Body Truth Collective

Look! It’s my teen board with @body_truth featured @voyagedallas ! A huge Thank You to the very talented Ashley Kobza and for my girls on the Advisory Board! Click here to see how @body_truth is forging ahead!

http://voyagedallas.com/interview/life-work-juleeta-harvey/

“Like many young ladies I have always had a love-hate relationship with the body I was given. Growing up heavily involved in dance and theatre, there was extra pressure in looking a certain way to achieve placement on a team or in a role.

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I vividly remember the first time my image was mentioned publically; I was in the fifth grade and my dance instructor noted to the class that I was finally losing the baby weight and getting a dancer’s body.

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Living with these picture perfect expectations from instructors and directors led me down a path of fad diets, copious amounts of time working out, and in measuring my value by my number on the scale or by what pants I could fit into.

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I have since come to understand that my body was given to me so that I can use it to Glorify God, not myself or man. By that, I mean that my body, its health and maintenance, is what allows me to do the things God has called me to do.

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Taking care of myself physically should not be for someone else or even for myself, but an act of worship to the one who gave me this body and life to live within it.

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If we live for our own self-promotion or selfish ambitions we will always feel some kind of emptiness, and this is what I experienced when I made my health and weight about myself and others.

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When I chose to look at my health and weight as a way to glorify God, I finally found the motivation and peace to learn what it is like to live a balanced and healthy life. I am definitely still learning and am not an expert by any means, but I hope this can be an encouragement to you!”

Being a freshman in college and constantly being surrounded by girls means that I am continually reminded by society that I have flaws and that I am not enough.

Social media has created images in our minds and a standard of what our world labels “perfect.” Although this thought is in the back of my mind frequently, I am so encouraged knowing that the true standard of all things is God’s Word.

Our primary identity first and foremost comes from the image of God. I have learned that as I press into, and follow Jesus Christ, the more I begin to look like him through my words and actions.

The verse that comes to mind is Genesis 1:27; it says, “God created human beings. He created them Godlike, reflecting God’s nature”.

As social media has become a huge aspect in our daily lives, it has become so easy to enviously or pridefully compare and judge yourself and others based on other girls appearances and talents . But how cool is it that God’s true standard shatters the false standard, giving us a right perception of ourselves?

This past semester I have really been able to cling to that truth, that I was created in God’s image and that this body is not my own, but a gift that the Lord has given to me.

I hope and pray that every girl, no matter their age can one day look in the mirror and know that they are seeing God’s masterpiece.

Knowing that God created each one of us with a purpose is so special and so fulfilling. We were created to know him and make him known! I hope every girl who reads this strives to love their bodies and most of all, love their creator!

Mountain bike riding, swim team, flag football, water polo, and my favorite- soccer. Sports have been a vital part of my life.

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I have never striven to be the thinnest or the prettiest, but to be the strongest. I believed my physical strength was how I could stand out to others. That was where my worth could be found.

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I thought I would be looked at more highly by others because I was physically strong. I have always been good at sports, not always the best on the team but I could make up for that with physical strength, or at least that is what I believed.

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I believed my physical strength to be one of my most attractive “qualities.” I believed people would be more attracted to me if I was stronger and had more muscle than the normal girl. Therefore, that was what I strove towards.

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However, I was not satisfied…..and never could be satisfied through this.

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While physical strength is so important, I have learned it is not the most important trait. It is not what defines me. It is not who I am.

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As 1 Timothy 4:7-8 says, “Train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

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I was not depending on Jesus for who I was in Him or who He had created me to be. I had unconsciously put all my trust in my body rather than in Jesus.

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1 Peter 5:6 states, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” Reading it reminds me of something important.

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I am nothing without the Lord.

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The Lord is my strength, my peace, and my rest. Without him I am nothing.

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I will choose to seek Him first in everything. The body I have been given is a gift from God, and I have the choice to either glorify Him with it or myself.

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I’m learning to follow the direction of 1 Chronicles 16:11: “Look for the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.”

Whenever I was younger, I was extremely self-conscious of the way I looked, mainly because my body looked very different from my other siblings. I was considered to be the chubby sibling, and it started to get to me; especially if that was the first thing people noticed.

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As I went through puberty, this only got worse. Throughout middle school and high school, I hated the way I looked, and hated the fact that I was one of the few black girls in a predominantly white school. I started to be ashamed of my body and the fact that I was black, primarily because I wanted to fit in with the other girls at my school.

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I wanted my peers to consider me beautiful despite my skin color being difference than theirs. I was trying to find validation in other people, instead of God.

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It was not until my freshmen year of college, that I started to see my body as a gift of God.

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I have always heard of Psalm 139:13-16, but I never truly reflected on the importance of this verse. This verse reminded me of how much God loves me. It blew my mind when I started to think about God creating me in my mother’s womb, he specifically made me the way I am, and not being satisfied in my body is to not be satisfied in the way God created me.

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Instead of trying to change myself, or coveting other people’s bodies, I should be satisfied in myself and my body because my body is a reflection of God and his love.

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Psalm 139 talks about God creating people wonderfully, meaning we are his masterpiece. Realizing this made me start being proud of the fact that I am black, and that I look different from most of the girls at my school. Since God made me wonderfully, and God never makes any mistakes with his creations, it made me consider my skin color as beautiful.

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I started to be proud of the way I looked, and started to realize that God created diversity, and that diversity is a beautiful thing.

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The other thing that God calls us to do is treat our bodies like a temple, which reminded me that I should take care of my body. This means, being careful of what I put in my body, and making sure that my body embodies the temple of the Holy Spirit!