Finally I See

                                Looking back on 2017, it’s been quite a year. We have all had our ups and downs; our highs and lows, but the best thing is that we have made it to the end of another year. If you have been connected to us, you will know that 2017 has been the year of #SpeakLife for Beautiful Faces Ministries (BFM). A year of learning to capture and cultivate a lifestyle of speaking good health: physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally over ourselves and over others. Our posts has looked at starting and finishing 2017 with a better perspective, new beginnings accepting who we are and valuing ourselves in a selfless way without vanity, wrong expectations, whilst believing that good things can and will happen again to all of us. It has been a great year of sitting with one another and sharing our lives together. God knows that we all need people who can #SpeakLife to us as much as we can #SpeakLife to them. Now, it’s a time of further self-reflec

Most of the time when we talk about something being valuable ( having importance or use, worth, having qualities worthy of respect, esteem and admiration ), we often connect it with materialistic items; things we can see, taste, or touch. However, what happens if we reflect this on ourselves? Is the value ( worth, respect, importance ) still the same or does it change? What would happen if we pulled up a seat, sat down, took out the imaginary mirror, looked into it, and simply asked, ‘Am I valuable?’ What would your first thought be? What would you say ?  Yes or no ? Would you even respond ? … something to think about. Why can it be so hard to value ourselves? Why is looking in the mirror difficult at times? How can such a simple question be challenging to answer? Is it because we allowed something or someone become the measuring rod for our self-value? Maybe we have let our characters, natures, situations, circumstances, relationships, behaviours, culture, socie

AGAIN simply means ‘ another time, once more, returning to a previous position or condition ’ (Oxford Dictionary). What I have been personally learning and walking through in my Christian walk so far is the FACT that God wants every area of me to be ALIVE (living, not dead – Oxford Dictionary). He invites and wants ALL OF US; inside and out, to be AWAKE (not sleeping) – John 10:10. To be awake can take on many forms and can mean many different things; it’s individual to each of us. These could be our dreams, careers, relationships, hopes and desires for the future; etc, anything. I want to share a small testimony (story) which I hope will show you what ‘again ’ can look like for a person. For those who don ’t know me, I LOVE DANCING. All my life I have danced, danced and danced. At the ages of fourteen and fifteen, I did GCSE dance at secondary school but dance changed for me. A group of girls; what we would call ‘the mean girls, ’ would always knock everyone’s confidence.

A friend once told me that the definition of the word beautiful is ‘Be You To The Full.’ I never really understood it at first. I thought it was just another silly saying or overused hashtag caught on by today’s youngsters. But oh boy was I wrong! Once I adjusted and re-climatised my thinking to what she said, it simply meant ‘BE YOURSELF’ – warts and all. To truly accept yourself for who you are and never being anything less than yourself. It was quite a hard pill to swallow at first as it deals with the core acceptance of self; not in a vain or selfish context, but in a way that means loving yourself as a person. But let’s face it, this can be very challenging at times. One of my most enjoyed Christian ministries is Ransomed Heart Ministries with John and Stasi Eldredge. Whilst relentlessly scrolling through Instagram the other week, I found an inspirational quote from Stasi: “He made you you – on purpose. You are the only you – ever.” It read as water to my

You may be familiar with L’Oréal’s slogan ‘ because you’re worth it’ ; but how many of us know our worth? When we think of things of worth, we may think of expensive cars, jewellery clothes, the renowned name brands and all things worth a lot of money;  Either because they are hard to find, one of a kind, special edition, handmade, carefully crafted, made with the finest, high quality materials or built to last. However, on the other hand, you’ve perhaps spent money on something and thought…well that wasn’t worth it. Perhaps because it didn’t last as long as you thought it would, or it didn’t live up to your expectations. I tend to love watching Bargain Hunt, Suddenly Rich and other shows where antique items are sold at a low cost and discovered to have such a high value after taken a look with a closer view. Funny enough I too is a fan of finding vintage treasures! These examples tend to happen when someone fails to see any worth in an item perhaps because it is rust

Most times in life we can complicate things and we don’t need to. This theme of #SpeakLife is simply to think about the words you say before you release them.  When you begin to understand that the words you speak have the power to create and bring life or death (Proverbs 18:21), you then should begin to think about the words you say with a higher level of conviction (a strong opinion or belief), responsibility (good judgement and the ability to act correctly and make decisions on your own), and accountability (a situation in which someone is responsible for things that happen and can give a satisfactory reason for them) – all definitions are from the Cambridge Dictionary.  Yes, sometimes life throws things your way and it’s not always your fault as it can be out of your control, but in the midst of this #SpeakLife journey why not ask this question: WHAT DO YOU SAY? If you was to get a journal; on one side write your daily thoughts and on the other side write down what you

We expect the sun to shine in summer and we expect the moon to come out at night because that's the way it always tends to happen, until the unexpected happens, an eclipse.  We then become surprise as it messes up our normal routine or way of seeing things; our expectation is forced to change. Such is life when we try to live up to the expectations of others. Because we always feel we must keep it up, so we find ourselves feeling drained, exhausted and finding it hard to run off the little fuel we have left to just be ourselves. Expectations are not always bad at times, it can be good especially when we and others may have high expectations of us but then we can see that they can be unhealthy when it becomes a bar too high to reach, because we then realise either it was never our character and more about what others were trying to project on us. Perhaps like myself you're the sort of person who always is strong for everyone, never seen shedding a tear, so automatica