Letting Go of the Barbie Mentality and the Lies

      Here are a few of my memories and thoughts about Barbie. When I was young I owned several barbies. At the time I thought Barbies were beautiful toys with beautiful hair, colored eyes, and skin color. I do remember I began with one barbie and at some pointed accumulated on too many. And I will confess that a family member purchased, in my young eyes a "hot pink and super cute" limo when really it was a materialistic Pepto-Bismol piece of plastic with four wheels! Yes a Barbie and her Pepto-Bismol colored vehicle are not awful toys, but I have picked up on one message Barbie sent to our culture.
     Now looking back, I do believe the "cute" look and idea of having a barbie and accessorizing her is really a message and comment on our culture. Barbie was believed to be a strong and yet fierce-plastic representation of what a woman ought to look like and be like...yuck! How sad that some of us have at some point bought into the lie of what beauty is or ought to look like and it takes us back to a I am not at all familiar with the way in which Barbie progressed or "grew up," but its so intense. Yes, she's a plastic doll, but there is something deeper here, something very heavy about the message and the power behind this tan piece of plastic. Without doing any researching on the production, accessories, and life of Barbie and what she "offered" young girls of the generation in which she was produced I do believe a few things about Barbie.
     Barbie developed and changed. Barbie was all about the pinkest, the cutest, the newest, the boldest, the biggest, and the better "it" item. Barbie was on the go. Barbie was all about dropping everything she was doing to pursue the biggest and newest thing.
      This whole idea and thinking was revealed to me I believe by the Holy Spirit while I was driving in the car and today. I was driving in the car and this woman very quickly and obviously zoomed by me and in frustration and a certain degree of surprise I said aloud, "see ya later Barbie!" I honestly was so surprised that I said that, I have no idea where that came from, obviously my heart. And then I though to myself, why in the world did I call her, "Barbie," and then it hit me, Barbie is always so on the go and all about whats next.
       I know that I am a busy college student and our culture is all about having a plan, knowing whats next, and being on the go. I don't want to be so into what is next in life that I forsake and miss out on the right now. I want to make the most of the beautiful and blessed present.  I often do have a Barbie mentality and I want to rest in Jesus where I am and take one step at a time. In everything I want to be in step with the Holy Spirit and I want to walk with my Dad in every season. I'll pray that He helps me to let go of the Barbie mentality and the lies.

Trust

Taking time to listen
Resting in Jesus
Understanding His ways are higher
Sitting at His feet in prayer
Thanking Him for what He will do/for how He will lead and guide us

I want to learn what it means to trust Jesus. I am sure it is not a lesson I can learn in one day. Trusting Jesus is a daily act, a daily action.

"Hearts" is the title

      In keeping with the freedom mission on this blog and honesty, no matter how serious, funny, or embarrassing; here is a key-hole sized view into my past. I know I wrote this twelve years ago today, I was seven years old. I don't know what all had happened up to this point, I'm not sure if I had started my personal relationship with Jesus at this point, but I do know that the Holy Spirit had been revealing Jesus' MAD CRAZY HUGE AWESOME WONDERFUL love for ME!
    I remember that I was in first grade when I began having a personal relationship with Jesus. I also remember that I would often write about Jesus in many of my school assignments, whether He was the prompt or not.
    One afternoon last week I looked through one box that contained several writing journals, assignments, art work, and small treasures my mom had saved from the precious first grade. When I think first grade I think of my funny drawings and multiple misspelled words written in awful handwriting with letters in all different sizes.
    The picture above shows my thought process and what I had been learning, its sporadic, honestly probably very similar to this and other blog posts. In the picture its obvious that I started off with writing about shapes, then to hearts, then to Valentine's Day and crossed on over into God's love. I love that I thought of Jesus first when I thought about valentine's day, that is very special and sweet.
     I really do want to be able to say that Jesus is my first love. I want to proclaim that having a relationship with Jesus is the most beautiful and satisfying relationship I will ever have. In the next couple days I will be praying for an opportunity to share with someone that I will forever and always have a Valentine to spend time with on Valentine's day and His name is Jesus.I pray that my focus on valentine's day from this point forward, single or in a relationship that I will spend time with my first love, with my forever Valentine named Jesus and then possible get excited about spending a later part of the day with a man the Lord has placed in my life at the time. Jesus loves me so much and created me to have a personal relationship with Him. He created YOU for the same purpose!
   The world views February 14th as single's awareness day...that's a bunch of none sense. Christ follower: pray that February 14th will be Daddy Awareness Day, that men and women will come to Jesus, seeing Him as their daddy and understanding His great love for them! 
   Jesus loves you so much!