A World Race makeover.
There comes a time in every racers life when you realize there are a few things that have changed since you left home. We are all growing and changing from the inside out. We are letting go of fear and picking up courage, setting aside pride and finding humility, fighting apathy and choosing compassion and leaving behind independence and learning to live in community. We view home as any place that we leave our backpacks for the night, and we are learning to fight for the things that God has spoken over us and to walk worthy of the calling that we have been called to live.
Along with a change in our hearts, there have been a few alterations to our wardrobe and we have found a new definition of fashion. We have left behind the clothes that we started with, only to pick up some vintage tanks and Thai pants to complete a neat ensemble. We have left behind curling irons and blow dryers and embraced headbands and braids. Our cute boots and flats are at home in boxes, but we have found that Chacos or any other strange strappy sandal will go with just about anything. Most days are spent without make-up, mostly due to the fact that you will sweat it away all too soon. Colors and patterns that never used to go together now find their way into the same outfit. We may have even picked up a few extra pounds on our diet of carbs and coke, or lost a few in a month of manual labor. There have even been months where I did not look in the mirror due to the fact that they were nonexistent. We are redefining fashion out here, but we just might be on the cutting edge of something big.
Here are a few before and after photos for your viewing pleasure. I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce my new team.
Meet Beka (our team leader)
Pre-race Normal
Present life
Meet Danielle
From Miami beach fashionista to gray on gray on gray
Meet Erin
From Prestigious graduate
To mountain explorer
Meet Angela
From rocky mountain beauty queen to mud hut builder
Meet Annie
Our Canadian sweet heart, here she is before
And here she is now
Meet Megan
Then and Now she is rolling around in mud pits.
And Me, Anika
Pre-race put together
To now
In all reality I have never felt more beautiful than the days that I have spent in my grunge wear, hiking a mountain to preach the gospel at a school or throwing a pick ax to build a mud house. Mostly because I spend less time thinking about what I look like and more the plans that Jesus had for the day.
I believe that beauty changes things. That is holds power to affect an atmosphere. When something is beautiful it draws you in and causes things around it to change. True beauty comes from believing that you are exactly who God created you to be. It comes when we stop telling God that He made a mistake when He created us and start telling Him that we love His creation. Like most girls, I struggle with self image, I have days where I think, “ya, this is going well” and others where I look in the mirror and say, “well, this is as good as it’s going to get”. Then, I stop and think about the women that I look up to in life: my mom, my sister’s, my aunts, and my dear friends. I don’t look up to them because of what they look like, even though they are beautiful, but because of the loveliness of their hearts, their compassion, and courage that they hold inside them. When you sit by a lady who is at peace about who she is in Christ, you can tell, and you feel strangely at peace beside her. “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” Proverbs 31:30. So let us embrace the beautiful person that God has created us to be as women; both inside and out.
I love my cute boots, scarf’s, good hair days and hitting the gym to stay in shape as much as the next girl, but let it not be what defines me or where I place my confidence. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and body more than clothing” Matthew 6:25. Let us look at ourselves today and find peace in what the Lord created, and said was “very good”. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” Matthew 6:33.
Here’s to loving our bodies for how God created them, to finding our worth as daughters of The King, to becoming valiant warriors in a battle for His kingdom. To finding perfection in what the world would call imperfections, to knowing that we are lovely, to seeing that it is what God has placed inside of each of us that radiate beauty, to knowing that we have to power to change things around us. Here is to resting in the fact that we are loved and beautiful. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23. Let these be the things that people notice about us and can’t help but see the beauty of Christ within us.
These gorgeous ladies of Team Colors of the Wind, that I get to live, work, eat, sleep, laugh, grow, learn, and do life along side are just that, beautiful women of God. Wise and beautiful beyond their years I would say. Maybe we really are on the cutting edge of something.
