The Days I Struggle the Most

Some days I really just want to scream. I want to scream and scream until I can't hear anything or think anything or feel anything because the day has been so hard. Everyone has their limit; the one thing that makes them fall to pieces. We treat it like a secret because we want people to think that we can deal with anything, but we all know it's there so I might as well be the first to open up:

Lonliness.

The one thing

I truly cannot handle

is feeling alone.

I'm sure you can all relate to some extent. No one really wants to be alone all of the time; sooner or later, we're going to need someone's help. I'm not saying I never ever want to be alone, either, because sometimes people are just too much to handle. But being alone and feeling alone are different. I think there's this huge misconception that a person can't be lonely if they're surrounded by friends but I know for a fact that sometimes the loneliest place a person can be is with other people who remind them that they are in a moment but not a part of it. Too often, I feel myself plagued by the lie that having a boyfriend means I won't be lonely anymore but I know that doesn't work either. I have a boyfriend, and he has done all he can to be there for me and connect with me when I need him but he can only do so much and too often I feel like I ask too much of him as it is. I believe God has created us (women) with a space in our hearts that only a man--the right man--can fill. Some of us are so perfectly happy to be single that they don't feel this type of loneliness, but some of us will always struggle, even after we have the right guy in our lives. I fall solidly into the second group.
Loneliness can only really be compared to a void. On nights like tonight, it feels an awful lot like I'm falling headfirst into a bottomless pit and I can't seem to drag myself out. It's something I'll struggle with my entire life. I'm reaching out tonight because I need prayer, and because I need to feel like I'm connected to someone, but mostly because I know that loneliness isn't solely my problem. I may not know you, I may not know your name or your face or your story or what you've been going through, but I want you to know that you're not alone. I never know for sure, but I always hope my words will find a way to reach someone, to help them somehow. Maybe that someone is you. I hope and pray that whoever and wherever you are, the grace of God is upon you, because His love is unfailing and He will hold you through any storm. Even on nights when all I can do is cry, I know He is holding me.
As always, I would love to pray for you. You can contact me via the comments section on this post or the Facebook and email info on my "Contact Me" page on the left side of the screen. May the Lord be with you all, no matter what you're feeling or where you are in life. God bless.

~Sheridan

The Only Thing that Matters Right This Second

The sky is rumbling and a light rain is sprinkling down through the aspen leaves. I got to spend two hours with my best friend/boyfriend this morning, I'm home all by myself listening to the rain on the roof, I have to be at work in an hour but right now I just feel peaceful. One of those moments where time ceases to matter and everything I'm worried about-college, future plans, tuition payments, moving all the way across the country and my phone being Lord only knows where-is less important than what's happening right this second. Right this second, I am completely and perfectly at peace. Right this second, I know that by the grace of God everything I'm afraid of will be worked out. Right this second, I know God is good and there's a future for mankind. Right this second, I can't even say that I feel beautiful because I feel so much that whether people think I'm beautiful or not doesn't matter. Right this second, I love life.
What are you feeling right this second? I would love to hear it. Sometimes we spend so much of our time living for the future that we forget this moment is the one we're living in. So why don't we all just jump out and live it.

~Sheridan

A Quick Update

Just so you all know I am on Facebook now. There isn't a whole lot there right now but I'm hoping to be pretty consistent in updating that. Feel free to look me up by typing "The Beautiful Life" in the search bar, or by using the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Beautiful-Life/1653276218239668?fref=ts

Prom and Power Outages

Learning to Live and Living Without

Weekends are always interesting in the mountains. Saturday, 2 May was my high school's prom, at which I learned two very valuable lessons: May can be just as cold as any other month, so sleeveless dresses are not always the wisest choice, and people in my generation have a tremendously skewed idea of beauty.
Alright, so I actually knew both of those. But the latter really hit hard over the course of the evening, and I really felt God compelling me to address it here. I was getting ready with a friend and heard her suddenly yell "ouch!" She'd glued her fake nail in the wrong place and pealing the glue off was apparently a rather uncomfortable experience. Ever a fount of unique and useful advice, I told her to stop because "hurting yourself is bad for you". "It takes some serious pain to be beautiful," she replied. And it made me think. How much are we sometimes willing to pay to have someone else label us "beautiful"? Is it worth it?
What really struck me as I thought about it was that an indescribable amount of pain has gone into making you who you are. If pain is the price for beauty, it has already been paid. Paid by a man who was 100% human and 100% God, who died in lonely agony to be able to call you His own, to make you in His image and make you beautiful. So all of the silly things we do, the fake nails and tanning salons, the makeup and hairspray and six-inch heels, are unnecessary pain. If God wanted you to be 5'10" and have curly hair and long nails, He would have made you that way. It's fun to dress up, of course-I wore makeup and a fancy dress and did my hair-but sometimes it's good to look at ourselves and wonder how far we're taking it. Can you feel beautiful without all those things? Because you should always know that you are. Can you live with yourself the way you are?

Speaking of May being cold, the weekend following prom was one of the strangest weekends of my life. My parents' anniversary is in May, so we intended for the weekend to be a nice relaxing weekend for them to celebrate. It was a much-deserved break, but unfortunately not as relaxing as they'd hoped it would be. Because it snowed. A lot. On Saturday, 9 May, we got almost a foot of snow up in the mountains where we live, which was certainly interesting. But it's all fun and games until the power goes out, which it did at about 7:30 Saturday night. And didn't come back.
Well, we fired up our wood-burning stove and kept the house plenty warm, and we had water still in our water tank so that wasn't too much of an issue, so my sisters and I lit up some candles and snuggled in to play some Mindtrap and wait. As we carried over into Sunday with still no power, we started to feel some side effects of the power outage. Like, not having enough water to shower or anything. We melted some snow in a skillet to wash our faces but that was about it. At which point the lesson was thoroughly impressed upon me that sometimes we just have to live without. Majorly live without. But God still gets us through and He still finds ways to remind us that there is beauty all around and within us no matter how strange or difficult the circumstances are.

Hoping it's warmed up to nice May temperatures everywhere else. Would love to hear your thoughts and/or experiences on the matter!

What the Mirror Tells You

I was at a service at my church doing prayer stations. I sat down at a table by myself and found myself facing a small hand mirror and the question: "Look at your face in a mirror. What do you see?"
Sometimes an honest answer hurts. I had to look at my face and admit to myself that I see a girl who spends too much time telling herself she isn't good enough and not enough time remembering that God made her in His image. I see a girl who spends too much time worrying about the insignificant difficulties of life and not enough time praising God for the eternity He's promised her. A girl who spends too much time wanting someone else to tell her that she's pretty but not enough time letting God show her that she's beautiful, a girl who could find every minuscule flaw in her complexion but doesn't remember that God chooses everything for a reason. When I look in a mirror, I see a girl who's trying hard to become the woman God created her to be but she's nervous and scared because she doesn't know how.
Look at your face in a mirror. What do you see? I know it isn't easy. Sometimes I think we avoid mirrors, just because we're afraid of what we'll see. Not just afraid that the outfit we were so excited about this morning doesn't look as nice as we thought it would. Afraid that the person we see in the mirror isn't the person we're supposed to be. We have to remember that the only thing we're ever "supposed to be" is what God has created us to be, and there is nothing that can ever derail God's plans. He will make everything beautiful in its time, so we don't ever need to be afraid of what the mirror is telling us.

~Sheridan

Getting Creative | Working Around a Declining Standard of Modesty

I'm finally getting over being sick (I think), which is the biggest reason I haven't posted for a month. The other reason is that my eyes have really been bothering me, and staring at screens hurts them a lot, making it extremely difficult to type. No typing=no blog posts.

Prom at my high school is about a month away; the first weekend in May. I’m a senior, seniors go free, despite my overall dislike for high school dances as a whole I decided to go. And then almost changed my mind when I ran into one teeny-tiny little issue: a dress. I needed a dress.

I made the mistake of looking up “prom dresses” in the Google images search bar. Some of the dresses are really pretty. Most of them bare far more skin than I would ever consider modest or acceptable. I’m choosing not to post any pictures of them but you can look them up if you’re curious.

I went dress shopping with a friend of mine last year when she was looking for her prom dress, so I know that this isn't just an issue of the pictures popping up online. I also know that this issue isn't exclusive to dresses. Shirts that bare the stomach (or dresses that have the stomach open), open backs, sinking necklines, skintight fits, and short shorts/skirts are becoming painfully common. I’m sure you've all noticed it. I don’t buy that kind of clothing, and I don’t buy into the ideas that inspire it. I recognise that I’m kind of a loner in my generation when it comes to modesty but I really believe that some things are better left to the imagination. Modesty is my standard and I can be pretty picky about it.

I don’t want to take the time to detail it right this second, but maybe in a later post (or you can leave me a comment if you’re curious now) I can be more specific on what my standards are, because “modesty” is kind of an ambiguous term. I’m sure some of you can relate, though, when I say that I have an incredibly hard time shopping for things I’ll actually wear. Sometimes that can be remedied by a tank-top worn under a shirt that dips too low, or buying something a size larger than I normally wear. But not always. So sometimes, you have to get a little creative.

The thought of trying to find a dress almost put me off the idea of going to prom. In three years of dress shopping with my friends I've found maybe a handful of dresses that match my ideal of “modesty attire”. Trust me; I've tried. The suggestion “get creative” is a little harder to work around in terms of formal wear, so I had to do some serious thinking. There were several factors I needed to consider, and after a bit I came up with a few conclusions:

1.      Even cheap prom dresses are waaaay out of my price range. Dresses are expensive!

2.      I have trouble finding dresses that I think are comfortable and I can move in.

3.      I can never seem to find a dress that I like.

4.      Even if I find one that’s comfortable and I like, that modesty thing is a serious issue.

5.      When taking into account all of the above factors, there’s only one real solution: I needed to make a dress.

Right off, people started telling me I was crazy. I probably am. But I started sewing yesterday and I really actually think it’s going to work.

So is this the most brilliant, creative idea I've ever had, or the craziest? Do you sew? Tell me about some of your projects. How do you get creative when it comes to dressing modestly with today’s fashions?

~Sheridan

It's All About the Chocolate

Yes, I know; I'm two days late to do an official post about Valentine's Day. But I was doing speech things all day Saturday and have today off, so I'm wishing you all a belated Hallmark Day (so named by my best friend, who says the holiday wouldn't exist if Hallmark didn't make money from the cards).
So to start, let's open a box of chocolates.

AREN'T THEY ADORABLE?!?!?!?! (The answer you're looking for is yes.) I got sick of seeing that stupid Forrest Gump quote every third image in Google, so I pasted this one in just because. But seriously:

Chocolate

and Chocolate

and CHOCOLATE

and...oh, dear; chocolate box is empty. Super sad face

Okay, so I know I'm being ridiculous. But aside from the fact that chocolate makes me happy, I actually do have a purpose in bringing this up. Honest.
How many of you received a chocolate heart for Valentine's Day? Something like the one below:

I did not. Really that's alright with me; I definitely don't need anyone buying me sugar. How many of you received said chocolates from someone other than your husband/fiancee/significant-other? How many of you bought YOURSELF chocolate for Valentine's Day?
My friends and I used to refer to Valentine's Day as "Singles' Awareness Day". We contemplated buying each other flowers but it was too expensive. We did, however, buy each other little treats, chocolate and other things, just because.
Valentine Chocolate is on sale right now. I have it on pretty good authority-aka, my mother-that some of it is fairly cheap. Buy yourself some chocolate. Buy your girlfriends some chocolate. Know a woman who is alone on Valentine's Day-divorced, or widowed, or maybe has a husband overseas? Do something for her. I promise you it can make someone's day. If you do something for someone, leave me a comment to tell me about it. Valentine's Day may be commercialised to focus on a person's significant other, but it doesn't have to be. So maybe Valentine'd Day isn't all about the chocolate; it's about love. Loving our friends is important too, and we all need that little pick-me-up from time to time. That's why God gave us friends; "as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend" (Proverbs 27:17, NIV). And when someone buys you chocolate, don't feel bad about eating the entire box. :)

~Sheridan

PS Anytime one of you wants to buy me chocolate, you're more than welcome. ;)

Some Days are Not Like Others

Do you every feel like you just need to pray? Without knowing why, without any measure of understanding what's going on? Just that feeling, like you're going to need God to be especially close to you? I've felt like that lately. I get this sometimes, almost like I know something is going to happen. I felt it just before the terrorist attack on  the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. I've been feeling it for a while, this sort of feeling that something is going to be happening in my life, good or bad, that is going to test my faith. Something I'm going to need to be prepared for.
I've been having a lot of discussions with a friend lately, and one thing she's brought up is the point that life's not fair. Specifically, how unfair it is that one person can work their whole lives trying to accomplish something, and another person comes along and gets it on the first go. She said it felt unjustified, like the second person didn't earn it and therefore didn't deserve it.
Hardships are designed to make us question. Question others, question ourselves. Question God. Think about Job; the entire point of the suffering the Devil inflicted upon him was to make him reject his faith in God.
The difference lies in what my youth pastor (aka my dad) describes as "head knowledge" versus "heart knowledge". The first thing I think of in this Jeremiah 29:11

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord;

'plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.'" NIV

I could have recited this verse when I was eight years old. But it wouldn't have meant anything. The verse itself is head knowledge. Logically, when something happens we should not be concerned because God says He has everything under control. But consider what other parts of the Bible say.

"I have hidden your word in my HEART,

that I might not sin against you."

-Psalm 119:11 NIV

This is where heart knowledge comes in. A few years ago, I found myself really stuck in a rut, unable to motivate myself to do anything. I still end up there on a semi-regular basis, and I've come to terms with it as a psychological routine that I'm just going to have to deal with, but the first time I just couldn't seem to get out. You've all had those days I'm sure when your friends tell you "you're beautiful" and you really want to believe it, but you can't convince your heart that it's the truth. That's the difference, the tell-all between head knowledge and heart knowledge. Bible verses are head knowledge. Faith in what they mean to you is heart knowledge.
Some days, I really wish I could see the future. I wish I could even get a glimpse into God's plan for me. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet, but when I get feelings like this I really try not to ignore them. These feelings, for me, are a conviction. A reminder that I should be super-close with God ALL of the time, not just when I feel like something's going to happen. The friend I mentioned earlier? I gave her advice to comfort her dilemma, and maybe I should follow it myself. I told her that sometimes God does things, things we don't feel we deserve, because He's trying to tell us something. Maybe that message right now is a sort of reminder that without God, I am nothing. Without God, I have no reason to exist. Without God, I should be afraid of what's going to happen.
If you feel God has put it on you, I would ask you to pray for me. I don't know what's going to happen in my life over the next few weeks but my month-long blogging break is evidence of how stressed and busy I am. And, as always, I am happy to pray for you if you would like me to. Actually, I'm praying for all of you whether I know who you are or not, but if there is something specific I would love to lift that up. Feel free to comment, and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

~Sheridan

And We Think Our Christmas Presents are Cool

Hi there! It's getting closer to Christmas, which for me means a fire going constantly, shiny things everywhere I look, a house that smells unendingly of caramel, and the constant knowledge that "the snow glows white on the mountain tonight" all night, every night; in fact, it's snowing now. :) It also means I spend way too much time digging for the right change so I can, you know, pay for the Christmas presents I'm buying my three siblings and my parents, and waaaaay too much time wondering frantically if they'll like it. Pride point: I can get some pretty cool Christmas presents. Every once in a while, I'll pick something out and I just know it's what my sister never knew she always wanted. I have a couple of those this year; I'm just waiting for Thursday to confirm my suspicion.
Christmastime is all about gifts. I know in church, we always focus a lot on God's "ultimate" gift-Jesus. Not going to lie, he really is the gift none of us knew we all so desperately needed. But in this post, I actually want to focus on another gift, one that is indescribably precious, that only God could have ever thought of and created:

you.

Yes, you. Whether you believe me when I say it or not, you are a gift. Your unique and individual beauty is a gift. We are all immeasurably precious to God, all indescribably beautiful in his eyes. He has designed you exactly the way he wanted you, and he gave you your beauty as a gift, as a measure of how much he loves you.

We as humans don't do that. Instead of giving beauty we give beauty products. Instead of giving life we give suggestions on how to make life better. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realised that no matter how shiny they are it isn't the presents that make Christmas beautiful; it's the look on my sister's face when she pulls the wrapping off and is excited not even because of what's inside but just at the thought that I got her something. It's my family sitting together at a table and eating the best caramel-cinnamon roles ever to exist and not so much enjoying our food, but each other's company. It's knowing that God gave us his Son so that we would have a chance to experience this kind of joy.

Have you ever watched little kids on Christmas morning? As I've seen it, they'll respond to Christmas in one of two ways. Either they think Santa brings everyone presents and their face lights up when they see what "Santa" brought them, or they've helped choose presents for mom and dad and maybe siblings too, and they are full of uncontainable anticipation because they want their mom to see what they've gotten her and they’re so excited to see her smile and be happy. This is the beauty of gifts, to experience a kind of gratitude and elation at knowing someone has cared enough about us to give us something special, and at being able to give something back to them.
Why should beauty be any different? Every day when you look in the mirror, you are experiencing the gift God has chosen specifically for you because He loves you. Do you feel that elation? Or do you feel dissatisfied, feel like you have to find your concealer and your mascara and you have to repaint your face into what you think it ought to be? Perhaps even more importantly, do you allow others to share in it? Will you share with them your smile, your voice, the time you would otherwise have spent in front of the mirror? Will you share with them your inner beauty: your compassion, your kindness, your passions, you joys? Beauty is a gift. Do you treat it as one?
I know I don't, more often than I really care to admit. Even on the occasions when I wear make-up, I never feel like it's "right", like I measure up. People offer me compliments and I brush them aside. I actively avoid people some days because I'm too wrapped up in my selfish musings about my appearance to give them the only thing they've ever asked of me: time. A person to talk to, a shoulder to cry on. Someone to give them a hug and stroke their hair and offer what some of them have never truly received--love. Every single one of us can give that whether or not your eyeliner is magazine-worthy, whether or not you feel like you look halfway-decent. Sometimes, I think the biggest thing that keeps us from being beautiful is the time spent trying to make ourselves pretty. Never once did God use "pretty" to describe a person in the Bible.

“You are altogether beautiful, my darling, 

and there is no blemish in you."

                                                       -Song of Solomon 4:7 NASB

Not "you look pretty today". "You are altogether beautiful". The New Living Translation says "You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way". As you're wrapping presents, maybe finishing up your Christmas shopping, think about this. And when you're giving and receiving presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day or whatever your family tradition is, remember that you have a gift no one can measure. Beauty is a gift. Will you treat it as one?

~Sheridan

#justdontask

Drama people are weird. Any of you who have ever met one ought to know. I left Thursday morning for Colorado's Thespian Conference, which basically means three days of hanging out with some of the weirdest people I know. Between then and now, here's what went down.

• My choir teacher said she really can't picture me in black leather. 
• I apparently can't count. Turns out eight comes after seven. 
• I got lost trying to find the bathroom I'd walked right past three times. 
• One of my best friends tried to get herself run over in the Target parking lot because she was picking up a penny. 
• I tried to get myself run over yelling at her for trying to get herself run over. 
• Did you hear about the man who lost his whole left side in a car crash? Don't worry; he's alright now. (If you don't get this, try reading it out loud.) 
• I learned to beat people up. 
• The aforementioned friend tried to convince me to go to the thirteenth floor of our hotel at midnight tonight. Something about defying her triskaidekaphobia. 
• My other friends were traumatised by a greaser. 
• I wrote the first and last scene of a play in under ten minutes. 
• I turned around and yelled at a girl I don't even know for getting a song stuck in my head. She then proceeded to compliment my VeggieTales backpack. 
• I skipped through the streets singing "Under the Sea" with my drama buddies. 
• I'm sitting in a Mexican restaurant typing a post and watching my friends "salsa dance".

My friend Savannah, doing the "salsa dance"

• I was just asked if I wanted sugar with my chips. 
• The girl sitting next to me (another friend) turned up her hat. I told her it was the most attractive look I'd seen all day and her face made me laugh. Turns out, Chile rellano doesn't go well down the windpipe. 
• I tried to salute my drama teacher and hit myself in the eye. 

• Got up at 6:45 to work out. Any day where I burn 200 calories before breakfast has to have something good in it.
• Swing dancing is the bomb.
• I have skills. Try this: overloaded Subway sandwich in one hand, cup in the other, having a texting conversation and walking down a crowded street.
• CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!
• Just watched a girl do a cross-body cartwheel. Never going to learn to do that without killing myself.
• Actually learned to salsa dance. Seriously fun. Anyone else ever tried this?



From left to right, my friend Jordan, Brittany (the one who tried to get herself run over) and, of course, me. We are in the theatre at the Denver Convention Centre getting ready to watch a play.

• Les Miserables is the best musical ever. Watched it for the first time. Oh. My. Gosh. It was beautiful.
• Didn't go to bed until 1 am. What was I saying about not needing sleep?
• Totally did not get up for a workout. Don't tell my dance teacher.
• Tried the same thing as yesterday, but with a Chipotle burrito. Bad life choice.
• Book shops are my best friend. Found a Mary Higgins Clark thriller for $4. Score!
• Does anyone here know what slam poetry is? (It's great.)
• Our bus was 45 minutes late picking us up. Yay.
• Ate Chick-fil-a for the first time ever. I love chicken.
• My mom became a secret agent.
• I just taught my sister how to mop the floor.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. How about everyone else? What kind of weird/interesting/super-exciting things have you done recently?