Be strong and love yourself.

I just saw something that made me sick to my stomach.


A while ago I was creeping on an old friend's tumblr and came across a picture I really liked. The top part showed the waist of a girl who was apparently very thin. The bottom part showed the waist of a girl who was not overweight, but probably about standard size in today's society. The caption for the first picture was "Be strong and get skinny", with the word "skinny" crossed out like it is here. The caption for the second picture was "Be strong and love yourself".


Unfortunately that friend deleted her tumblr account, so I was forced to resort to trying to find the picture via Google Images. While I wasn't able to find the exact picture I was looking for, I did find lots of other encouraging pictures with the same inspirational message...


...and some not-so-encouraging ones too.


Following one of the pictures I came across, I was led to a blog owned by a girl who was apparently unhappy with her body and trying to lose weight. The only description she gave of herself was "I want to be perfect". The blog was covered with pictures of girls who were obviously underweight, some of them abnormally so, and it had quotes such as "Hunger hurts, but starving works" and "Stay strong, think thin". Her blog glorified exercising to the point of extreme pain and other unhealthy habits such as cutting. Basically really disturbing stuff.


What was even more disturbing was some of the comments left on this blog, obviously from other teenage girls who were apparently really encouraged by this girl's posts, and the fact that she had almost three hundred members subscribed to it. Meaning that at least three hundred other people were being fed these lies about beauty, happiness, and perfection. Horrifyingly fascinated by this discovery, I began to do some research and stumbled across hundreds of other blogs like this girl's, girls who were obsessed with the concept of self-control and expressed shame, disgust and anger whenever they lost control and gave in to their natural human instinct to eat. They all seemed to believe that the more weight they lost, they happier they would become.


What's wrong with the world today?


Why is it that these beautiful girls think that because they're not thin, they must be ugly and worthless? The funny thing is, not one of the girls in the pictures on the first "pro-ana (anorexia)" blog I found looks genuinely happy. Most of them actually look quite the opposite. They're curled up, most of them half-clothed, with spines that jut out from their skin like dinosaur scales and bones that are visible where they shouldn't be; their heads buried in their arms or hiding underneath their hair, facing away from the camera. And these are the kind of girls that the owner of the blog considers happy.


Here's one of them.

Tell me, does this girl look happy to you?

You wanna know why these girls think the way they do?


Because society tells them to think that way. Because society tells them that thin is beautiful, that happiness is determined by what the scale tells you. And you know what?


Society lies.


YOU are beautiful exactly the way YOU are. Don't believe me? Want to how why I know this?


Well, I'm going to tell you.


Because there is not one single person on this earth like you. You were created, you were designed, you were stitched together by someone who loves you. To him, it doesn't matter what the scale says. To him, it doesn't matter how many calories you intake per day. To him, it doesn't matter how many pounds you gain or lose. To him, it doesn't matter that you have stretch marks or cellulite or "old lady arms". When he looks at you, he sees your heart. He sees your soul. He sees the things that matter, the things that make you who you are. In the eyes of society, your outside may not match up to the false standard of beauty that it advertises.


And you know what? It's okay. It's okay to be seventeen years old and weight over a hundred forty pounds. It's okay to have friends that are skinnier than you. It's okay to indulge in chocolate once every blue moon (or every day if you're like me). It's okay to have a stretch mark here or there or thighs that jiggle a little when you walk. Because those aren't the things that count. It's your inside that counts. It's your heart that counts. It's your soul that counts. It's who you are that counts.


You're already perfect. He's made you perfect. All you have to do is be you [tiful], and everything will work out in the end. I promise.


-Kati ♥


Psalm 139:14
"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well."



♥ *Believe it, please do! Believe it, it's true!*♥