faith + inspiration

…a little annoyed at Spotify. What is up with playing these awful HIP HOP ad things right in the middle of my sleepy Baby Einstein playlist?!? Pick something a little more soothing, PLEASE. Ain’t no one falling asleep with that kind of stuff coming out of the speakers.

…drinking a coconut water, fruit juice, and sparkling water concoction. Coconut water is sorta like nature’s version of a gatorade, full of good-for-you goodness, but I can’t easily drink it on it’s own. So I like to mix equal parts coconut water and sparkling water and then add either some fruit juice (orange, grapefruit, etc.) or some lemon and honey. It’s a perfect afternoon refresher!

…majorly craving a beach vacation. Sometimes I can just feel that sunshine and salty air and sticky sand. We’re hoping to take a little family vacation to either the South Carolina or Florida coast this fall sometime, and I can’t wait! #isitfallyet

…mentally packing up my house. We move in less than a month (!!!) and I feel like I should be doing something to pack up…but basically the only thing left to pack up is things we will use up until we actually move. It’s surreal to think about relocating to a brand new city, and sometimes it feels a little overwhelming…setting up in a new house, finding a new church, making new friends. But we’re excited and it really does feel like the right thing for our little family.

…a part of a ladies Bible study where we’ve been going through the book Me, Myself, and Lies by Jennifer Rothschild. The study focuses on identifying and cleaning out the things in our mind that don’t belong…like the lies we believe and the negative self-talk we so easily give ourselves. We’ve been doing the study for four weeks now, and even though I still have yet to receive my book, the teaching videos we watch each time and the discussions afterwards have been so good. I can’t wait to get my book and dig into it more!

…giving my nails a break from polish. I always notice that if I go too long with keeping polish on my fingernails, my nails start to get brittle and unhealthy. I love wearing polish, but every few weeks I give it a break for a while. But I’m itching to get some polish on them again, especially since one of my sweet friends gifted me a new bottle of pink-nude polish after I saw it on her and thought it was the most lovely color. Some people are so thoughtful!

…reading The Scarlet Thread. I love Francine Rivers, although I have to admit this isn’t one of her best works. My favorites from her collections are The Mark of the Lion series and Redeeming Love. I’ve spent most of my reading time the past months reading pretty much only pregnancy and baby books, and finally it was time for a good ole novel again. The thing I love about Ms. Rivers writings is that they offer so much challenge, truth, and inspiration even in the middle of a fictional story. I often feel like I’m reading more of a devotional book than a novel when I read her stories!

…soaking up the gorgeous summer days that upstate New York offers this time of year. I’m not sure how I feel about trading in this perfect summertime weather for the heat and humidity of the south…

What about you: what are you reading/drinking/learning lately?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

It happened on Sunday.

We were out on a fun little family outing to Rochester, having lunch at my favorite cafe with three of my favorite people. It was a gorgeous day and I was wearing something I felt cute in and I had taken time to do a good curl job on my hair that morning and I was sipping my favorite maple latte that I ordered for the ride home. As we drove away from the cafe, I reached for my camera and started scrolling through the photos Ben had taken of Ayla and me that morning. We had went outside on the deck right before we left and the lighting was nice and Ayla was cooperative and hey, I felt pretty cute in my curls and dress. I just knew that for once I was going to look good in a photo. These were going to be great!

But as I scrolled through them, I felt myself sinking. And all these thoughts starting whirling through my head:

I look ridiculous.
My arms are so fat!
My face is so puffy!
My hair is so weird!
I am so not beautiful.

Suddenly, my whole day started to feel sour. These lies and accusations started pouring into my soul and it made me want to retreat from all that was going on around me. In that moment, I let myself start to internalize all these thoughts…because honestly they are so familiar that it feels strange to shove them away when they do come. I’ve learned a lot in the past two years about beauty and body image and the true source of identity…and most times the lies bounce right off. But then some days, I fall down really hard too.

As we drove, I just sat there in the passenger seat…pretending to be engaged in the conversation and fun. But inside, all I could think about was this:

…how can I make myself beautiful?

I started thinking of the ways that I should eat differently or watch more YouTube tutorials on hair and makeup or figure out how to dress more stylishly or start exercising obsessively. Somehow I had to change myself! I had to DO something, figure out that magic formula that would finally give me the beauty that I was craving and seemingly lacking. I found myself wanting to even get upset at Ben because he took the pictures and why didn’t he tell me that I was standing the wrong way and that my “good side” was facing away from the camera and if he would only use different angles when he’s shooting, I wouldn’t look so bad. But see, it didn’t have actually have anything to do with the angles…it was about my heart and the lies and faulty sense of identity.

This negative thought train lasted for twenty minutes before I suddenly realized what was happening…I was doing it again. I was believing the lie again that I was the one that could make me beautiful…that I was the one that controlled my beauty. But I was forgetting this truth…

…that I am made beautiful and nothing that I do or don’t do will make more or less so.

Beautiful is something a woman is.

No matter what kind of bodily imperfections or frizzy/weird hair or sense of style we have…it doesn’t change anything about who we are:: beautiful. stunning. lovely. Even if we don’t believe it, we are still:: beautiful. stunning. lovely.

So I sat in the car that afternoon and yelled ALICIA ROSE LAPP STOP IT RIGHT NOW to myself in my mind, and it helped. I stopped that negative train and turned my heart back to what is true and unchangeable. And the whole day turned gorgeous and bright again.

PS. I purposely picked the photos at the top of this post from the ones we took on Sunday. I also purposely picked ones that I didn’t think were good enough to be seen…ones with my “bad side,” my double chin, and strange hair part showing. I did that because it seemed like a good way to slap those silly lies in the face and to tell perfectionism that it doesn’t belong here anymore.

PPS. Read this. Just please read this.

PPPS. I’m also really sorry for the awful Britney Spears song reference…it just seemed like the right title for this post, ha!

What about you: do you find it easy to jump on that negative train about yourself? How do you help yourself jump off of it?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!