Sexual Healing

Our girl Melissa from our SCU Chapter posted this on her FB page and I instantly knew I had to share it with you girls because it's a message I wish I would have heard.

At fourteen, I started my freshman year of high school hoping to lose my virginity on my prom night - I thought it was the most romantic way ever (that was lame!). I wish someone would have shared this message with me - and told me there was a different way. While I may have escaped high school a "technical virgin" (that's a whole different topic) there were encounters I wish I could permanently erase from my mind. While I thought each experience would make me feel loved, valued and cherished, I always walked away feeling dirty, damaged, used and ashamed.

I'm thankful there are guys like Jeff (and my hubs--yes, they do exist!) who have the courage to be set apart and who choose to respect the God-given value we have & to challenge other guys to do the same.

WM Table & Photo-booth (Costa Mesa Young Women's Conference)

by Allie Marie Smith

I'm so excited because I just got all the photos Katee Grace captured of our table and photo-booth at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa's "Breaking Through" Young Women's Conference. One of the highlights was featuring 31 Bits at our table - we love promoting their goods and cause. If you were at the conference and took a pic in our photobooth, we'll be sending out the link where you can download your photos for free! Keep an eye out for them in your email!

Our set up...

HEAL: Healthy Eating & Abundant Living. Painting by my friend Kara

Me using Square to ring up purchases on my iPad (I won the iPad from Catalyst!)

Beautiful Bits...

Like candy to the eye...

Whitney (31 Bits Intern) & her sister Lindsay.

Katee Grace--the beautiful face behind the camera...

Radiant girls...

Featured Cause: Warby Parker - Eyewear with a Double Vision

by Allie Marie Smith

One of the 1,295,453 things I love about you Wonderfully Made girls is that you're quick to get behind compassion-driven movements. wmGirls are committed to living life with their arms wide open, and their hearts and hands extended to those in need.

So I'm so excited to feature Warby Parker Designer Frames & Eyeglasses today because I know you're going to LOVE them! They offer vintage inspired frames and glasses for a affordable price and for every pair they sell, they deliver one pair of glasses to someone in need. Their glasses are super chic and cute so y'all have to check them out! I can't wait to buy mine (I've had the same pair since high school and lost them 3 months ago!).

Warby Parker:
A collaboration between four close friends, Warby Parker was conceived as an alternative to the overpriced and bland eyewear available today. Prescription eyewear simply should not cost $300+. The industry is controlled by a few large companies that have kept prices artificially high, reaping huge profits from consumers who have no other options. By circumventing traditional channels and engaging with our customers directly through our website, Warby Parker is able to provide higher-quality, better looking prescription eyewear for under $100.

We believe that everyone has the right to see. Unfortunately, millions of people around the world today don’t have access to proper vision care. To help address this problem, Warby Parker partners with renowned non-profits, such as RestoringVision.org, to deliver one pair of glasses to someone in need for every pair that we sell. In doing so, we enable you to share the gift of vision with someone who can’t see today and give them the opportunity to read, to work and to live a fuller life.

Shop the women's line HERE.

Which pair is your favorite?

HerStory: Kelly Vegas

by Allie Marie Smith

Today I am grateful to feature the story of Kelly Vegas of I Am Free Ministries. She's an amazing woman who has recently become an insta-friend! I had the privilege of hearing bits and pieces of Kelly's powerful testimony while she spoke at the Breaking Through Conference last month where we hosted a table and photo-booth.

I was moved with chills and tears. I was honored to find out Kelly's been recommending HEAL to the many girls she mentors and counsels. I got her number and gave her a call as I was driving my rental car to Remuda Ranch (an eating disorder treatment center) earlier this month. I was fearful to share my story and felt like the Lord wanted me to call her.

During our conversation (it felt like I'd known her forever!) she encouraged me with words of truth and prayer. I'm so thankful for her and the torch of hope she it to me and thousands of girls. Meet Kelly. This is "HerStory"...

Broken, Starved & Transformed

Growing up as a teen in Southern California my emotions were too painful to endure as my life was spinning out of control. The only thing I could control was my food and my weight. I started to starve to numb my feelings and I became obsessed with being thin. When starving wasn’t enough I had to throw up anything I ate. Anorexia and Bulimia brought me comfort in my pain. It provided a sense of security in my chaotic family. It numbed all my feelings and gave me a false sense of control. My eating disorder made me feel like I was invincible. It became my everything.

I found myself in the grips of its deadly control. I starved myself down to a deadly weight and at 16 I found myself in the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Yet that wasn’t enough to stop me from starving and throwing up. Suddenly I found myself in a battle of choosing to live or to die…

Click here to hear Kelly's full testimony about her struggle with anorexia and bulimia and how she found JESUS and HE set her free.

Rapture Parties, Blog Buttons & Giveaways!

by Allie Marie Smith

Hey Lovely Girls!

Hope you had a great weekend. Did anyone attend any Rapture parties this weekend (okay, bad joke!). I do have to share this awesome billboard that was put up in response to Harold Camping's false (of course!) May 21st Judgement Day prediction.

A couple of fun giveaway opportunities today...

Enter to Win a Hungry For Hope Conference Package
Our sweet friend and one of our biggest fans, Rebecca Bass-Ching of Potentia Therapy is offering a free registration and lodging package(worth $500) to attend Finding Balance's annual Hungry for Hope Conference (June 15-18 in Colorado). This is an amazing conference I've been blessed to attend and encourage any of you girls who are passionate about helping individuals be set free from eating disorders to attend! The package includes the registration ticket and three nights of lodging in the beautiful Glen Eyrie Castle! Yes, I said castle!

All you have to do is like Potentia's page and write a comment in 50 words or less telling Rebecca & Constance about yourself and why you'd like to attend. Click HERE for more details.

Get our Blog Button!
Secondly, our girl Arielle from A Beautiful Journey, created some blog buttons for us! I totally love her style so I was excited when she said she'd make them for us. Check them out on the right. Aren't they cute? If you have a blog, we invite you to share our button! Arielle is actually doing a dress giveaway on her blog today, so be sure to hop on over there!

Hope you girls are making it a beautiful Monday!

Random Thursday: Best Double Date Ever

by Allie Marie Smith

Happy Thursday girls....

A couple months ago my guy decided he wanted to do something extra special for his grandparents. Grandmpa's (aka Gubby) happy place has always been in the driver's seat. Whether it was a tractor, a lawn mower or his Lincoln Mercury, Gubby loved to drive - preferably while wearing his John Deer trucker hat. So it wasn't easy when he had his license taken away.

Thankfully, Boomers doesn't require a license to drive their go-carts. Viola! Problem solved. Here's a video we put together of our double date night with his grandparents. Grandma & Grandpa exude the joy of the Lord and are non-stop fun. See for yourself...

When Truth Is Stolen & Lies Are Spoken (HEAL Post)

How do you feel when you find out someone has lied to you? Angry, betrayed, hurt? Those are a few of the emotions I've experienced when the truth has finally come out. How do you actually respond when you discover you've been blatantly lied to? Do you confront the person? Ignore them completely? Cut them out of your life? Or after these array of emotions do you finally forgive them and then eventually forget about it?

The one liar each of us battles has been exposed, though we often fail to recognize him: "He [the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44b)." Of all the things God could call the devil (the father of evil, hate, destruction...) He calls Him the father of lies!

Are there any lies you've accepted as truth? The lie that you're not beautiful, desirable, worthy? The lie that this world would be better off without you? The lie that you'll never be happy or amount to anything? How about the lie that if you looked like the cover girl of the month everything would be fine and chipper?

"Satan is the master deceiver. Subtly he speaks lies that steer us away from the voice of truth. He knows that physical beauty is fleeting but that the strength of a woman who loves God is powerful beyond measure. Obsessions with food and body are impediments to living the abundant life, and the enemy knows this. This is why he will do anything to keep our minds, hearts, and eyes fixed on our outer appearance." -HEAL

We live in a blessed country. We have an abundance of food we don't know what to do with. We have the freedom to vote, to worship, to be educated. We can dress ourselves in pretty clothes, have nice things, live a life of comfort, but yet we're still not satisfied and believe we need more! We need to be thinner, tanner, richer, taller. As Maslow, the famous 14th century psychologist would put it, since our basic needs are met, we pursue self-actualization, which when applied to many (but not all!) women pursuing idealistic "beauty" is making us internally ugly, empty, envious and void of joy.

Shut out the noise and call upon your Maker, your Savior, and hear His loving voice. As you do, your true, unfading beauty will grow. Joy, peace, gratitude, and contentment will follow. The world is craving a taste of your authentic beauty, not the false Hollywood "beauty" that is causing girls to jeopordize their health and question their value, beauty and purpose in this world.

What lies from the enemy have you believed?

*photo by Katee Grace (copyright protected).

JJ Heller's New Music Video: "Control"

Hey Lovelies!

One our fav girls JJ Heller just released her second music video for her song "Control" and I'm so excited to share it with you. She nailed it as always...

The cut is deep, but never deep enough for me
It doesn’t hurt enough to make me forget
One moment of relief is never long enough
To keep the voices in my head from stealing my peace

Oh, control
It’s time, time to let you go

Perfection has a price, but I cannot afford to live that life
It always ends the same; a fight I never win

Chorus

I’m letting go of the illusion
I’m letting go of the confusion
I can’t carry it another step
I close my eyes and take a breath
I’m letting go …

There were scars before my scars
Love written on the hands that hung the stars
Hope living in the blood that was spilled for me

Can you relate to this battle of control? Do you or have you ever struggled with self-harm?

Wonderfully Made Photo-booth (Breaking Through Conference)

Hey Sweet Things...

Hope you had a great weekend! I'm just recovering from our Wonderfully Conference in Santa Maria this weekend - it was such a great event spent in the company of an amazing group of girls and women. I can't wait to tell you more about how God moved in girls' lives and to show you the pictures! We even had all of our messages filmed so we're pretty excited to be able to share them with you girls in the near future.

One of the many highlights was having one of our wmVoices Danya Collyer fly out all the way from Florida to help lead worship. Danya is hosting our very first WM Conference outside of California - it will be October 7th & 8th in Gulf Breeze, FL and will be a destination conference for girls throughout Florida and surrounding states! More details to come soon!

Here are some pics from the photo-booth we hosted at the Breaking Through Conference in Costa Mesa on Saturday, April 30th. These were taken from our lovely photographer Katee Grace. She's working hard on getting the rest to you girls as soon as possible (we'll be sending you a link where you can download your picture for free!).

Such beautiful girls...

What do you think of our backdrop and props?

HEAL Tips: Drink This, Not That

by Allie Marie Smith

One of my favorite things about HEAL: Healthy Eating & Abundant Living is that it's not a diet or a rigid get-fit plan, but a lifestyle - a continuous journey of inward transformation and lasting change. If you're familiar with the HEAL Pyramid (in the book), you know that one of the goals on the HEAL Journey is to choose beneficial food choices out of emotionally and spiritually healthy motives.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about some of the beverages (besides water) I regularly consume and believe it's time for me to make some changes in order to be a better steward of my health. I rarely, if ever, drink Diet Coke (I get an instant headache after one sip!), but my affinity for working in coffee shops has fueled a semi sugary-coffee addiction. I can't help but think how much better I'd be treating my body if I stopped having all that sugar and cream in my coffee.

So I'm going to make more of an effort to start replacing this:

with this (green tea)

For you girls in the aspartame club, I highly recommend you consider swapping this:

for this (coconut water):

Are you addicted to coffee, soda or sugary drinks? What beverages do you drink throughout the day?and what are some other beneficial options?

Point Loma Chapter Launch Event

Last week we had the premiere event for our newest chapter at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, which will officially launch on campus this fall. I was grateful to be able to drive down for the event and share my story with the girls. I still can't believe what an amazing team God has knit together to spearhead the WM movement on Point Loma's campus and throughout San Diego. Our PL team has such great chemistry and they are so passionate about creating authentic community for the women on their campus and reaching out to the younger girls throughout San Diego. I know these girls are going to great things together and am inspired by each one of them.

Kayla & me with our biggest leadership team yet:

Hayley (one of our Co-Directors) introducing the leadership team...

Nihaara sharing her story...

Hannah sharing her heart...

Stay tuned for updates on our PLNU chapter and if you live in San Diego, feel free to join their Facebook page to keep on top of their programs and events.

Unicorns & Sporks

by Kayla Mertes

These cracked me up ... and are perfect for Random Thursday!

Hope they make you smile! We love you sweet girls and think of you all the time.

HerStory Film Recap

by Allie Marie Smith

Last Tuesday myself, Christie, our cinematographer Nathanael of Heschle Video Production, and Christie's sweet boyfriend Will (and talented second shooter) set out on the coastal bluffs of Santa Barbara in search of a field of mustard seed to film her story. The mustard seed in California this time of year is nothing short of magical.

I was moved by Christie's humility, courage and willingness to share "her story" which she says is really not "her story," but the story God's redemption and faithfulness in her life. I know with full confidence you girls and countless more will be moved by her testimony. Thank you sweet Christie for your willing heart! One of our many prayers for our "Wonderfully Made: HerStory" film series is for it to inspire girls to shamelessly share their redemption stories for God's glory.

It will probably be several months or more before we unveil our new series and we covet your prayers for this project - that the Lord will be magnified through each testimony and use each as He desires. Please pray for financial provision and guidance. We need to raise $8,000 to complete our 2011 film series.

Here are some artysy-fartsy iPhone pictures from our time together:

PS: Tonight Kayla and I are headed to Point Loma University in San Diego for their official chapter launch event! We are so excited to have our 4th WM college chapter in California and for how God is going to move on this campus through the phenomenal leadership team He has handpicked! More to come (and more prayers coveted). xo

Love ya girls. May you always remember that you are loved and that you are enough.