Womens Day is always my favorite day.

Training for Rez Life is probably one of my favorite things about summer.
Its not just about sitting in a classroom and attempting to learn how to take enough notes that will help you be a better RA, its about real life situations, learning who we are as individuals, as believers and student leaders. One of my personal favorite days is Women's Day (there's also Men's day but that's somewhat of a big ol' secret to me considering I'm not a man :). On this day the men and women of Rez life are split up and get the opportunity to rest in the homes of those who open their doors to a group of young people. It is one of the most refreshing, encouraging, and spiritually uplifting days that I experience.

This year, the theme for Women's Day was focused on being sculpted from the painful and uncomfortable experiences that we have in life. Cara Jones, the RD of Shire East sent me this overall idea for what she envisioned for that day, "The idea is that even in the midst of our suffering, or our challenges, or our discomfort, the Lord is using that to transform us to look more like Christ. This could encompass actual persecution for our faith and even small things like holding firm to our faith while we are lied to about our self worth, our body image, etc. " 
So this is what I used to write the piece for Women's Day to share with the ladies I am blessed to work alongside. 
I wrote it to the song: "You know me" By Bethel Music - http://youtu.be/cVVlMQved8k feel free to listen to it as you read. I don't usually name my poems so here it is; 

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory”

I find myself wondering how Gods hands moved when he created Eve

Did he get cramps in his fingertips as he pressed into each side of her to create her womanly curve?

Did his hands grow tired as he formed her face, every freckle and every mole?

As he shaped her nose into the perfect point with just a hint of roundness

Did he want her to be as majestic as he was, but with just a touch of humble attributes?

Did he think of any of this when he thought of creating me?

Was I made with just the amount of hand cramps and creative discomfort that artists feel in their palms

There is something that fascinates us about painful things that create something breathtakingly beautiful

Like giving birth

Its one of woman’s greatest pains and yet simultaneously the greatest blessing

It is both suffering and tribulation

We are drawn to broken things that are given the chance to redeem their beautiful that has been hidden for too long

We connect to them because they are us

Broken and suffering beings constantly searching for our beautiful underneath flaws, imperfections, heartbreak and anguish

We are willing to suffer for the sake of being beautiful underneath the saltwater tears

I am reminded of how beautiful life is

When I think back to the moment where my hero, my best friend, the woman who birthed me fell and hit her head on a window ceil

He was in the hospital for two hours and I had no idea what they were doing to her or what her condition was

I contemplated the absolute worst and sat squirming in uncomfortable hospital chairs brainstorming ideas for my own suicide

Simmering in the idea that if I had lost her nothing beautiful would come of it therefore there would be no reason for living

I understood in that moment what it meant to suffer for the sake of others

Not being able to control a heartache that doesn’t even belong to you

The stretching of personal growth that ultimately makes you stronger

I have experienced what loneliness feels like when it sits around you like warm bathwater

I have spent countless nights crying tears of just wanting to be wanted

No bible verse or worship song has soothed a heart that always feels as if it’s shattering like unstable pieces of broken glass

We as women never forget our heartbreaks, even though our souls no longer long for the ones who broke them

We remember every sad song we listened to and the way we cried on our bedroom floors for hours

We never realized that he was just making it a little bit stronger for the person we would give all of our love to and deserve it

We are artists of our suffering

Using every uncomfortable experience and letting it mold us into the women we have always been meant to be

Michelangelo is famous for his sculpted form of David

It is said that he used a stone that no other artist wanted

He used the one that was considered worthless, incapable of contributing to any type of masterpiece

But he chiseled away at the stone until it turned into one of his most well known pieces

He worked away at every part of that stone that did not contribute to his vision

We are Michelangelo’s David to Gods Creation story

A slab of stone that everyone has tossed away and deemed unworthy

We are evidence of Christ’s Chiseling

Stripping us of everything that is not who we were meant to be

We are beauty from pain

A creation made new and flawless

I have shifted uncomfortably in my own skin for the past twenty-one years

I have tried to shed myself from unwanted attributes that have always been necessary and apart of my masterpiece

I have attempted to chisel away at my imperfections and turn them into flawless magazine type desires

But at the same time God is shaping me into his own creation

Chiseling and molding the parts of me that are necessary

And I am learning not to shift and sway uncomfortably

But sit and rest is his shaping

Shauna Neiquist has said

“I believe that suffering is part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when everything's easy.”

We don’t always want easy

But then we don’t want hard either

We want something that in the end we know that it will be worth it

We want uncomfortable because our quiet prayers are hopeful that it will turn into beautiful

We want heartbreak and hurt because it will give us what we need to know a heart full of joy

We want suffering because we know it is necessary for healing

We want gritty and ugly because their will always be something worth treasuring in there somewhere

We cannot be a gender of only happily ever afters because we’ll never learn anything

Every experience

Heartache

Anguish

Joy

Perseverance

Stretching and uncomfortable occurrence is necessary

Because we are chiseled and transformed into the masterpieces that Christ has seen in us since the day we were allowed to breath for the first time

We are not magazine fantasies or desires because our very being is not something people can just Photoshop

Our hearts are not just soft tissue; it is a battleground and a resting place

We are transformations of unlovely into lovely

Beauty from pain

An image of sculpted perfection

“We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).