Friday my mom and I were talking and she mentioned to me that I am beautiful, that she wishes I could see the beauty in me. I tend to find the negative in myself and I let it bring me down. As she said this I knew what she was saying is true, yet I find it so difficult to find the positive in me. Finding this article yesterday helped me remember some things I've forgotten and gave me a challenge that my mom is wanting me to do.
I got online and saw someone posted in their blog that our bodies are temples. It's something I've been taught since I can remember, but also something I've forgotten. "Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God..." (http://www.thebeautywithinfoundation.org/2011/03/know-ye-not-that-ye-are-temple-of-god.html). Some things I like that she said in here blog are in italics
"The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
"How often do we defile our "temples" by obsessing over what we look like, how fat or thin we are, if our hair and makeup is just right, eating the wrong kinds of foods, overeating and then throwing it up or not eating at all, exercising too much or not at all, comparing our bodies to someone else, etc, etc? Sister Tanner says that she had problems with acne in her childhood and her and her parents did everything they could to take care of the problem. She even went without chocolate and greasy foods for years without any healing consequences. It was very difficult for her to fully appreciate the body which was giving her so much grief. But her mother taught her a higher law...she said to her over and over "You must do everything you can to make your appearance pleasing, but the minute you walk out the door, forget yourself and start concentrating on others."
"We should care about our appearance, we should make ourselves pleasing, but we shouldn't spend so much time worrying about it that we don't take the time to help others feel their best."
I like what David A. Bednar said in his talk at Ricks College in 2000, "Imagine the reaction you or I might have if we saw defacing graffiti on the exterior of one of our Church’s temples(if your not the same religion as I am then something you find sacred). The very thought of finding such inappropriate markings on a temple is offensive to all of us." How do you think god feels when he sees what we do to our bodies, with our thoughts, or physical actions to ourselves?
Susan W. Tanner said to the young women, "Satan learned these same eternal truths about the body( The great principle of happiness consists in having a body. The Devil has no body, and herein is his punishment), and yet his punishment is that he does not have one. Therefore he tries to do everything he can to get us to abuse or misuse this precious gift. He has filled the world with lies and deceptions about the body. He tempts many to defile this great gift of the body through unchastity, immodesty, self-indulgence, and addictions. He seduces some to despise their bodies; others he tempts to worship their bodies. In either case, he entices the world to regard the body merely as an object. In the face of so many satanic falsehoods about the body, I want to raise my voice today in support of the sanctity of the body. I testify that the body is a gift to be treated with gratitude and respect."\
I can relate to what Julie K. Kennard said in her talk Mirror Image
"I hated looking in a mirror. I hated buying clothes. I hated running into people I knew before I got sick. I hated myself. I was stuck in a downward spiral of self-loathing. I was also struggling to accept the fact I couldn’t do everything I used to do. I simply didn’t have the health to do everything anymore. I hated this body I had that hurt all the time and kept getting sick. I felt I was stuck with a fat, ugly, sick body."
This is how I've been feeling lately, what my mom was talking to me about in the car the other day.
"We hear all the time in Young Women that our bodies are temples. And one day I had a flash of understanding. It didn’t matter if my body was fat or skinny, it was a temple. I’ve never heard anyone make fun of the way the temples look, so why do we do that to our personal temples—our bodies? I realized that every time I felt bad about my body, I was being ungrateful for and disrespectful to a temple. I remembered that one-third of the hosts of heaven didn’t even get mortal bodies."
"I knew the Lord didn’t care what size dress I wore. He cared that I was clean and worthy. I had kept my own temple pure. In those mirrors I could appreciate what a beautiful gift my body was.
I am not stuck with my body; I am blessed with it."
I really like what Viki F. Matsumori said in her 2002 talk Sharing Time: Ye are the temple of God "The temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are unique. The Salt Lake Temple in Utah has gray granite walls and six spires. It looks different from the Cardston Alberta Temple in Canada, which has natural stone walls and no spires. Even though each temple looks different, all are beautiful and are built for the same purpose." That goes for each one of us too, we are all different, we are all beautiful, and we are all here for the same purpose to receive a body, be tested, to be able to return to live with our Father In Heaven. "You are like the temple. You are different from everyone else, but you, too, are a house for the Spirit of God."
"Just as you treat temples with respect, you should treat your own body with respect. You can do this by obeying the Word of Wisdom...by dressing modestly, and by following the counsel of President Gordon B. Hinckley to “be clean”...You should also keep your heart and mind clean by reading, listening to, and watching only “things that are pleasing to Heavenly Father"
Lets treat ourselves with respect. <3
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