Ripple Effect

We were driving in the car, to a fro yo date to be exact. Me in the driver's seat, her diagonally behind me in the back, our usual seating arrangement. I was doing what I always do when she's in the car, blasting ridiculous tunes with corresponding ridiculous dance moves. She was indulging me with giggles that will probably only last a few more years before they turn to embarrassment. 

She asked me if I ever wear my contacts anymore. I said I wear them on special occasions, the way she does with the pretty dress she had on that day. She asked if it's because I didn't take care of my contacts. Clearly, one: she is too smart for her own good, and two: Mom took advantage of a "learn-from-your-older-sister's-mistake" moment. 

She then said in her proudest voice, "I'm going to get glasses soon!" 

I asked her, "Really? Did you go to the eye doctor?" To which she responded, "No, Dad tested me by holding up notecards with letters on them." {Got a good laugh imaging that. Way to go Dad, who needs them eye doctors anyway?}

I asked her how she felt about getting glasses; she said she was excited. "2 of my friends wear glasses," she said, "and you do too."

I praised, and praised, and praised Him in that moment.

 I praised Him for every visit to the eye doctor in the last year and a half that left me with the same diagnosis: your eyes hate contacts. I praised Him for every failed attempt to fix that. I praised Him for every time I sat and cried because I felt ugly in my glasses, for every time I wrestled with the lie that I would never find a husband in these things. 

Sound a bit dramatic? Isn't that just how the enemy works? He plants these lies in your head that just spiral, and spiral, and spiral. 

Until they don't spiral anymore. Until you put your foot down on that rock solid ground of God's truth and say enough. Until you look up to heaven, and through teared eyes confess that you need help believing His truth, because you're done with the lies. 

And that's what I've done these past few months. I've looked up to Him and asked Him to help me believe His truth that says I'm beautiful. That says I'm altogether beautiful, beautiful in every way. {Song of Solomon 4:7} 

Beautiful with or without makeup, give or take 5, or 10, or 20 pounds, in a perfectly coordinated outfit or in sweatpants, and with or without glasses. 

I praised Him in that moment, because He came through. I'm not sure when or how it happened, but some time during Catalyst, my mind just shifted. The lies started fading, and the truth started solidifying. It will be an ongoing process, I'm sure, but it's happening. 

And it's not just affecting me. It never just affects us, does it? Our lives affect the people around us whether we realize it, or not. Whether we want it to, or not. 

And in this particular situation? I want it to. I want to do everything in my power to ensure that little girl grows up knowing she is beautiful inside and out because her Father in Heaven made her that way. 

Just two weeks ago, I was hard core wrestling with this. I knew there was good in the outcome, but I was very much mourning the process it would take to get there. I wanted to use this to help as many girls as possible learn the lesson that I was learning, that we put conditions on our beauty when we try to live up to the world's standard of beautiful, conditions that God never created, nor intended for us. I wanted to help others learn this, but I was really struggling with learning it myself. I was really struggling with giving up those conditions. 

And you know what, it was worth the struggle. It was worth it to hear her little, tiny, 9 year old voice talking about wearing glasses with pride. 

He really, really does work everything together for good. {Romans 8:28}

Happy Tuesday, friends. Whether you're wrestling, resting, or rejoicing today, I hope it's a blessed one. 

What I want to tell you

I'm sitting here in bed at 10:42PM listening to the rain, and trying to figure out how to kick off this blog post. And since I really want to say 'why hello there!' but I've already typed and erased that a few times cause it just doesn't sound right, I figured I may as well get on with it. 

I'm really glad I don't have an English teacher grading these blog posts. Pretty sure she would cringe at that introduction. 

There's just so much that I want to say right now. I want to tell you about the wonderful, fun, relaxing Bachelorette weekend I had in Palm Springs. 

I want to gush about the fact that I've known this girl since second grade, and it's crazy to see how the Lord has worked in each of our lives, and in our friendship. It's equally crazy that in exactly two months from yesterday, I'll be standing beside her as she gets married. Like, woah. 

And just for kicks:

I want to tell you that I'm reading this book: 

I want to tell you how reading Dave Lomas' vulnerable account of his own identity crisis has helped me identify my own. I want to tell you all about my Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis diagnosis, which is basically a super professional way of saying my eyes hate contacts. I would probably make a lot of jokes about it, and say a lot of positive things about how there is so much purpose in this & God is using it for His good and His glory. 

And, to be fair, both of those things are entirely true. God's using my broken eyeballs to do a lot of good in my heart, and it is pretty funny to say that I have broken eyeballs. 

But I also want to tell you that it's hard. I want to be authentic and say that it's shown me how much I was relying on feeling confident in my physical appearance. Sometimes you don't realize you're using something as a crutch until God so graciously takes away the crutch. 

Actually, it's not exactly when He takes it away that you realize it; it's what happens after. It's when you find yourself ugly crying, or grieving like you lost a limb, or feeling the crippling sensation of fear, hoplessness and doubt. All over whatever simple thing was removed in the first place, for me: contacts. 

 I also want to tell you that it's okay to do those things. It's okay to ugly cry; it's okay to grieve when you feel like you don't have a reason to; and it's okay to acknowledge that you feel crippled from fear, hopelessness, or doubt. God doesn't ask us to hide our emotions, and He certainly would never tell us they're invalid. They are valid to Him, because He understands them. He understands them more than we do. 

He doesn't want us to hide from our emotions, He wants us to walk through them with Him. Because guess what: there's a light at the end of the tunnel. A light that we might never have found had we not gone through the crutch-removal surgery in the first place. 

For me, I see that light. I see the fact that my heart and mind and vision are being restored to see beauty the way He sees it. I see that I'm learning to truly find confidence in the Lord above all other things. I see that I'm learning to throw up my hands, and surrender to Him what every part of my flesh wants to control via wikipedia/google/wedMD. I see that I'm learning to trust that He has good plans for me. 

And now that I've turned what I thought would be a tip-of-the-iceberg post into a full blown heres-my-life post, it's your turn. 

What's new with you?

Just call me four eyes

When I was little, I would say that I'm allergic to mosquito bites and cigarette smoke. I made that presumption based on the golf ball size of my mosquito bites, and the way that my lungs felt broken after a whiff of smoke. 

Now that I've got a few years of wisdom under my belt, I can see that I am, in fact, not allergic to mosquito bites or cigarette smoke. I just seem to have been blessed with blood that tastes as sweet as pina colada to mosquitos, and just about everyone and their mother is "allergic" to cigarette smoke. 

So what am I allergic to, you ask? Well, nothing really. Except apparently the contact brand that I've been using for the last five or so years. Yupp, turns out my eyes have decided to go all "ah heyyll no" to Acuvue contacts. (But I love your guys' ad campaign, really do). 

So what does this mean for me? It means I'm wearing these bad boys for the next couple of weeks as my eyes ease up on the temper tantrum:

Being restricted to my glasses really gets me thinking. You see, I've been your good old four eyes since wayy back in first grade, when my teacher ratted on me to my parents. Apparently it's not good to be squinting all the time. Psh, what did she know? 

So off we went to the eye doctor, and I can distinctly remember walking out of the office with my spankin' new pair of glasses, and looking around the parking lot. The blue in the sky! The green in the trees! It wasn't all blurring together. And just as God said "let there be light!", bam! Amy had sight again. 

And you would think that's a good thing, right? Wrong. Maybe it was nice to see clearly again, but it also introduced me to a whooole new element of self consciousness. My teacher had to remind me multiple times to wear my glasses, because I was willing to take the blurry blackboard (do kids even have those these days?), over the embarrassment of the glasses. 

Looking back, I can't even remember where that embarrassment came from. I highly doubt anyone actually told me that glasses made me ugly, and yet, that's how I felt. I carried that with me allll the way until my parents finally let me get contacts in 7th grade. And it was a happy day, let me tell you. 

Over the years, I got way more eye infections than I'd like to admit for overwearing my contacts. (And you wonder how I got an eye allergy...). This especially started happening in college, when late nights of studying (and other activites) would lead to the brilliant idea of sleeping in my contacts. And so, I would be forced to wear my glasses as my eyes would heal. 

Lo' and behold, I would actually get compliments on them. And it was right about then that I realized how ridiculous the self consciousness that I had been carrying for years was. The Lord has even further emphasized this to me, as I realize that my beauty doesn't come from appearance, or fashion, or fitness, or contacts versus glasses. My beauty comes from my Creator in Heaven. 

I remember one time being diagnosed with an eye infection, and looking straight at my eye doctor and saying "but I don't have glasses to wear." And I really didn't! I had left them in San Diego because that's how seldom I wore them. 

I'm thankful that now, I not only have a pair of glasses that I love (thanks, Firmoo!), but I can rock them realizing that glasses or no glasses, I am Amy Reed, daughter of the King of kings. 

And you are altogether beautiful, darling! Beautiful in every way. 

Free Glasses, you say?

Was tagged to do a 5 facts post, hence where this came from on Friday:

And it's true, I've got horrible vision guys. 

Unless you saw this post, you probably wouldn't have known. Since that is the only picture on my blog of me in glasses. 

Until now:

When I was contacted by Firmoo, I could not have been more excited to do my first product review on a pair of their glasses. 

If you're a blind bat glasses-wearer like me, then you probably know that paying for prescription glasses can be quite the pain. Especially when you're also investing in contacts. 

Not anymore!

Firmoo offers all customers their first pair of glasses free! You've just got to pay shipping, and bam. You got yourself a pair of super cute glasses delivered right to your door!

And even if you're going to invest in a second pair later on, the prices are still so much cheaper than they normally are! With just as great of quality!

I know where I'll be getting my glasses from now on. 

Check out all of the different cute styles at Firmoo.com.

Happy Monday, lovelies! I've got some good stuff coming for you this week. Get your prayer pants on, cause I'm gonna have some major prayer requests coming your way. So thankful for the incredible gift of fellowship that Blogland has given me.

Love you all.