Three Years of Blogging
Photo by Lindsay Brown (2015)
This week marks three years since I started this blog. Three whole years of blogging! This blog is officially a preschooler.
On July 1, 2015, I posted my testimony to this blog, sharing for all the world to see the woman I once was and the woman God transformed me into. This blog was something I felt a stirring to do for a long time, but it took having my heart broken to really push me into writing it. I’m amazed at the way God used something painful in my life for my very good.
This blog has gone through many changes of its own. In 2015, I was baptized and shared my story with my church in New York City. I was growing in my faith and diving headfirst into the Bible, ready to soak up all God had for me. I was also still wrestling with my eating disorder, going to counseling every week, and figuring out what I wanted in my career and in my life.
Photo by Kat Harris (2016)
That summer I decided to be single for a while and try to take my time getting to know The Lord, rather than going about life according to my own plans..
Little did I know I’d be meeting Charles only a few months later. It was October 31, 2015, at the wedding of his sister, who also happened to be my roommate. I didn’t see him coming, at all. The craziest part of all: God used this very blog to show Charles more of who I am. Despite the long distance between us, Charles pursued me after falling in love with my heart written down right here.
Can I get a praise Jesus for that?
Photo by The Siegers (2018)
This small corner of the Internet has given me a place to process my thoughts on body image and anxiety, to meet some of the most kind-hearted readers around, to grow closer to Christ, and ultimately to share the hope of the Gospel. I feel like a very different person from who I was in 2015, and I believe the blog reflects that.
I’d love to know what you think of the blog and what you’d like to see in the future.
Please share more with this quick survey.
Thank you for joining me on this journey! Here’s to countless more years of blogging.
If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.
And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.
Truly, He makes beautiful things.
Courage, Dear Heart
I got a tattoo.
Yes, me, Maggie. The girl who loves puppies and watching Parenthood on a Friday night. I got a tattoo. It may be the smallest tattoo known to mankind, but it is there and it is real. Sometimes I look down at it, and I rub my index finger across it as if to test that it’s still permanent. (It is.)
I have been wanting this tattoo for more than a year, often drawing it on my wrist to confirm that I like it. On multiple occasions, I was asked by people if my Sharpie doodle was a real tattoo. After months and months, I realized I still liked it and wanted to make it happen.
So after grocery shopping recently, I decided to pop into my local tattoo parlor. The tattoo artists told me they had plenty of availability that evening. Cash only, and we’ll see you tonight, they said. I headed back a few hours later with my sweet friend, Katie. (Thanks, Katie!) I was in and out in about 20 minutes. Needles don’t really scare me, and the process wasn’t painful. I practically blinked and it was over.
I walked out of the tattoo shop beaming and excited about my new ink. I did it. I was officially tatted UP.
My tattoo is three small dots on my inner wrist—representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with me always.
The number three shows up a lot in the Bible. See faith, hope, and love, a series of three. The three times Paul pleaded for the thorn to be removed from his flesh. And, of course, Jesus’ rising from the dead on the third day. I’m also one of three kids. The tattoo is a reminder to me of all of these things, as well as a physical declaration of my identity.
Since getting tattooed, I’ve had four or five strangers notice it and ask me what it means. I’ve told them honestly: I’m a Christian and it’s for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So far everyone’s response has been, Oh that’s cool. Or, I really like it. Or, that’s awesome. None of these strangers are Believers. They might be replying like this simply because they’re surprised and don’t know what else to say. Or they might truly think it's cool. I believe a lot more people in this world are searching for God and the truth found in Jesus Christ than may outwardly admit it.
These three dots remind me to be courageous.
I have no problem enduring a bit of pain from a needle. And I am happy to tell total strangers about my faith when they ask me about the tattoo. God’s given me the courage to do that. But the courage to abandon my desire to control and follow him wholeheartedly? That courage sometimes still alludes me. Sometimes I’d rather cling to my schedule, my plans, and my busyness than courageously surrender to Him. Okay, most of the time.
You feel me?
It takes courage to say no to my own plans and follow His. It takes courage to stop revering my favorite bloggers and start revering Him. It takes courage to pray for the drunk guy on the street when all I want to do is judge.
God keeps bringing up this idea of courage to me.
I sat on the subway last week while a young man preached the Gospel. As in the legitimate, John 3:16 Gospel. He spoke aloud to the whole train, clear as day, even when a woman rolled her eyes and said, “Alright, already! Oh my God.” He continued talking, explaining everything from Adam and Eve to our sin to Jesus’ dying and rising again. He put it all out there. That takes courage.
I just so happened to be listening to a sermon podcast on courage at the same time.
And when I went to counseling the same night, my counselor suggested I pray for courage.
Courage is a theme for me. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be courageous. I remember reading through the Harry Potter series, hoping I, too, would have been called a Gryffindor because of my bravery. I want to be bold and unafraid.
This blog is a product of that desire. I talk so often about bringing things into the light. I believe we were made to let others into our messes, and, even more so, to let God into them. He already knows all about it anyway—and still He loves us. So I strive to let Him work in the mess and refine my heart in the process.
Theologian John Piper writes,
"Christian courage is the willingness to say and do the right thing regardless of the earthly cost, because God promises to help you and save you on account of Christ. An act takes courage if it will likely be painful. The pain may be physical, as in war and rescue operations. Or the pain may be mental as in confrontation and controversy."
It will likely be painful. And probably more painful than the I’m-going-to-ink-three-dots-on-your-wrist sort of pain.
Right now, I’m in a season of my life where I need courage to press into the uncomfortable. God’s been doing a whole lot of healing in me, physically, mentally, and spiritually. He’s renewed me in so many ways. I’m not the same woman I was five, three, or even one year ago. I’ve talked openly about my struggle with an eating disorder—and God has brought significant healing into that area of my life! His work has been slow and gradual, but it has been persistent. Even when I’ve taken steps back, He has propelled me two steps forward. That is a huge praise.
Now it’s going to take some work on my end to continue God’s healing and restoration. He will do it, of this I am confident. But I must be a ready and willing participant. I can finally say I’m ready. I want to live wild and free, not tethered to anxiety, insecurity, or disordered thinking. Those thoughts will come and go, but I know they don’t control me anymore. I’ve tasted the sweet fruit of freedom, and I want more.
The book of Josuha contains my favorite word on courage:
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. ”
I am going into the unknown. That’s scary and uncomfortable. For me, full freedom means kicking any old habits to the curb. Like an annoying ex-boyfriend who just won’t quit: They’ve got to go. Full freedom looks less like having a perfectly scheduled calendar and a five-year plan, and more like days full of space for Him to breath into. Full freedom starts where preconceived notions of what a good Christian life looks like end. And if I’m being honest (as I always want to do with you), full freedom for me means living with a few more pounds on me than I have right now. As a woman who is healthy, full, whole. A woman who values The Lord more than a particular dress size or the way her abs look. A woman who willingly walks as God designed her to, even if it’s scary, unfamiliar, or anxiety-provoking.
Because He looks at me—as He looks at you—and calls us good.
We have to trust in God's declaration and know it's truth that holds more weight than anything we're afraid of. It matters more than our feelings.
It’s going to take me significant courage to push through feelings of instability. What awaits me on the other side of the uncomfortableness and the unfamiliar is good and beautiful. Throughout my life, the things I’ve been most afraid of, whether that was rappelling, traveling internationally, or interning in New York City, ended up being the most worth it. Pushing through the fear was the best thing I could have done. The Lord was with me every step of the way.
He is in all of it. He is with us wherever we go.
Like the tattoo on my wrist, He is there no matter what. Nothing is too big or too small for Him to work in. We cannot scare Him away. As we continue to accept His love and His truth, His Spirit dwells within us. He’s not only a part of our lives, but He is truly the past, the present, and the future lives we live. Rest secure in that.
If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.
And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.
Truly, He makes beautiful things.
I'm Changing The Diet For My Mind
A version of this piece was originally published on verilymag.com. You can read all my articles for Verily here.
She’s engaged!
She’s having a baby!
Holy cow, her body bounced back so quickly.
She looks awesome in that bikini.
She ran a half-marathon; I can barely run two miles.
Wow, she cooked a gourmet “clean” dinner, whereas I ate a box of pasta.
I wish I could afford a Valentino dress and a Parisian vacation like her.
No, that’s not a back-and-forth between two girls in a chick-lit novel—that’s a sample of the running stream of thoughts that goes through my head as I scroll along in Instagram.
It starts out innocently enough. I open the app. I look at my feed, and then tap, tap, tap. The “search” page is too tempting to stay away from. The next thing I know, I’m looking at the past three months of my favorite fashion blogger’s outfits, or the entirely documented relationship of The Bachelor and his fiancée, or the wedding photos of a sorority sister whom I haven’t talked to in four years.
Then the comparison kicks in, the judgment statements become louder, and the self-doubt slowly spins its lies. A few minutes of mindless scrolling, and my head becomes a dangerous minefield ready to explode.
At least, that’s how it used to be.
Engaging in social media, blogging, building websites, and tracking all the latest happenings in the digital world are part of my job. And I love it. I really do. But recently I noticed how quickly I let myself get wrapped up in Instagram and Facebook and looking at other people’s lives.
Something that is supposed to be fun and easy became sneakily destructive.
My counselor is the one who brought it up. I had been telling her about my anxiety and how I tend to compare myself to other women—whether I know them or not. After talking about it with her, we both began to see how much my active digital presence contributed to this comparison complex.
She didn’t want me to drop social media entirely. As a writer, these platforms are helpful for me to build community and give me a place to share my work. But as someone who has struggled with body image and an eating disorder, what she did want for me to do is learn how to use social media in a healthy, life-giving way.
So my therapist challenged me to complete a mindfulness exercise: Write down every page I visit when clicking through the web, Instagram, or Facebook. Stop and write down each new page as I go along, and then take note if writing down the pages helped to curtail my browsing.
What was I clicking on? How fast was I moving to the next page, the next blog, the next Instagram image? Where did my thoughts wander when doing so?
I did this exercise for one day, and I was amazed at how much a bit of awareness changed my outlook. Employing mindfulness in my daily Web browsing not only made me more aware of what I was clicking on, but it also made me stop looking at pages and profiles that simply weren’t healthy for me.
I also looked at my iPhone battery settings to see exactly how many hours I spent on my phone—and how many hours I spent texting, going online, or pulling up Instagram. Let's just say those two-minute scrolling sessions to pass the time sure do add up.
How much time do I spend on social media, on websites, on things that ultimately do not matter? How much time do I spend on Jesus?
Too much and not enough.
So now I’m in the midst of what I call a mindful detox. Forget about detoxing with fruits and vegetables. I’m talking about a full-on detox for the soul. What I feed my brain and my heart is just as important as what I feed my stomach. I want to be healthy in mind, body, and soul.
I don’t need to see how a popular blogger got her “bikini body.” I don’t need to see the engagement photos of a sorority sister whom I haven’t talked to in years. And I most definitely do not need to see a lifestyle guru’s clean recipe whipped up to perfection in less than thirty minutes while I was eating delivery.
Looking at these snapshots is not an inherently bad thing. Oftentimes, doing so can be inspiring, encouraging, and exciting. Social media connects us and allows us to reach people, even befriend people, we otherwise would not have. But when I mindlessly tap from one image to the next, I stop seeing the images for what they are: bits of someone’s life put on display and usually made to look presentable and flattering. Instead, these tiny 4x4 images become larger than life and show a window into lives that somehow seem better than mine.
The first step for me was to take a look at who I’m following on social media. I’ve unfollowed accounts that just bring out my self-criticism and the accounts that don’t make me happy. I’ve begun to follow and prioritize accounts full of encouragement, real beauty, and honesty, and those are the ones I’d much rather look at anyway.
I’m also logging out more often and checking in way less. If I log out of the Instagram app, I’m a lot less likely to pull it up when I’m bored and wanting to waste time. By having to type in my password each time I want to check the app, I instantly have a built-in buffer that helps me ask why I’m logging in to begin with. I turned off all notifications, too, so that I get to control when I’m seeing who liked my photos or who tagged me. This, plus giving myself a time limit when I do log in, has helped me to start using Instagram—and all social media, really—in a much more conscious way.
Changing the media diet for my mind has led me to read actual books again. I was a voracious reader as a kid and teen, but in the past few years, books have taken a backseat to magazines, websites, blogs, and social media. I have to say, a little literature is quite nice once in a while. (I’m currently reading and highly recommend Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.)
Reading the Bible doesn't hurt either. I started a "Bible In A Year" plan this January, and it has honestly changed my day-to-day perspective on life. It's helped me to root myself in the truth, in the things that never change because they're of God. Filtered photos, celebrity gossip, diet trends—they're always changing. But the Word and God Himself are forever constant.
The last part of this mindful detox: switching up the negative soundtrack in my head. At the advice of my counselor, I recorded a voice memo on my phone of myself—speaking positive, affirming, truthful thoughts. It’s something I can listen to in moments of insecurity and self-doubt. It might sound weird, and it kind of is. Yet it’s a way for me to listen to reality and remember the facts instead of relying on my ever-changing feelings.
I am smart, funny, beautiful, and loved. My Instagram feed and my Facebook profile have no bearing on any of those things. They have no bearing on my worth as a woman—and the profiles I view certainly do not. I get to be me, regardless of how many times I check my social media accounts, or what my abs look like compared to my friend from high school, or how my breakfast compares to Gwyneth Paltrow’s. I’m me, Maggie, and my identity rests in something much greater than my online presence. In a world consumed with likes and shares and page views, knowing that is immensely freeing. I'm praying for a continued focus on the things above and for a mind nourished by truth.
If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.
And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.
Truly, He makes beautiful things.