Spring, Mothers and Daughters, and Senioritis

IT'S SPRING!!!! I don't know what it is about this season, but I always get this burst of positive energy whenever March rolls around. It feels like I just downed like 47 espresso shots and a whole bunch of candy. Except this motivation rarely gets distributed to the school portion of my life, especially now that I'm a senior and this is my last semester as a high school student. 

If you yourself are struggling with senioritis, (a very real thing) just buckle down and tell yourself to finish strong. We both know you'll feel good about the effort you've put into your schoolwork even when you didn't feel like doing it. I BELIEVE IN YOU. 

In other news, I recently had the amazing opportunity to speak at a program for mothers and daughters at my local church, and oh man it was SO fun. It was so incredible to get to see all the middle school/high school girls there and to  talk about modesty, virtue, and what it means to be a woman today. 

I can't even count how many times I said the words, "You are loved. You are valuable."  I wanted for those words to stick in their heads and I wanted them to believe it.  And that's what I want you to know too. If you're feeling like you can never measure up to the standards the world holds you too, just know that you are sufficient. I don't think we hear that enough.

I put the transcript of my talk below if you'd like to read it. Enjoy!

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I feel like most of you would agree that being a girl is extremely hard in today’s culture. It’s opposite to what the magazines and social media tells us how to act. And ladies, the world tells us so many confusing things. The world says we have to be dress a certain way, we have to be funny, smart, cute, tough, “sexy”, but not too sexy and a whole bunch of other things that contradict each other. It’s got me saying, “What do you mean??”

 I feel like I’m constantly trying to keep up, to be good enough, so people will like me so one day I’ll be happy. Have you ever felt this way? It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Trying to keep up? To be good enough? The sad thing is, if your idea of happiness is based on how many likes you get on Instagram, or how many people compliment your outfit, or if you’re considered ‘popular,’ then that is a sure guarantee that you will never be happy, because we’re meant to have so much more than that. How do I know that?

First, let me ask you a question. How many of you have had a crush on someone before and have had your crush not like you back?

I think we all know what that feels like. When someone doesn’t like us back, we ache. Remember how we were talking about wanting to fit in to be loved and accepted? If we aren’t, something in us hurts. But that ache is actually good, because it tells us that we are meant to be loved. That ache, that hole in your heart, exists to be filled! It tells us that we are made to be loved forever and exclusively. God put something inside us so we would know that. For instance, let’s say you’re with the guy you were crushing on and he looked deep into your eyes and said, “I will love you for like a month... and then I’ll probably just find someone else.” Ew.

 Something inside of you would just kind of cringe at a statement like that, because deep inside you know that’s not how it’s supposed to be. You want someone to say “I will love you always, through the good times and the bad times.”

God loves you like that, and it’s in His plan for you to experience that kind of love. That should tell you something about how extremely special you are. God promises you only the best for you because you’re worth it and you should never settle for less. Don’t settle for that guy who would only love you for a month. You deserve someone to love you as much as God loves you, and he died for you on the cross. So don’t settle.

So now that you know how valuable you are, we need to let everyone else know, right? How do we do that? Well, we do it with modesty. Everyone has a different understanding of what modesty is, but let me give you the real definition. Modesty is simply knowing that you’re too valuable to be looked at as an object. We don’t know what boys are thinking when we put on a itsy bitsy bikini, because we’re not boys (duh). Seriously, it might difficult for us to know what’s going on in the guys’ heads when they look at us, but a little while ago, a study from Princeton University did just that. They did this experiment where they showed men pictures of women in bikinis, and then showed them pictures of women dressed modestly and fully covered. Brains scans revealed that when that they were shown pictures of the women in bikinis, the part of the brain that is associated with objects, ‘like screwdrivers and hammers’ lit up, and some men showed no activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (which is the part of the brain that lights up when contemplating another’s feelings, intentions, and thoughts.) WHOA. 

Also, in the study, they found that while looking at the bikini girls, the men associated them with first person verbs like, “I push, I pull, I grab.” However, when shown images of girls modestly dressed, men associated the girls with verbs like, “she pushes, she pulls, and  she grabs,” and the brain scans showed that they related to them as people. We don’t realize how hard it is for guys to focus when we’re wearing next to nothing or wearing booty shorts or wearing low cut shirts. We’re like magnets because our bodies are good and beautiful, and they can’t help but look!  Pope John Paull II once said,

“The problem with immodesty is not that it reveals too much, but that it reveals too little.” What he meant is that when we show off our bodies, it’s harder for those guys to get to know us with our personality, our sense of humor and all the unique qualities we have. Instead, they notice our bodies, which is just one small part of who we are! How would you like it if people started calling you by “legs” or “butt” instead of your first name? That would be weird and extremely uncomfortable. We’re people, and we deserve to be treated with respect.

Your value is not based on what kind of clothes you wear, but you show how much you value yourself by what you wear.

But most importantly, above the way you dress or the fashions you choose, you show  in how you treat other people. The way you look doesn’t matter, because every beautiful girl is unique, we don’t all look the same. In order to be truly beautiful, you have to focus on being good, and kind to others. Fulton Sheen once said, “Beauty on the face doesn’t penetrate to the heart, but beauty in the heart radiates to the face,” and I couldn't agree more.

That's it.  Thanks for reading our blog, and sorry about the long hiatus! We've been workin' overtime, ladies. xD

Love,

Caroline