiful body that I struggled to not allow him to push more and more and more. He would smell so good each time I was around him. He got into my veins. He was hooked to my life line that was flesh in the fullest. He could do anything he wanted with me because I wanted it so badly. I didn't have a boundary on him. He was my escape from the lie I was being fed my whole life. I wasn't worthy and No one was EVER going to love me. I was proving them ALL wrong. They were going to regret ever putting me in a corner (like Baby in Dirty Dancing it should never be done). I was going to find what I had been wondering about and wanting so badly to understand the way God had intended us to know. First Hand. Ha! I laugh back at my youth and how intensely wrong she was in the moment and yet I would change nothing about my life. I love every single lesson that I have learned along the way. I only wish I wouldn't of had to learn them the "Hard" way. Who am I kidding I learn everything the hard way. I decided I was sick of the secrecy on sex, I was tired of the hush hush, I was tired of the "we only get shamed at church for having sexual feelings or curiosities". Did you ever notice at church what was pushed imperatively to abstain, but why do we not address the issue of why it's so difficult??? Not just because it feels good or because it's what humans do, NO NO NO I mean real relating to the subject. Try truly understanding why we were all drawn to it in some way or another. Yes we are hardwired to have children that way and build families, but deeper more intellectual meaning behind sexual understanding. It goes way beyond looking sexy or feeling sexy. More intensely it connects you to your creator. He intentionally gave us our sexuality but no one talks about giving God the glory for feeling the need to understand it(at least not in my circle). I went ahead with moving forward with Luis. I wanted him to want me, but had no idea what I was going to let into my life by completely stripping down to the bare bones. I was completely naked and yet I was completely covered with God's protection. Things could have gone a lot differently as our relationship progressed but I was protected each and every time. I nearly died physically but I grew spiritually and I am forever grateful for giving my life to the Lord as a young child and then fully understanding what that meant when I was a young adult. I have a lot to tell you and I can't wait for you to understand what I went through isn't so far from what we all go through, I will just openly share mine.

The Passion.......(this one isn't the well known play)

I can recall all of the memories Luis and I made together. We were so young and had no idea that we were playing right into the feelings that life was a game. It felt like in those moments and at that time that we were inseparable. You couldn't pry the phones out of our hand when we called each other. We longed to talk to each other and to plan our next get together for the weekend. Red was losing her mind. She had to wait til the weekend to see if we were still going to go to the dance club to work out all our stress and so she could get a man. Yes, on some level we were still trying to get hand picked by some rich young thing who just wanted a good soon to be woman working through her troubling twenties. Red and Luis never liked each other to begin with. They both wanted my undivided time and money and car and sober driving. Geesh. You would have thought I was a good looking uber driver back then. I tried to give Red some clarity by explaining to her that there was no way they had to be jealous or worry about losing me because the love I had for both of them was different. She was my best friend and I could tell her anything, and I needed her to be there for me during the relationship woes. Luis was my lover/boyfriend. He didn't compete with her because he was there to make sure I was at the top of my sexy game and that I could solidly slay a man. At the time it didn't sound so skeezy in my head. I didn't realize that I was using Luis as a standard of hotness for myself. I understand it now so simply. HOW COULD I?!! Easily. It seemed to be working really well for me. I'd see him on the weekends starting Saturday through Sunday. I'd go to work during the week and do whatever else I wanted like church, shopping and the gym. It was brilliant. I missed him during the week but I loved being able to live by myself and have the whole place to tinker and get ready for work. I'm so grateful for having that experience because it set the tone for the REST OF MY LIFE. You have to be so deliberate to have a budget and a handle on what life really throws at you versus what you want to have. I thought I was on cloud nine. I couldn't believe I had a job I loved, a boyfriend I handpicked out of the crowd and a best friend who understood me and wanted to be around. It was as if life was perfect. It started out so intensely between Luis and I. I can remember every time I saw him I was taken back as if I had never met him before. He was so striking that when he looked at me I shivered. I knew I lusted after him but the truth is I liked it. I loved that uncomfortable feeling every time he got close to me for a kiss because I thought "oh he really likes me and finds me attractive". For someone like me who didn't have that kind of feedback at home I longed for it. I was in the beauty industry to try and give that feeling to people all day long. I knew how wonderful it was to receive it. No one's family can be bad all the time, it's just it wasn't a "thing" in our house to try to be our best self every second of every day. I knew when I got into the industry it was going to be hard to break through the barriers that had nothing to do with relying on God for our issues, it's just this was my time and I needed to learn the cold hard lessons of it isn't your looks that make a relationship last. Even if you are an attractive female it doesn't mean he realllly loves you or that he will stick around just because you're beautiful. SO ARE A LOT OF FEMALES, AND WHY NOT?! WHY CAN'T WE ALL HAVE SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT US THAT MAKES US ATTRACTIVE? My mind was capable of asking it, but hadn't fully comprehended how important self love was to making these fears go away that lived inside of my head. Right now Luis was that for me and he was going to give me a new perspective on life I could just feel it. When he looked at me I felt different, I felt seen, I felt alive and I loved it. Every second I had with him gave me more and more of a high that I longed for him to be with me everyday. I could start to see why puppy love was so dangerous and why young people think they need to get married. Why not right? I mean you're in love and young, why not live the rest of your lives together??????????? GOOD GOLLY LORD ALMIGHTY help these young people understand that is NOT how love works. I'll show you what happens when you underestimate the Devil........

sex, food and in control

I felt so good to be able to reach into my brain and ask myself the tough questions no one seemed to be talking about around me. I wasn't fooled into thinking everyone knew what to do, because if that had been the case then we would all just offer up what works and people would go about their business as usual a cooler slimmer version of yesterday's self. Since I wasn't finding anyone who wanted to let me know what the deal was with food and I sure as heck wasn't getting anywhere, I turned to sex. It worked. When you're naked you better believe that you don't want to tote a big round carcass onto the other person. So for awhile when I was with Luis I had the slim sexy spice boy to keep me preoccupied, but that was only on the weekends. I had to find things to keep me busy Monday through Friday night. I loved having the apartment to myself. I had total control over what happened there. Well, sort of. I like all things tidy, no clutter, no television. I had a tv box but no cable, just a vcr player for movies. You turned my tv on and it had a blue screen. I had grown up in a family where food was consumed in immeasurable amounts while watching the boob tube. I was so afraid that if I had tv I would never be able to get away from eating in front of it and be as large as a house. I saved so much money and wasted time from not being in front of the television that I wasn't in a house that had one until I had married my first husband. I am not gonna lie, I love tv just like the next person, it can be very relaxing or fun. It's just at the time I needed something more from life and I hadn't found the "Laura" that I was proud of yet. I was finding more solace at work accomplishing something for someone else and going to the gym after work to get this darn thing in shape. I was on a roller coaster. I would work all day dreaming of this cute little life I had with spice boy and I would go to the gym at night. It was great. I would call him on the way to the gym and talk til I got there. I would walk into the gym and it would hit me like a ton of bricks. SEX. Maybe it's just me but I have to say finding myself and growing up into a woman who knew better was A-Okay by me. I loved walking into a place that never let me get too comfortable. I still to this day remember so vividly all the friends I've made and all the connections that I have for life from being that naive little chub that walked through the door at 18. It was a vicious cycle that I was on. Let's just say one of those cheap thrill rides at a small time carnival. It was brutal. I couldn't get myself to stop thinking about food, which would then send me into pictures in my head of Mr. and Mrs. Clump making out. I was not going to be a fat woman who ended up with a fat husband or boyfriend. I would die first. I would try and get it together and most of the time I was okay as long as I was busy. I could find myself looking back over the day and if I was busy at work or busy at the gym working out, I was not hungry, but when I got home I would eat everything in sight. I found a local pizza joint where I started going to buy a grilled chicken salad with no dressing and a bun.......then I had to go bun free cause carbs were a fad a while back and I had to let them go. It's a holiday weekend today and like any other normal person there's picnics and parades and I'm all for it. It's just when you're trying to find your inner peace, holidays can make a chubby person cuss. What the Hell Holiday!? Why are you here, why can't you just be a Tuesday .....Nothing happens on a Tuesday. I am so compassionate to anyone who struggles because when you're at these places that serve all the "bad foods": chips, pretzels, dips, any kind of pasta or potato salad you're doomed because if you're like me you could gain ten pounds in a single sit down. It wasn't that bad but it felt like it in my pants the next day. I was sick and tired of fighting the hunger pangs. It nagged like a hangnail or stone in your shoe.(seriously if you've ever had a stone in your shoe than you know it can make you feel like your foot is going to fall off if you don't stop and take care of that immediately) ;) It seemed to get easier once I started listening to my body. I knew when I needed to eat and when I didn't. The hard part came with life or rather work. It wasn't always easy to get a handle on when to take clients or when to eat at work and that was the next challenge I had to face. I'm not in an easy industry to begin with, considering we are the bandaid on the bullet wound called reality. Pinterest seems to make it possible in a click of a button but what it takes to get a handle on skin, hair and nails in an hour means no eating for the miracle worker. It's ok. I love helping people so I managed to learn what to take along to work and what not. But the next task was managing my body. It's not easy to look in the mirror at yourself. I mean really look in the mirror. I avoided it until I was dressed, and even then I was critical at what I saw. My past has haunted me with my skin stretched and wrinkles that shouldn't be there because my skin was stretched past the point of no return. I wake up everyday to my past creeping into my future. One day I'll get it sawed off and be done for good. But in the time being I'm right where I needed to be to learn what needed to be learned about all the choices I had made up until that point in my life. Even if they all weren't ones I really understood. I was growing up and it hurt, but I've learned to break the muscle down to strengthen it you have to tear it and let it heal. This was my process. I needed to be broken for a little while longer so I could one day be unbreakable.

my BIG mouth

(((Giggle))) No truer words ever said.....well, besides the BIBLE. But I mean me...about me. I do have quite the pie hole. Or I used to. I just think, "wow I have come so far from what I was". Let's think about the correlation to what I've been saying over the past few months. My MOUTH. It's been such a struggle. Is that weird? Abnormal? Un-treatable? Should we call someone? Look into that? Lol. I think it's a shame for most of my life I struggled to have such wonderful things happen or questions answered when I needed them most that I needed something to put in or on my mouth. Hence the wonderful addictions of the world. SEX, DRUGS, ROCK-N-ROLL. Mine is more like FOOD, SEX, CUSS. No joke. I used those three things to lash out. Think about it. Addictions always put a band-aid on what's really wrong. I needed the pleasure of eating to sooth me. I needed a boy to kiss me to soothe loneliness. Also back then it was how I gauged whether or not I was sexy (attractive, pretty, beautiful, everybody wants to be sexy on that scale you know it!) enough. Last but definitely not least I cussed, better than any trucker. Mostly towards people who where hiding behind closed doors. You ever have any of those people in your life? The ones that just won't bring that kind of behavior out in public????? Yeah I finally cussed at them. Not always to their face. No No. I'm classy. I did it mostly in my own room. Okay maybe family! I cussed directly at my family, but I had a theory on that one. I was hoping it would put me at distance with them because as you've gathered we have little in common other than breath. You can think what ever you want about that last sentence. It's nasty, I know. It isn't meant to impress you, rather be honest. It's just another look at the whacked out world I was living in. Yeah this one. The one we share. I mean I know we all have messed up times in our lives, I'm okay with that. It doesn't need to be a state of mind for the rest of our lives. I personally don't think it ever needs to be a thing we experience, but if it is I've learned we can come away from it and really grow. I learned that my mouth was my most powerful weapon and biggest gift yet. I'm thankful for the many lessons it taught me. It's a gift from God. My cussing????! Hell no! My mouth. I know you might not be able to understand what I'm trying to get across. I love to relate to the scripture GOD has given us and he tells us to be careful of the mouth for it can be so destructive. It's true. It took me a long time til I fully grasped that. I was about 24 when I really understood how powerful this mouth really was. Remember I told you I was in counseling for 11 years. I learned back then I needed to have rational thinking people to be around or I go crazy. Ha! (How I have made it this far is beeeeeyond me) I didn't always make the best decision or say the right things. No. I have made huge strides to be better than my old self. I strive daily to be mindful of many things in my life, but more importantly I've wanted to use my mouth for good. I want to stand up against the injustices of life and bring the light of Jesus to the REAL WORLD. Out on the streets where I find he's most relevant. Just sitting in church acting perfect and then coming back out to the real world only to cop out of what's really going on drives me nuts. Doesn't mean everyone does it but it happens often enough that it's destroying our towns and communities. The road that lead me to that very conclusion was such a bumpy disgusting road of lies, delusions, facades, expectations, obligations and, last but not least, irresponsibility.(sounds like tons of people I know) I dislike all of those words and how they break down the human body. I can't stand cop outs. They make me wanna cuss. So I studied what was going on in my mind and body and why I just despised the behavior. It's because it's void of forgiveness to yourself and learning to take healing and responsibility for your life. Which I believe are all gifts from God. I waited for years to feel the touch of someone's mouth and to feel special. It didn't need to consume me, had I understood how to take care of my body through food and water. I didn't need to have years of horrible skin irritations from being overweight and my thighs rubbing together just waiting to chafe. I didn't need to be made fun of every day of my young life, I didn't need to be dismissed at home because my parents couldn't deal with their own miserable upbringings and fake lives. I didn't need to try to survive everyday not knowing what would come tomorrow. ARE YOU GETTING THIS?? I didn't know what to do. I didn't know why I chose food over God, sex over God. I remember one night with my ex husband telling me I could cut right through steel with my mouth. I finally got who I was. I was a strong warrior woman who could be available for God or could be used by the devil. I had to choose the side I wanted to work for. Yeah Yeah Yeah. I know that sounds a bit cliche. I mean this. I wasn't supposed to marry him to begin with, I did it to run away from the problems I was facing with dead relationships with family and work.(I learned that lesson later.) I began to put the pieces together the moment he said that to me. He saw the same girl that my parents saw with my MOUTH. It clicked! They have the same lies and facade. They act one way at church or work, but when it comes right down to it they can't keep up with work, bills, responsibility, accountability, REALITY.....that's the big one right there. I would lash out every time I was surrounded by a person who hides. People hide from everything it seems. I will continue to reach out to people to explain we do not need to hide. We can forgive ourselves from what we did and start new. I had to forgive myself for lashing out, cussing, eating, sexing instead of using my time and my mouth to help people. Does that mean that I don't do those things now? Hell no! ha! I want to caution you to understand that as long as you live you will have to use the same vessel that was choosing poorly to be the same vessel choosing wisely. The same mouth that was eating processed foods and either bingeing on them or purging them is now the mouth that chooses good organic foods and uses my food to nourish my body from the inside out. The same mouth that was kissing boys I had no business kissing now kisses my husband ONLY. The husband who knows EVERYTHING ABOUT ME (and reads this blog). He loves me and my once wayward lips. The mouth that was cussing out family members and constantly near fake people has chosen total distance and peace rather than friction. That included me getting a new job by opening my own salon and time away from the whole family tree where the hiding behavior still continues. I decided to take a different path. One that allowed me to be responsible for everything I was doing. I wanted to make a path that would make a difference in everything I did and everyone I've met. I take my health seriously so that when I eat I can get up in the morning and use my body to bless others by saying hello, making them look and feel beautiful and to give hugs and support where I can. I talk to my husband every minute I can and give HIM a hundred kisses a day to give him the love he needs to feel encouraged and supported. So yes, I use this mouth for food and kisses, but this is the time in my life where I choose to do something amazing with them. And as far as cussing.....as long as there is evil on the planet you're bound to hear a fowl word every now and then. Satan doesn't listen to please and thank you anyway........

Team Food:1 point Team Laura:0 points

That's what it felt like. A game. One that I had no idea how to play and it was gaining on me big time. I had seen my family including cousins and aunts and uncles lose the game so many times with food that it seemed a hopeless fight. If food thought it was going to win against me, it didn't know who it was messin' with! I had a sexy boyfriend now and I wasn't going down without a fight. I was going to control my cravings and my weight. I just had to figure out what the heck I was doing wrong before I could fix it. I figured I could ask around and see what my friends knew. I mean c'mon not everyone's parents and children were heavy or seem to have an issue with food so let's ask around and see what other people have going on. I decided to ask "Hot Stuff" my friend from the gym how she had started to lose weight but then keep it off more importantly!!!? She had quite the interesting answer. She threw it up. Whatever she ate, she threw up. Isn't that "Bulimia"? I had been under the impression that girls were born with that problem not chose to have that problem. I looked at her like she had 3 ridiculous sized heads and said how the heck do you even do that??? She told me to stick my finger way back til I hit that small dangly thing in the back of my throat and my body would do the rest. I was mortified. I thought how could she even do such a thing? Why did she let food go in, if all she was going to do was have it come right back out???? Who was I kidding??? Did I have AAANNNNNYYYYY OTHER CHOICES STARING ME IN THE FACE????? Well, I could choose not to eat, but then again if I could manage the not eating side of things we wouldn't be having this conversation!!! I was so confused at the time how girls like me ended up having one of the 2 issues with food. All the while being hungry each day you wake up and your body needs you to care for it. My job was and is still sooooo demanding that how was I going to stop eating????? I had a big problem on my hands and I was going to have to think things through. I started to think everybody is hiding something. If my friend could hide from me that she was throwing up her food and her family didn't know, then maybe just maybe more people were doing things that I just needed to find out about. It comes right down to making a decision NOT to harm yourself and to get help where the help is truly needed. I was on that journey, but for the full stories sake we need to walk down memory lane to understand how my mind was working back then and how desperate I was to be liked by this boy so I was willing to undermine my normal body treatment. I want you young girls to understand it didn't matter what everyone else thought. It only mattered to me how I looked and I wanted something different to stare back at me. I wanted all the roundness and bumpiness to go away. No one on my life path seemed to want to offer up a solution to being overweight. My whole family struggled with the weight issue except for my one sister and brother. Which life has come to turn those tables as well. Food wins when you don't take the time to monitor yourself. It always wins in the end if you choose to be ignorant to it. I, like everyone else, didn't have a buddy system where someone looked out for me. It seemed that food was the new swear word and people had given that up for lent. You might think I'm over stating the horrible trenches that were our routine in the morning to figure out how to get through the day without over stepping your boundaries with food. I can try to tell you how wonderful life is, but the reality is it's only as good as the team you're born into. Or the team you find yourself playing with or living life out with, but in all realities we're all given a beginning team and if they are not of the mindset to eat healthly and mindfully, you're bound to find yourself on the same road I was trying to figure out for yourself. I don't want you to be there alone. I had so much to be thankful for and I was, but that didn't stop the cravings. I had so much I wanted to learn yet, and I was trying, but that didn't stop the cravings. I had many many things that I was accomplishing and I was proud of myself, but that didn't stop the cravings. I went to church every Sunday and I went to the gym 7 days a week and I kept my apartment clean and my bills paid, but that didn't stop the cravings. WHAT WAS I MISSING??????????? The real answer. The answer that didn't have anything to do with food. STRESS. What in the world does that mean????? It means my real problem wasn't with food at all. It was what to do with all the stress I was facing while trying to put my body back together that my parents had plumped up during my damaging childhood. I was not only trying to slough off the old me I had no control over, but trying to control the new stress of having NO IDEA what to do with every meal I had because my childhood taught me nothing. It taught me very little other than how to survive the up and coming apocalypse. I want you to get a hold of how important this is. Our childhoods teach us so many things we don't even want to learn let alone UNLEARN. I had one outlet for stress and dissatisfaction with anything going wrong in my life and it happened to be the same thing that I needed to get a handle on to live a long healthy life. DO YOU SEE MY PREDICAMENT? I had to put up a boundary with food yet eat it to survive. It haunted me night and day and I was just unable to handle it anymore. I faced every second hungrier than the last second and I needed to eat something. I decided the best thing to do was to eat something I liked that way I could be okay with it coming back up if I ever needed to purge it. I went with pizza. My all time favorite. Still is to this day. I wanted to be sure I was doing what I wanted and not what I thought I had to do. Like I said this has been a life long journey and at the time I hadn't mastered learning about the nutritional breakdown of foods and what to eat to nourish my body holistically. So here goes the first thing I decided to purge. My pizza. The whole thing. I mean of course, if your going to purge a pizza it isn't going to be one slice. Oh no. THE WHOLE DAMN THING. How could I have gone through with it?? You don't know a desperate girl until you've met my past. She would have done anything to figure food out. I never felt so much pain in my life. It hurt like you could not believe to force the body to purge something it so dearly wanted to hold onto. I can remember it like yesterday the good 6-8 months I purged everything I ate. I got so good I didn't even tear up anymore. Oh yeah your whole body reacts to throwing things back up. It isn't a pretty sight. I had a heart to heart talk with myself after that treacherous couple of months. The issue of food didn't go away. The decisions didn't get easier. I hadn't learned anything of value to pass on to another human being. I had more questions than ever. I wasn't losing weight. I hated food more than ever because I had more responsibility than ever to get rid of it. I was hiding and we know that isn't good. I was worried someone was going to find out. I was taking my life and wasting it trying to find the right answers on this quest to figure out food. WELL WE KNOW THIS ONE ISN'T WORKING SO KNOCK IT OFF. AND I DID. One thing I can be thankful for is my brain. I tried it and, with no results whatsoever other than realizing I was a Pro Purger, I hadn't mastered food at all. It still had the handle on me and I needed to take the responsibility to accept what I did to my body. I stopped it. It wasn't easy, I cried alot when it came time to eating and I wasn't sure really what to do. But I decided this couldn't possibly be what the Lord had in mind for our lives. I knew he didn't want me hurting all the time and hurting my very own body. I'm not stopping till I figure out what he wants from me and this isn't it........

You'll kiss a few toads before you find your prince

"Is this love that I'm feeling, or is this the love that I've been searching for......"??(to quote Whitesnake, for you young bucks look it up) At that exact moment that Luis kissed me I had never felt a surge come over my body quite like that before. Yes, yes, I've had people kiss me and I've had boyfriends Duh!!!! This was different. I had put him on a pedestal that no one had ever sat on in my life before. Heck, no one in my family tree was so beautiful....I mean this guy was gorgeous. Not the kind you find in a second hand store (a little Prince for ya!!) I didn't know it yet but this was the part of the journey with love that you have to find out for yourself. I had parents, I thought I knew what it was to look at people at church with their spouses, I saw people all the time getting engaged and I thought wow......Do their knees shake when they kiss??? You could always fake a knee shake, but why bother if you can find the real thing yeah??!!! I thought my whole world had fallen upside down. I knew life was going to be more fun by the minute because I had to await this guy's call while I was at work and I had this guy to talk about while I was at work and I had this guy to look forward to after work, and the gym of course. It's funny how I type this out now and back then even texting was just really coming into play in relationships. I remember checking to see voicemail envelopes blinking in the top right of the phone screen. Those were the days, the days where voicemail chicks didn't drag on the introductory of who called, what time and what to do to listen or delete! UGH!!! That chick drives me nuts. I would check it on the hour when I was finished with a haircut or color and go into the back room and check my phone a thousand times to see if he called. Things really started to take a turn because I was serious about this guy and decided that after a week of honest calling and subtle texting that I was definitely making an impression on Mr. Picante. I think I was so nervous to lose him that I began to focus more on my looks. No BIG deal right??? I mean what girl in her right mind trying to lock in a cute boyfriend doesn't watch her looks like I need to lose 10 lbs yesterday??!!! It was the plan I had already mapped out for myself anyway, I mean I was at the gym, I was a graduate of food therapy counseling and knew I had to take the necessary steps to correct my eating, it's just now I had this cute boy around to help curb my desire to eat food ever again because I wasn't going to be the chubby chaffing trainwreck he left for another cute thinner girl. NO SIR! I was on a diet. Oh gosh. I don't know what's worse, the bad boyfriend sob story to come or the "diet" nightmare that became my life for 7 years. Now mind you it spanned over 2 relationships. I am so sorry body, temple, vessel but you have to go. You're not going to be needed here anymore cause momma's getting a cute boyfriend. I had understood I was choosing food when I was stressed out and as much as my therapist loved me and my cash, she couldn't help me every inch of my future. You can never guess what stress will be around every corner to even be able to stock the frig correctly for a binge bulge session anyway. I had to take this one step at a time and I was going to start with "anorexia" cause those girls had managed a skill that had skipped my entire family tree.(Please make a note: this is NOT A STAB AT THE DISEASE) Heck no I was 21 years old stupid and I meant it. I was at least going to try the opposite side of the disease I had been given. I was going to NOT eat. Hell, I didn't make it 20 min. I sat down and thought, each week that goes by I want to be thinner and sexier than the last time he saw me so he can not leave me.(it sounds immature, that's because it was and that is how girls think, moving on) I had to figure something out and I would because I always come up with a plan. I'm no wuss. I will do what has to be done even if it kills me. My mother used to say that I obsessed over losing weight so much that I would end up dead. I said "that's fine, at least they won't have to jump on the casket to close it". She could't relate that I would rather die than live one more day being worse than the day before. I was going to change my weight if it was the last thing I did. It became a depressing mantra in my head. I'm HUNGRY. The only thing I thought! If that wasn't it then "I wish I was thinner". Girls! We have got to stop beating ourselves up over not being perfect in one day. For those coming out of homes where there is a food addiction or homes where being thin was just the DNA of the tree to going away to college and gaining weight or after a relationship kicks in you pack on the munchie pounds.....It's okay to have to come to a challenge to learn how your body works best. I shouldn't have pushed mine so hard. I should have loved it more gently and allowed the boy to like me while working on things in my life that concerned me or slowed me down. Ya know nowadays I go places and see pop up franchise's that are a walk in make your own slow death ice cream bars. AMERICA WAKE THE HECK UP! I've yet to see any "grow your own garden" bars poppin' up. Of course not, a lot of people have learned to drown their sorrows in "I haven't gone to the grocery store or I hate my life today it's Tuesday" low-fat vanilla. Is that a stab at how society has morphed into social hours of drown in sugar?? No. It's a reality check as to why I was feeling the pressure to eat, eat , EAT EATTTTT!!!!! While knowing that the pressure felt wrong and the reality was I wasn't going to find anyone including my therapist who would admit there was an undertone in society that food controlled us. It did. It's just this time it controlled me while I was controlling it to not control me. It was controlling me. Bastard. It was gaining on me and I hated it. I loved the weeks because I could just get calls and texts during the day and I was working so the time went by fast. I would go to the gym during the week after work and then get home late in the day around 9:30 or 10 pm to eat something quick and then relax in bed and chill with the cat. I never had a computer or a tv so I would just lay in bed thinking about food and do word find puzzles. I was about as cool as an 83 year old woman!!! lol I loved that life because the weekend was coming and I was going to get to see my boyfriend. I had the perfect life. Or so I thought......

Why bother telling you any of this......;)

It's true I love to tell my story. I find that over the past 34 (almost 35 years don't rush it) that everything I've ever been through is important. Not because it's my life per se but because it is a life given by God to live out his word. It sounded different in my youth than it does now. Things are changing so quickly in our communities. I rarely find people at total peace, with a smile on their face, just looking for another person to bless simply by saying "Hello". We've been placed on this planet with so much ahead of us to enjoy and to take part in. I find more people feel the burden of placing titles upon themselves. I've chosen to follow Jesus by asking for his salvation for when I die I would reside in paradise with him forever. I want to do what he asks of me (for the most part my 20's were a little hairy). I understand that not all people will understand what that word "salvation" means, but it really just gets right to the point and gives God all the glory: it says he has a purpose for our world and reality and he asks that we follow him and evangelize his name! I get so excited when I think about it! I also chose to become a hairstylist which to some people doesn't mean a whole lot but it's a much harder profession than one may think. You ever stand for more than 10 hours a day 6 days in a row, year after year after year?? It's not such a simple feat yet help a person understand the quality of what you do and what you're after might not match the potential they have with a comb and can of hairspray! Golly have I ever seen a bunch of messes on top of people's heads over the last 17 years! I chose to become a hairstylist not because I wanted to work with hair. I've always wanted to work with people, Hearts rather. I've wanted to inspire people to think about how important they are because they are given a total purpose by God to choose his son and then to live life to the fullest, walking among the lost, and the sick and to bring HIS light to those who are needing it. I've made a ton of mistakes as a Christian annnnnnd a hairstylist. I will admit it is par for the course so that I can become a better version than what I was a minute ago or a week ago or a month ago. For without making a mistake you can not truly learn the lesson. I find myself constantly searching the word and stories in the Bible to find a relationship with ANY situation I go through or my marriage goes through or my business goes through. I find that God gave us these tools, not to shame or become burdened with inadequacies, but rather to try to gain understanding that we have everything we need to achieve. We are afforded forgiveness and we can run the race by standing back up when we fall down and move on with our lives. THAT'S THE KEY POINT THAT I WANT TO MAKE RIGHT THERE. We need to then tell other people about what we have learned so that they too can have hope that things are not over. We can be forgiving of ourselves for what we chose to do then learn the deep rooted lesson in it and share what we are responsible for and how to become accountable one difficulty at a time. It makes a person more genuine and instead of being a superficial waif-like person you get a deep full bodied individual that can go anywhere and do anything because they understand that what God has created he breathed life into fully. It is doing life without truly understanding the deeper meaning in things that we become so insecure. I am walking and talking everywhere I go and find that so many people can only speak on a subject that they are taught on or have a total undivided interest in. If it is not something they have thought about or want to know they find no value. We have started an electronic society (I know I'm also using the internet) where everything we want or relate to is a one on one high five or thumbs up or sad face. We've lost the ability to talk one on one or in large groups so that as a community we can become more aware of the enemy (devil) and how he breaks us down. He has a plan in place to divide us and unless we work against that cause: to become more aware on how to make boundaries on that kind of evil it will divide us. It doesn't have to happen in a hateful way or even breaking the law. Oh no he'll find a way much more sleek and behind the scenes kind of way. His purpose is to break down. Period. If we as a society allow this, things will get worse. I share my story and all the un-likeable parts because in everything that happened there is a lesson to be learned and the responsibility to learn about what happened so that I could start fighting back against the evil that resides in many that walk past me everyday. I am not attacking the flesh, I am attacking what lives within us. If we do not choose our Creator God, what source of spirit do you allow in your life. I learned very quickly as a young girl believing in God, his son Jesus and the Holy Spirit, is different than living in a way that shares it with others. Does this mean that I think I am perfect and am some chosen one to lead the way considering all of my poor choices that I've made or will make? No. I just believe that God will be found in a way that is whole, real, honest, messy or rare. He will be found where it's to the core of who you are. You have to get to the point where you understand everything is created with a purpose and it will be used as he sees fit. I WANT TO BE A PART OF THE JOURNEY. I WANT TO BE USED BY GOD TO SET APART CREATION FROM DAMNATION. I want to share my story with you so you have somebody who can attest to the facts that life isn't always easy and you will make mistakes. You are not worthless or useless just because you may have found yourself making decisions leading you down a dangerous path. I've been there. Sometimes you have to ride that out just so you can learn the lesson to it's fullest. Ask yourself this: Did every person who ever read the Bible no longer sin in the future just because they read of someone else's similar journey. No, they had to make their own mistakes even if it was the exact same mistake for the sole purpose of learning the true lesson. Not all mistakes are created equal. Some mistakes can literally change your whole life in a second, some can even end it all together. The one passion I believe I've had since birth is people. I believe if we give ourselves a chance to thrive we will see a different nation under God indivisable. A nation who understands it's true purpose was to thrive while praising God for our existence to love the things we humans love. It may sound a bit hokey to you, but it's the world I'm so longing for.........

"I think it's time we meet"

Sunday afternoons have been sung about because of how amazing they are. I know, I know the rest of the world has to prepare to go back to work and school, but us hairstylist's get a day off. I can remember that Sunday so vividly. I had the old flip phone, the one that was an off navy blue with a tight ((click)) when you snapped it closed. Oh my how I loved that thing!!!!(I hate phones now a days) I had a routine, still do. Each Sunday afternoon I would go to the gym after church and lunch. So I remember feeling more on fire than ever because the guy "I" wanted to call me did and I was going to call him back. I called on the way to my gym, I always packed my clothes before I left the house in the morning so I didn't have to go home and waste time. Brilliant I know. I was of course driving and on the phone when it used to be not so hated and scrutinized. I agree people are killing each other left and right from being on phones and texting so I am not complaining, just making a statement that it was uber cool 14 years ago to hold on a convo while driving. Sooooooo, when he picked up that call and talked to me while I was driving I was on cloud 9. You know the feeling I'm talking about. The pins and needles that everything he says is right and cool and totally right and cool. It's every girl's dream for a guy to talk to her, no matter what! In the beginning he's awesome whatever he says.(Don't worry I've learned from then) I was so proud to tell him that I went to the gym. I thought he was going to think I was so in charge for taking care of my body. If I had listened carefully I would have picked up on his hesitation, he said "gym"?? I think if you've studied the spicy Puerto Rican boys they think working out is only for men. Um NO. I told him that I workout to lose weight since I was born into a family where we "live to eat" not "eat to live". I explained to him that I was trying to be a better version of myself and he had met me in the midst of that. He was adamant that I not talk to guys and to be careful. Boys. They crack me up. I had been living on my own, but he was giving me pointers to survive. Hmmmmm.....where were ya a few months ago when I was kicked to the curb?! Ha! I managed. It never took me long to get to the gym because I had a fly car. Yes, my cool car was able to cruise right along to the gym. I told him I had to get going, when he asked me if we could get together soon. I figured sure, why not. I told him I didn't work on Monday's but that I needed to get things done around the house and I would go to the gym and be home before dark. I would just wait for his call. He said ok, he'd call me tomorrow in the afternoon. OH my word, I wouldn't sleep. I just knew I would lay awake and think about what would happen if he changed his mind since that night at the dance club. What if he wasn't into me anymore when he saw me. Maybe I was too chubby and needed more time to lose more weight. Or my hair wasn't right. Geesh. I would drive myself nuts going through every last detail of what if's. You can't imagine how insecure I was to have this young man not like me. I seemed to face adversity everyday in my career. I have to meet new people on the half hour, look them in the face, help them pick out a style and then cut their hair. This boy on the other hand was just able to push me right over the edge. I just had to make him like me. I just had to land the position of girlfriend. I had to get him to pick me out of all the perfect pretty girls in the world. How the Heck was I going to do that????????? I would paint my nails. You laugh, but I used to be the Queen of Nails round these parts back in the day. I still do my own painting or manicuring. I love it. I felt better after getting ready to see this guy. I thought I had it all planned out. I would make sure I looked great and I would clean my house preparing to have a cute guest and we would take it from there. I loved the anticipation of that moment when my phone went off and it was him. I could feel the chills go down my spine when I knew he was choosing to call me out of anything else in the world to do. It really is a cool thing when you think about it. Remember the weeks where I was trying to find him and now he's calling me. AAAHHHHHH! Life is good. He wanted me to know that he would be driving up from Lancaster where he lived and it would take him a good 45 min. It was already 7pm. LOOOONNNGGEEESSST day ever. I had been fidgeting for hours waiting for his call. Not like I was desperate and waiting for his call. I just thought since we decided on hanging out he would have called sooner. I thought well there isn't much time left to hangout before it gets dark. Oh well, I was a grown up now so I could decide when it was time for bed and when it wasn't. It just might be a tough day tomorrow at work standing all day while I'm tired. WHO CARES! HOT BOY CALLED ME AND IS ON HIS WAY! Was I nervous? Sure. I think any girl in my situation would be nervous. I had picked a Spanish lover who didn't speak the best English and looked to be older than me while being a dedicated drinker and I was a sober saint to my current Faith status twice removed if ya know what I mean.(oh gosh how was I ever going to get into Heaven) So yes, to answer your question I was terrified. Didn't stop me. I was going to give this a try. If it killed me, well then I got what I deserved. Not the best attitude but it was the one I had chosen. You have to be totally committed to being bad azz or it just doesn't feel the same. I got a call about 55 min later. He was lost. It figures. I had been falling asleep on the couch when he called me and I answered in an irritated tone. "Where are you"? He tried to tell me but it wasn't computing in my spanglish brain so I asked him what he was near. He said this Hotel parking lot that was near by. I told him to wait there I would be right there and help him get to my apartment. Gee wiz, now I have to get shoes on and go down in the car lot to get my car. Okay here goes. I got there in 5 min, it was literally right down the road. I pulled in and pushed my window down so he could see me and I could see him. I was so afraid that when he looked at me he would drive off. We met eyes and he took his cool sunglasses off to see me. He said "oh wow" You are so beautiful Laura(said in Spanish accent). I remember my reaction to seeing him for the first time in over a week, I was silent. He said "what"? I have a flair for the honest approach so I told him HE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL I COULDN'T STAND IT. He just laughed and said thanks. He followed me back to my place. I let him in the building and when he saw my apartment and how perfect it was he was blown away. He said this is all yours??? yep! It had cathedral ceilings which to this day I still remember coming home to was one of the best things in my life. He just loved the place. He saw my couches and television and thought we would watch TV. I said I don't have TV or cable rather. He almost passed out on the floor. I told him I didn't have time in my life for it so I don't watch any. He motioned for me to come sit by him on the couch. I couldn't......I was too nervous. I didn't want to make the wrong move or say the wrong thing. I just wanted to stand back and watch him. I was immediately taken with him. I wanted nothing more than to put him on a shelf and keep him for myself. Sickening I know. I know now how dangerous young love (which is really infatuation) is. I didn't know what to do with myself. I had to get some help. I was staring at this guy like I had never seen a man before. I knew he could tell. He asked me again to come sit next to him. I reluctantly moved over towards him. I was staring directly at his face. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life (I hadn't seen the Dwayne the Rock Johnson yet). I had nothing to compare the feeling to. It had happened in the dance club and it happened again when I saw him the second time at the club. Seriously, I was twitterpated. I sat there speechless. He slowly reached for my face. He held me in his hands and asked me what was wrong? I said almost in disbelief how he was sitting in front of me and I had been waiting for so long to find him. He began to laugh, he said his friend was sick of hearing about me. He had been in contact with his buddy from the club and was telling him that we were going to finally meet up. He said good, maybe you'll stop talking about her! I just sat there smelling his cologne and watched his every move like I was being paid to watch him breath. I think he could tell I was nervous, so he just had me lay my head on a pillow while he stroked my hair. We talked about our lives, our families and our jobs. The time flew by and it was waaaayyy past the time I should have been in bed. I said I had to get to bed so I could do a great job on my client's hair. He was so polite and gentle with me. He moved ever so slightly up on the couch and helped me sit up. He looked in my face and said that I was so nice and special. He had never met any girl like me before. I was a goner. He took my head so swiftly that I never had time to react. He kissed me so passionately I had no idea my body could react that way. Every inch of my body was tingling and I never wanted that feeling to go away.....

It's like getting your Learner's Permit and driving a Ferrari

Car analogies are the best when it comes to love. You have no idea how hard it is to be so human and such a sexual being the moment we arrive on the planet. As we grow up in our childhood homes, it's very difficult to be something 100% and never talk about it or slowly understand it one day at a time. Like driving a car. We sit in cars our whole life and whether it's in the back seat or in the front, we're not driving it. We can even know the entire route by heart and still have no clue the responsibility behind actually turning the wheel. We give our young adults more rules and regulations on driving a vehicle than we do understanding their bodies and their brains. How convenient that the person who begins to drive that vehicle doesn't get as much time on the body driving the car. Ever ponder why the world overlooks such a huge issue? It's how the enemy divides the world while no one is the wiser. We are so ashamed of sex and what it does to our bodies and how it makes us feel. Satan uses what God made to be so amazing and special in order to manipulate us into situations that can tear away at our value. It isn't always used for bad, it isn't always a subject of contention, but often times it isn't a subject many people want to get into due to its many confusing and challenging issues. I knew about my body. I knew I'd eventually be in a sexual relationship, but how did I end up starting a new relationship with this young man who I didn't know very well. I was no longer a virgin and that was dangerous territory. I had already put myself in 2 situations that ended up burning me good. I was so afraid, let's get it straight. I didn't think any man would ever love me or find me attractive or valuable. For so long, I was fat and so un-liked even by my own self that when the wrong guy came along (and they usually do), I made a stupid mistake. Ha! Not all mistakes are stupid, some are just necessary for understanding how things work and how to make the best of a situation. I did not need to lose my virginity against my will, and chalk it up to that I had made a mistake. I had. That guy took something from me due to his own mistakes in his life and where it lead him. He was thinking he could take anything from anyone he wanted to. That's on him, but where I'm concerned is where I hear a lot of young people today not taking ownership for what lead them right into making "stupid mistakes". The ones that we don't need to make. The ones that account for so many of the addictions, depressions and anxieties of today. I'm not sugar coating or making too big of a deal out of this. It's a serious subject that many do not have an opportunity to talk or be open to asking questions about. Do you think that because I believe in God, his son Jesus and the Holy Spirit that lives within me that I would not have had any temptations or mistakes to be upset or ashamed about???? I hope you answered No...that has nothing to do with it. THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT. Does it mean that people who go to church or grow up in church-going or spiritual homes will not have anything to be upset or ashamed about????? NOPE! You couldn't be more wrong. WE ALL HAVE STRUGGLES. WE ALL WILL HAVE SOME FORM OF STRUGGLE. There's no getting around that. It's not the end of the world. It can be tough to forgive yourself, but it's not impossible. You and I can dream all we want about driving a car when we are 16, but the reality is there is soooo much responsibility behind it. There's even scary times, when we make the wrong turn or take a corner too fast. It doesn't have to be stressful if both the teacher and the student work together to accomplish this task! The same goes for when we are dealing with relationships. We need good teachers, and young people need to be mindful that they are growing up and couldn't possibly know EVERYTHING just yet! It's not wrong to be young and growing and not know absolutely everything. It seems young teens feel like it's wrong to not know. Because we as adults haven't always treated teaching as an honor. For adults, it's an honor to show young people what's going to happen as they enter adulthood and how their feelings change. For children, it's a wonderful adventure to find your true self on the journey of growing up. It's not handled like that often. I can picture some of you shaking your heads like I fell off the turnip truck and it rolled over my head. I didn't say that all parents, teachers, friends, family and surrounding neighbors always act like it's an honor. In reality it is because they didn't have that kind of attention either. How can we emulate something we haven't seen or been taught????? It's completely illogical to think we just grow up to be something better without understanding what anything is or how to out do the last set of people who came before us. We all deserve to know that the purpose of being born into a family or born at all is to have people see us for what we are: Human. Totally human, which means needing someone to tell us what we are about to experience, how to adjust to the changes in our bodies and what we will be facing as Evil progresses in our society. We are so amazing when we work together and we stand up for what is right. We change the world when we Pray to the Lord and have the Holy Spirit enter in on our behalf and fight the battles for us. We all need to have time spent talking with us to develop an understanding of our bodies, what to do when sexual feelings come over us and how to make good choices when spending time with people we are interested in whether we decided prior to have sex or not. The idea that we are going to be prepared for this type of situation is CRAZY! Try jumping behind the steering wheel when you turn 16 and drive that car right out of the driveway just because you've been sitting in the backseat for 16 years. Lol. Not going to be a good outcome. We've learned that as a society already. We all need to be mentored. Sex is such a touchy subject once again because it has ties to being cast from the Garden of Eden. I don't want to go all preachy for those of you trying to figure out what the Bible is all about. This is my take on the situation. I adore the beginning and thinking about what would have gone through the minds of the only 2 people on the planet. I am fascinated by what must have completely changed psychologically the moment that Adam and Eve realized that they were naked. In that moment when Eve chose to sin and eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, she learned that her death would not be a physical one but rather a spiritual one. Just another learning moment for those precious people going ahead of us on this tough journey. They decided to clothe themselves because their sexual organs and naked skin was something of sexual stimulation and because they had never experienced that before they didn't know how to address it (no pun intended;). They had stimulation overload within seconds of sinning. Nakedness and sexual arousal were going to be things the Devil used to manipulate other people who don't have an opportunity to learn about the enemy and how he tears down. I hope that you're following my line of thinking here. This means that every person on the planet has to have someone (or a group of people) explain all the minute details of how to develop your own walk with the Lord and how to be involved with your own body so that you too have a chance to grow and help another. This means that parents are given the first right of teaching the necessary skills to deal with changes and difficulties that will come your way. It sounds easy enough but it's so much harder because of what can happen with anxiety and poor family relationships due to each individual's self esteem. We need to have a high regard for our own body before we can learn to hold up boundaries on our self. I learned to love myself along the way and often now have people tell me that my self esteem is incredible. So much of what people factor as self esteem is: liking the way you look, the way you make money, what family you come from or even if you went to college. Maybe it's predicated on if you're married with children or live in a fancy house. I've come to learn the complete opposite. I've come to learn self esteem is what makes you strong enough to stand up against the social norms for good reason. I've come to learn that it is in liking yourself completely, absolutely 100%, without anything else. Just you. That "YOU" that you take everywhere to brighten everyone's day as you come upon them. The man or woman that God has designed you to be. To share your light wherever you go and to tell of his love for them by showing them love. To be fully interested in the life that is all around you. To be interested in yourself as you are a creation of God and he has interest in you worshiping him. I believe we worship him all day long when we realize how amazing we are. When we get that human life isn't so crappy and it is worth the uphill battles. I let the wrong kind of love in when I was struggling with my self worth. I let "sex" be the main factor as I was purging out the food issue my parents had brought to the table. I could have made it a lot worse by adding in other addictions. I was spared from the desire to indulge them. To this day I have never used or been offered any kind of drug, alcohol or cigarette. For that, I am grateful. I know that there are going to be some of you out there that will not be able to say that. Drugs, pills, alcohol and other self deprecating forms of habits are seeming to be around every corner. You may find yourself being asked if you want to go to parties and join in just to be noticed or feel apart of the crowd. I am not unaware of how special everyone wants to feel and when someone starts to pay attention to you where no one else seems to be doing just that, it can lead to reeeaaallly bad decisions. I wanted to get down to the real basics here before we move on. I wanted to pour out my heart and let you know I've been down this tough road where you need to make decisions for your body and your sexuality and it's going to be tough. I want you to know you need to work on loving everything about yourself by accepting you're human and work on the areas that you can. NEVER NEVER NEVER give up on yourself. We are in this together and it's a process to understand your brain and it's functions. I will continue to pour out what I've learned so we can go this road together. I'll be your driving instructor for this ride!!!!