• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Body Truth
  • Juleeta

Juleeta C. Harvey

Empowering Women to Believe Body Truth

  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Speaking

The World Out There

November Rain

November 22, 2019 By Juleeta 1 Comment

Every tree glows with color this morning. I think the gloomy skies are a peaceful backdrop.

I expected nothing

Out of the ordinary

When I took to the morning roads

But then the rain came.

Again.

 

Heavy, frigid droplets

Pound the ground and

Swell with promise.

November rains are beastly and beautiful,

As says Dickinson and Ms. Coleridge and Axle Rose.

 

November storms like a monster.

Growling thunderous claps from on high

Frighten, announce, and release,

Never considering how a single surge

might crush underneath.

Merciless.

 

 

But her rains also bring beauty

Freeing each rain drop to dance

And rattle the surface of a million leaves —

Bright oranges, deep pinks, mustard yellows and golds

Flutter like hummingbirds

With the rain’s persuasion.

Quick, nervous, glimmering.

 

Tucked in at home,

It is barely 10:03 AM.

A second cup of coffee brews and I am curious.

What other surprises will interrupt my

Mundane moments?

What will I miss?

What will I open my eyes to capture?

 

Filed Under: The World Out There

Why Christians Don’t Need To Worry About Elsa’s Sexuality: There Are Bigger Questions Here

November 17, 2019 By Juleeta 2 Comments

Waiting for movie trailers, I took this photo at a Dallas-area preview on Friday. If splendor and enchantment make you smile, you’ll enjoy Disney’s Frozen II.

Is Elsa gay?

This seems to be a hot topic of conversation amongst movie goers, especially Christians, as we await the release of Frozen 2, opening in theaters this Friday.

As a believer, this question makes me shudder. Not because of what it’s asking. But because of what it’s not asking.

You see, I was able to see the movie last week because a friend of mine works in the press. She is a fellow believer and English major, so we were in good company as we watched the plot unfold. From the first lines of the opening scene, we both felt that this was a different kind of movie than Disney’s original Frozen, released six years ago. And it wasn’t different in any of the ways I’ve heard people speculate, especially as the movie portrays sexuality.

For Christians who are planning to see Frozen 2, I hope you thoroughly enjoy it – the gorgeous animation, the hilarious laugh-out-loud scenes, and the characters that invite us to reflect on our own relationship with love, fear, and the power of redemption.

Moreover, I hope that you take the opportunity to ask your kids, your spouse, and your community the kinds of questions that focus on how we love like Jesus [Read more…] about Why Christians Don’t Need To Worry About Elsa’s Sexuality: There Are Bigger Questions Here

Filed Under: Grateful Moments, Moms and Daughters, The World Out There

Spiderman: Far From Home Helped Me See That I’m Living With a Teenage Superhero

July 9, 2019 By Juleeta 4 Comments

 

My favorite MJ, Zendaya, and Spiderman, played by Tom Holland, in Spiderman: Far From Home.

Will you ever write about boys and body image?

Moms ask me this question often, and I am the perfect mom/writer to ask.  Because I have many boys. And, to be honest, all of them are already asking questions about their bodies. When it comes to looking at themselves in the mirror, they do what girls do — compare their bodies with others, inquire about how to lose weight and how to gain muscle, and (for some ridiculous reason) pinch the skin around their mid-sections and make critical comments.

I am befuddled.  I do not understand the male brain.

But I do understand some of my boys’ body image concerns. For now, I am doing three things to stand alongside them as they grow and form their identity.

  1. I am listening.
  2. I am encouraging (when I can speak encouraging truth).
  3. I am watching movies with them.

Why I am doing the first two things is fairly obvious.  It’s all the adult-talk these days.  Listening and encouraging is part of loving.  But the third?

The third helps me see what my boys are comparing themselves against.  And more than anything, watching this movie convinced me I am exactly on the right track.

Tom Holland nails his role as the teenage protagonist, Peter Parker, in Spiderman: Far From Home.  Occasionally awkward, easily embarrassed, and intelligent in that endearing and slightly geeky way, Holland reminds us that Spiderman is both a superhero with unlimited potential and a teen boy just trying to be normal.

But what I loved about this movie was what it helped me realize after the credits (and two post-credit scenes) finished scrolling the movie screen. [Read more…] about Spiderman: Far From Home Helped Me See That I’m Living With a Teenage Superhero

Filed Under: The World Out There

#2 of 5 People We Need in Our Corner: A Friend (Who is Altogether Different Than Us)

February 14, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

We are not lovers
because of the love
we make
but the love
we have

We are not friends
because of the laughs
we spend
but the tears
we save


I don’t want to be near you
for the thoughts we share
but the words we never have
to speak


I will never miss you
because of what we do
but what we are
together

A Poem of Friendship, by Nikki Giovanni

Poet and activist, Nikki Giovanni, reminds me that friendship makes me a better person.  A good friend listens to my heartbreaks and knows the intent of my words when I fumble over the “dumb thing” I said five minutes ago. Some of my closest friends are not always happy with me, and sometimes we disappoint each other, but so goes any relationship that adds value to my life.  Conflict is inevitable, but with friendship, hope patiently waits on the other side.

Friendship is so vital to our human development that even Jesus, who was perfect in every way, chose to seek out friendships.  In the week leading up to his death, Jesus admonished his friends to love one another as He loved them.  He valued his friends so dearly that He chose to die for them.  “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

When choosing friends, Jesus did not reach out to individuals who were like him.  The people he invited into his inner circle, the disciples, were a collection of sinners, of whom the Jewish elite disapproved. They were fisherman, a tax collector, and some, we don’t even know their occupations. But we know they were not like Jesus.  They may have looked similar in stature, but they did not think like him, speak eloquently like him, or love anywhere near as generously as he did. 

And many others he befriended in the New Testament, those he reached out to serve and comfort and heal, they were in no way like him.  The women, for example, were completely different in physical stature and cultural situation.  Consider the Canaanite woman that prays for her daughter’s healing in Matthew 15, the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter is possessed by a demon in Mark 7, the poverty-stricken widow in Mark 12, the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, and the woman, described in John 8, who was drug into town for stoning, her consequence for being accused of adultery.

Jesus spent his life seeking out people different than him.   Widely known as “the friend of sinners,” Jesus chose to befriend people altogether different than him.

And although I am far from maintaining that we have Jesus’ capacity to serve and love and die for the sake of our friendships, I am challenged to consider:  How many friends do I have that look and act and understand life differently than me, in almost every way?

Presently, that number amounts to 1.  We will call my friend Bee.

She is a 21 year old, African young woman — curvy, tall, and gorgeous. In her Instagram post, you’ll see her swaying her hip left, posed in a leopard print mini-dress and her smile beams, wide and proud.  My latest post shows me in tortoise shell glasses and a red cardigan. My smile exists, but maybe doesn’t beam 🙂

She is from Rwanda, and she is currently raising her three younger siblings completely on her own, working 70+ hours a week to support their family. Me? I am a native Texan, raising the Fantastic Five with the help of my God-fearing, extremely fun, and hard-working husband. I am a stay at home mom. Writing a blog.

She sees the world completely different than I do.  She throws in veggies and fruit for meals when she can, but Takis and soda are some of their kitchen mainstays.  She’s not shopping at Whole Foods, assessing “her kids” healthy choices, or comparing them to the other kids at school. 

I love that we are living different lives, in almost every way.  As a result of living differently and simultaneously choosing friendship, we are growing as women in our communities in ways that we could not grow without each other.

Most of my close friends look like me, are well educated, have disposable income, go to church, and are married to loyal and capable men. They are dear to me, but they are so much like me that I sometimes forget the bigger world out there that is the majority.  Most women, living their own stories in the day-to-day, are different than me in almost every way.

And when I operate in my small world for too long, Satan gets a foothold. His voice too closely scrutinizes the details of my reflection, and I compare myself to the aging women around me who have had more surgery, who have more money, who have more time and propensity for shopping, and who spend more time toning their glamorous figures at the gym. Surrounding myself with good friends is good for me, but all of my friends shouldn’t “look like me.”

Thomas Cash, PH.D., maintains that an individual’s private body talk significantly affects one’s mental health.  Specifically, in The Body Image Workbook, he points out a commonly held belief that too many people mistakenly assume.  It is: If I Could Look Just as I Wish, My Life Would Be Much Happier.

This assumption is especially prevalent in the private conversations that women are struggling with today. But what if part of our challenge is to look in the mirror and not only see ourselves, but the generations of women who went before us to bring us to the place we find ourselves standing?  What if we choose to see ourselves in a context of the woman working behind the Target checkout counter and the female refugee who is learning English for the first time and the woman who always sits a pew over but doesn’t look anything at all like us?

“What we are together,” the last lines of Ms. Giovanni’s poem, challenges me to see my reflection differently when I look in the mirror and envision my young Rwandan friend beside me.  We look and act and believe differently than one another, but “what we are together” is more than what we would be without each other.

When I step outside of my safe places and make friends with people altogether different than me, might I experience the generous, dear, friendly love of Jesus in a new and different way?  I’m thinking, yes.

Because my mindset changes.  And my worldview grows. And my capacity for love goes out, beyond myself.

 

We’re starting our Recovery study about Body Image tonight at Northwest Bible Church.  If you’re in the area, join us at 7:30 on Thursdays for our open group.  

 

Filed Under: Control, Grateful Moments, Healthy Bodies, The World Out There

#1 of 5 People We Need in Our Corner – A Good Physician

February 7, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

Thankful to rawpixel.com for this image.

The world is desperate for healers.  Not the kinds of people who wave their arms around a stranger’s cancer-ridden body and shout prayers for a miracle, pointing to you on the other side of the television screen. Those kinds of healers are scary.

The world is desperate for healers of a different kind.  For the kinds of people who welcome our fragile bodies into their waiting rooms, closely examine our physical weaknesses and listen to our nervous-to-utter questions.  

For the kinds of people who make us feel at ease when we are sick and when our people are sick.  They ask thoughtful questions. They are thorough when they offer suggestions and prescriptions. 

If you have a good physician in your corner, you know what I mean.

Your good physician most likely resembles Luke of Antioch, the author of the third gospel in the New Testament.  In the introduction to Luke, my ESV Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible points out that Luke was widely known as “the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14).  He was known for his medical expertise, but what made him beloved was: [Read more…] about #1 of 5 People We Need in Our Corner – A Good Physician

Filed Under: Healthy Bodies, Moms and Daughters, The World Out There

When Jesus Says, “Arise!” How Will We Respond?

January 30, 2019 By Juleeta Leave a Comment

This image, captured by Casey Horner, points to a personal lesson I’m learning. Light has the power to penetrate the darkest places, if I choose to open my eyes to see.

I did not know I was asleep.

Four days before our wedding, I moved to a new place. I drove my gold ’96 Saturn northbound on I-35, from Austin to Dallas.  My car was packed tight and high with boxes, and behind me, my parents’ truck hauled the rest of my belongings. 

And for most of the three hour drive, my insides felt like a witch’s bubbly concoction, brewing and unsettled. My excitement about moving somewhere new brought a smile to my face until the cackling sound of Fear reminded me I wasn’t moving somewhere dreamy like London or Madrid.  You, my pretty, are moving to Dallas. Ha, Ha, Ha!  

My excitement about finding a new job would last a few minutes until Fear plopped into the black cauldron of my swirling emotions.  Fear threatened, The only job left for you will be teaching English to a room full of hormone-driven, entitled middle schoolers. Ha, Ha, Ha!

Excitement and fear swirled together down deep in the pit of my stomach, and the condition of my heart was murky, at best.   

But at least I was going to get married.   

The first few years of marriage were tougher than I could have imagined.  I scrambled to get home early in the afternoons in time to cook dinner, often overreacting if my husband was running a few minutes late. In my spare hours, I attended graduate school at night and trained for triathlons. In Dave’s spare time, he watched ESPN. We had more than a few arguments about how low the television volume really needed to be so that I could still study and he could still watch football. Or basketball. Or hockey.  We disagreed on almost every financial decision — the grocery budget, the clothing budget, the eating-out budget.

Keeping my nose to the grindstone, my head down and focused on the next task ahead, I stayed busy.  Busy was my distractor.  If I could stay busy, I could close my eyes, refusing to see the girl in the mirror who was growing more lonely and confused in her role as wife.  I look back and see her standing quietly in front of the flimsy, full length mirror clipped to the top of the doorframe. She stares ahead, confused and hurt, wondering, Why don’t I feel like I’m enough?  I have everything I want. [Read more…] about When Jesus Says, “Arise!” How Will We Respond?

Filed Under: Eating Disorders, Grateful Moments, Moms and Daughters, The World Out There

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Topics

About Me

Copyright © 2021 · Twenty Seven Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in