Be Bold in what you believe

I've been thinking a lot about the word bold lately. A dear friend whom I admire as much brought to my attention my lack of boldness in certain areas of my life. I then found myself reflecting on the word bold.

At first I was hesitant in the need to change. I'm not a bold person because I live with this constant fear that I'm going to offend someone. But as I've thought about it more, being bold is standing with declaration of truth and righteousness! It's being shameless about your beliefs and making statements that allows everyone to know where you stand and what you believe in. It's someone else's choice to choose to be offended by the declarations you make and you can't control everything. If you were never bold, you would go along with everything and probably have close to zero standards. That does not sound like a Christ-like life to me.

When I think of the word BOLD: I think of brave, courageous, shameless, forward, without hesitation, and making your point so clear that there is no room for others to question what you meant.

Even in the scriptures, Jude exhorts the Saints to defend their faith by “earnestly contend[ing] for the faith” (Jude 1:3)

I think being bold could have saved me from a few situations throughout my life. When you are bold, you are choosing to care more about what Heavenly Father thinks of you and less about the world's opinions. I used to believe confidence came AFTER you had done all that you could to fit in; you know the latest styles, coloring your hair, perfect makeup, flat abs, a nice tan, and choosing to never disagree with others opinions you didn't support. Goodness, I couldn't have been more off! I know without a doubt, confidence comes from the Holy Ghost. How do I know this? Because I have lived it. 

I declare that you DO NOT AND SHOULD NOT strive to fit in with the world to find self-esteem, you will never find enough of it! You'll constantly be looking to the world again and again for fame, attention, glory, and approval and slowly but surely little pieces of who you are will be chiseled away. 

Coming to know who you are and having confidence in 

that has to start by coming to know Jesus Christ. 

The world doesn't teach you that. The world tells you to do whatever you want because that's staying true to who you are. But what if you are so lost and confused from the chaos of the world that what you think you want is so far away from WHO you are deep down in your inner core?

Here's my full-heart pledged belief; I believe that you were a spirit in Heaven, Heavenly Father designed the perfect body for YOUR spirit. Your individual worth and unique gifts and talents began up in heaven. These divine qualities that are yours have always been apart of WHO YOU ARE! Your spirit lives inside of you and knows exactly who you are and what you believe in. That is never changing. After you observe societal behaviors and you see in media that morals don't really matter because you only live once, your soul and body start to forget what your spirit already knows about who you are. Society starts creating this formality of who you are and who you should be and pretty soon you have forgotten your purpose. So you start searching the world for things that you think will bring you happiness and confidence only to find that you have moved further than you ever thought was possible from the REAL and TRUE you! Please tell me then how you are supposed to be confident when somehow society has blinded you of what you believed in and your individual worth all along.

If I could tell girls anything, or really anyone for that matter - I would stand upon the peak of Mount Everest and shout at the top of my lungs that CONFIDENCE AND FINDING WHO YOU ARE COMES FROM FINDING OUT WHO CHRIST IS FIRST!

That is my loud and bold declaration to the world. I have never been so confident about anything in my entire life. My pageant years, I was trying to be who I thought the judges wanted me to be. I thought if I had their approval and I wore a crown on my head, then I would be confident. It wasn't until I searched with my whole heart, might, mind, and strength to learn who Christ was and to follow his example that I found myself and realized how confident and happy I was in everyday life. Sure, I still like to get ready to appear that I take good care of myself, but I suddenly found I wasn't obsessing over breakouts or bad hair days. I was able to feel confident about the talents and hobbies I do have and not worry so much about the strengths that seemed to be lacking. When I truly learned who Christ was and the peace he offered flowed into my heart in a way I had never experienced before, it was only then that I felt what I lacked, didn't matter. It's through his grace that he makes up the difference and I feel this confidence that is unshakable and reminds me exactly of what my spirit has always known even before this life. 

BE BOLD! Be bold in what you believe and be bold in staying true to the individual worth your spirit was designed upon.

Don't try to fit into the world because I can promise you with my whole heart you will never be happy and you will always feel like you're not staying as true to yourself as you could be. This is my testimony I leave with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

P.S. I REALLY like this post. Because I desire to know Christ more than I have ever known him before, I didn't watch the super bowl last night. It's important for me to guard myself from all things that could take away the spirit. We all have different beliefs but this is my bold statement that I don't support sports on Sunday's. I'm not better than you because of it and I have absolutely NO right to judge you if you have different views or beliefs. I just wanted to declare boldly what I believe.