So many of my friends and acquaintances from school are getting/have gotten married this year, and floating amongst the lovely pictures of bridesmaids and wedding showers and adorable DIY centerpieces are well wishes from friends and family of the soon-to-be/newlyweds. And as I sit quietly creeping their profiles with the biggest smile on my face from seeing all these posts, I can’t help but wonder: what would people say to me on the eve of my wedding? And also, because my brain thinks in extremes, what would people say if they heard that I died? Would people come to my funeral?

See, over the past year I have been made painfully aware of what an awful person I am. Yep, I said it. I’m a terrible person. And having people point that out to me really, really sucks. Especially when those people are my closest friends. It gets even worse when it’s pointed out on multiple occasions. I’ve spent many nights cuddling my Zoloft and sobbing myself to sleep trying to figure out why I’m such an awful person and how I’m going to go about changing that. So it’s not surprising that in the midst of my hyper-awareness wedding congratulations and beautiful eulogies force me to stop and think.

How would people describe me? How would you describe me? If I surveyed 100 of the people I interact with the most, I’m positive that the number one answer (cue Family Feud music) would be that I’m hilarious. And they’d be absolutely correct. I love to make people laugh, even if it’s at my own expense. But is that my only good quality? Would people then have to take a second to think about it? Because let’s face it: I’m not always ‘nice’.

Why does all of this matter to me anyways? Especially in this century when it’s the norm to not care what anybody thinks about you… I’ll confess that part of the reason is because I simply want to be liked, and genuinely liked. I don’t want it to ever be the case where I step out of a room filled with close friends and they talk behind my back about what an awful person I actually am… I don’t want it to ever be the case where a guy that I like looks at me and thinks to himself: “Mmm, yeah she’s kinda cute, but now that I’ve gotten to know her, I realize that she’s not that great of a person, and I don’t want to be with someone like that.” Those situations really suck. I want people to be able to write honestly nice things in my wedding congratulations or in my eulogy. I want people to come to my funeral because they want to celebrate the life of a truly wonderful person…

Ultimately, it matters to me because I don’t want my witness as a Christian to be marred by my occasionally nasty personality. I don’t want to ever hear anyone say: “You? YOU ah Christian? Ah nuh you same one did ah insult Shaniqua di odda day? An did ah talk bout how har front teet suh buff dem coulda tun inna gardening tool???” (For my American friends, allow me to translate: “How can YOU claim to be a Christian? I’m fairly certain that just the other day I overheard you slandering Shaniqua, saying that her front teeth protrude so fiercely that they could almost be used as gardening implements!!”)

I want my future husband (and everyone else for that matter) to be able to substitute my name for every instance of the word ‘love’ in 1 Corinthians 13: “Brie is patient, Brie is kind. Brie does not envy, Brie does not boast, Brie is not proud. Brie does not dishonor others, Brie is not self-seeking, Brie is not easily angered, Brie keeps no record of wrongs. Brie does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Brie always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” As a fallen creature, I’m bound to miss the mark sometimes, but being saved by grace I know I will always receive Help to get up and try again. So thank you, friends, for pointing out my awfulness. Thank you for the tear-soaked pillows and the puffy eyes. You have set me on a new journey.

My middle name is Soleil. It’s French for ‘sun’. Our sun gives light, life and warmth to our planet. I’m going to go and be light.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”              – Matt 5:14-16

I feel like my ultimate goal in life for the past 4 years has been to lose weight, particularly the freshman 15 (more like freshman 50) that I ceremonially put on upon arrival at college in the United States. Over the course of these past four years though, I have indeed lost the weight… and then put it back on again… and then lost it again… and then put on 30 pounds in its place…

Awk…

Anyone can see why I find this frustrating. But what I find even more frustrating is the fact that lately I’ve simply not had the motivation to workout, even though I currently weigh more than I have ever weighed before. Or rather, I’m unsatisfied with my usual motivations…

I’ve always wanted to lose weight so that I can either look great in pictures, or impress that guy that I like, or to get my mother to stop harping on me about my double chin. I’ve realized that I’ve only wanted to lose weight so that I can win the approval of some person or another. And I’m not about that life anymore.

…But, now what? What’s my motivation now? ‘Do it for myself’?

I constantly see pictures on social media of my friends and their seemingly perfect bodies going for an early-morning run, or beasting it in the gym, and I can’t help but compare myself to them. I want all those things. I want the motivation to get up and work out. I want that hot body. But I don’t want to do it simply because I feel that I have to fit into some society mold of beauty or because I’m jealous that they are able to do it while I’m driving the struggle bus.

So now I’m stuck. I feel like Phoebe from FRIENDS in that episode where she tries to identify a truly unselfish good deed: I can’t seem to find a reason “unselfish” enough to workout. I still cringe when I see myself in pictures. I still wish I didn’t have to tuck my belly fat into my jeans when I sit down (don’t pretend like you don’t do it too! I can’t be the only one…). I still wonder if more guys would find me attractive if I had less fat in awkward places. I fully admit that these thoughts still cross my mind.

Perhaps the least selfish reason why I should want to lose weight is because God says in His word that my body is a temple, and so I should take care of it. Even then… it’s not like I’m obese to the point where my health is in serious danger… I know God loves me even though I have thunder thighs and more chins than the Chinese phonebook…

I suppose when I get right down to it, my biggest deterrent is my refusal to feed my perfectionism. All of those things I mentioned earlier — the jealousy, the need to fit a societal beauty mold, the neat and tidy temple — stem from my deep-seated desire to be ‘perfect’ in every area of my life. My perfectionism has driven me to tears more times than I’m willing to admit, and for the past year I’ve been trying to stifle it. And still I seem to come up short.

(Ah, irony, the opposite of wrinkly.)

I can’t help but remember the passage in Matthew 5 where Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And even as I write this and begin hearing the gears in my brain click into over-thinking mode, I hear the Spirit nudge me towards 1 Peter 1:16 which says, “for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.'” The word ‘holy’ (as used in the original Hebrew to which this verse makes reference) means to be set apart, sanctified, totally “other”. God’s ultimate desire for me is to be totally set  apart for Him. To apply this to my current dilemma, I suspect that God wants me to focus on being set apart for Him, and if being fit and strong will help me accomplish his will, then I’ll be more than happy to oblige.