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Body Truth Collective

Helping Young Women Become Compassionate, Capable, and Strong

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A Shift to Focus on God’s View of Me

November 22, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Our featured guest, Caroline Sears, sits right of her friend, who is also her sister. You’re sure to enjoy her story below, honest and hope-filled.

Throughout my life I have struggled with perfectionism, people-pleasing, and control. I have always wanted people to view me as perfect and an expert in everything I do whether that is work, school, or just my personal life.

I struggle with the desire to be someone that everyone likes, admired, and looked up to. And I have always struggled with trying to control the things that are not in my control, but are up to God. 

Over the past several years, God has been revealing to me more and more every day about how he views me and about the Grace and Mercy he gives me on a daily basis.

Through time in the word, prayer, and community, God has been teaching me that I am not perfect and the desire to have the world view me as perfect is not healthy.

My desire has shifted to focus on how God views me instead of how the world views me. God has been teaching me to love and view others the way he loves and views them.

This has helped release some of my people pleasing tendencies because I have started to view myself in the way God views me. Finally, God has been teaching that He is in control and not me. This is very humbling because my pride often gets in the way of trusting God’s plan over mine. 

I love Hebrews 4:16 because it reminds me of who God is, how He comforts me in times of joy and in times of sorrow, and because it reminds me that God created me to be bold and confident in who I am and who He created me to be.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

What People See When They See Me

November 14, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Karleen Bynum comes with a message that is direct and Savior-focused. Her words speak to me, soon to be the shortest person in my family!

“Something that I have struggled with growing up was my height. Throughout junior high and high school people would make jokes about how short I am.

…..

I grew up wishing that I was taller, that maybe if I was taller more people would like me. 

…..
I started to lean more on God and pray more about it. I started to notice that it did not really matter about what I look like or how tall I am.

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People care more about how you treat them and love them more than what you look like.

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God created us.

…..

We are HIS masterpiece and He loves us just the way we are!”

Filed Under: Capable, Young Women

Kennedy Moore Shares:We Are His Masterpiece

November 8, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Recent Baylor graduate, Dallas based grad student, and full time student ministry assistant at Northwest Bible Church, Kennedy Moore is filled with passion to pursue Jesus. I’m thankful for her message here.

God continues to reveal Himself as I press into His truths about who I am in Him. Genesis echoes the promise that I am made in the image of Christ. How cool is it that I am a mirror of Christ’s boldness, gentleness, love, and grace?

Although these are words that describe my inmost being, my body is made by the greatest artist I can think of — God. I was formed knowing this image of Christ would resound in the way I exercise, what foods I choose to eat, and how I view my body as a temple.

Now, I have not always had this view. 

I have struggled with needing affirmation since I was in middle school. I would seek my identity in what the world said was culturally beautiful. I would ignore 1 Peter 3:3-4 and dismiss the idea that I was made to glorify a Holy God.

But I’m thinking differently these days. And I’m curious if you’ll think through these questions with me. Would you walk past a beautiful painting and tell the artist that He made a mistake?

How are you treating your body as a masterpiece?

How are you treating your temple?

I encourage you to begin, if you are not already, thinking of your body as this — a holy and righteous place.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

From Hate to Love: My Body Image Story

October 30, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

This was a moment, speaking at my first body image conference in September. How good God is to redeem our hardest seasons!

Growing up, I believed that skinny was pretty. And that everything else was unattractive. Unworthy. Meant to be criticized.

My parents poured encouraging words into me, but their words were not enough. In the battles I fought, I needed more than praise.

I fought the idea that girls and women should diet if they looked a certain way. My Southern grandmother fed that idea to her daughters, and we heard our mothers speak. I can’t remember a time when my family’s women weren’t talking about trying to lose weight.

I fought the idea that girls and women should compare themselves to soap opera actresses and magazine models. I grew up in the 80s and early 90s; that was the messaging.

I fought the idea that girls and women should one-up each other, size up each other, and take shots at each other so as to make themselves feel like the smartest, prettiest, and most attention-getting in the room.

And so, my teen years were full of fighting. And controlling.

In the midst of the fighting and struggling with how to love my alcoholic father and trying to hide my sadness in the midst of my parents’ divorce [Read more…] about From Hate to Love: My Body Image Story

Filed Under: Capable, Compassionate, Strong, Young Women

Wholehearted Surrender

October 25, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Katelyn Robinson, senior Education major at Mary Hardin Baylor, headlines our #fridayintroductions this week; I’m loving her guest post below!

“When I laid my life in God’s hands, He began working on me in ways I couldn’t always see. It seems like every day He reveals a new aspect of my identity in Him.
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Slowly, but surely, His unconditional love for me is teaching me to love myself.
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My identity is no longer found in the mirror, the numbers on the scale, or my past riddled with struggles and an eating disorder. When I look at my life now, Romans 12:2 comes to mind. I am no longer a slave to the opinion and standards of society, and IT. IS. GOOD.
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My fears and past have been drowned by His perfect, unyielding love, and dear friends, this freedom is exhilarating! With God at the center of our goals, we learn to rely on a strength that is not our own and to follow a plan greater than we could imagine.
….
So I want to encourage you, dear reader: If you’re in a season of doubt, struggle, or really any season of life, strive to live in wholehearted surrender.
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As our precious Jesus said in Luke 22:42, “.. not My will, but Yours, be done.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Beautiful Work of Our Hands with Erin Eby

October 17, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Welcome college student, Erin Eby! A life marked by joy is what you’ll recognize as you read her post below.

“Howdy Ladies! My name is Erin, and I am a sophomore Sports Management major from Houston, Texas. I am a part of Aggie Sisters for Christ at Texas A&M University.

I love to cook, bake, do zumba, and watch any and every Houston professional sports team!

Psalm 139:14 is a verse that I have always stuck to when I think of my body. It says: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

God fearfully and wonderfully made us!

During my middle school youth group days, I heard a speaker once say, “God made you himself. You would never call something that one of your friends made on their own, “ugly!” So why would you call yourself, something that God hand crafted himself, “ugly?”

This is something that has really stuck with me throughout my middle and high school years, especially since body image is such an important thing for young girls.

As I focus on body image and our bodies, I keep thinking about how God created our hands. God has taught me a lot recently about serving with my hands.

During my senior year of high school, I got the opportunity to go to Riobamba, Ecuador, during Spring Break. My group was sent to the most remote villages there.

These villages had never seen people who were not Ecuadorian, much less people who were coming to them to wash their feet. Most of these people had never had a pair of shoes before.

Being on my knees and washing the dirty feet of people I didn’t even know was truly a humbling experience. And it changed how I saw my hands as a gift from God. It helped me see how our hands further the Kingdom in incredible ways!

My hope for any young girl reading this is that you strive to love yourself and your body, just as God made it. And to appreciate how using your body well can further His kingdom work!

You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and I hope you never forget it!”

Erin leads us directly into our message for next week – How do our hands affect body image? I’m already looking forward to Monday’s post!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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