We are God’s Treasured Possesion

Mirror Mirror on the wall….

What you see when you look in the mirror ?

Anxiety ?

Depression ?

Low self-worth ?

Body-hatred ?

Weight obsession ?

Thousands of woman and man have a distorted perception of their shape and size, compares her body to others, and feels shame and anxiety about their body. We are constantly bombarded with “Snow white-like” images. By presenting an ideal that is so difficult to achieve and maintain, We live in fantasy created by beauty industry.

The way we see ourselves  reflects the positive and negative experiences we’ve had with our bodies as children and adults, and our social attitudes and cultural ideals. How if almost every single hour our television programs we watch are full of irrational advertising urging that if our skin whiter, we will have it all—the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career ? How if our parents, family and society have self image disorder and inherent it to us ? We live in tyranny of beauty  that shape wrong perception about our body.

Self image can be thought of as a set of beliefs about yourself that are formed over time through a process of repetition and emotional reinforcement. These beliefs may be accurate or mistaken, rational or irrational.

Your beliefs may be irrational or mistaken if :

1. Make you weak,  depressed, anxious and hate your body. Right beliefs arise your inner strength and qualities.

2. Risk your health and exploit your money by using dangerous cosmetics, having deadly cosmetics procedures, overdosing on beauty, having an eating disorder.

3. Broke your relationships with others by critiquing other people’s physical appearance.

If those belief injure your life there’s no reason to maintain it.

Positive beliefs create positive perception of your body that strengthen your life. How to eliminate false belief  from our mind and replace it with truth ?

Let’s look in God’s mirror to find the true belief  :

What God says about you : “You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in My book. I knit you together in your mother’s womb.”

The human person is a creation of God. We were created as an object of God’s love. Every inch of the human body and every aspect of the human spirit come from God and bear witness to his handiwork.  Human dignity (value, worth) comes as a permanent and ineradicable endowment of the Creator, to every person.

God’s Love for You : You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Because I love you with an everlasting love. My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore. For you are my treasured possession. I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul. If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. And nothing will ever separate you from my love again. I am waiting for you…

According to your Faith Be it Unto You !

inmagine.com

Bahasa Indonesia

“God works in all things for good for those who love Him.”

The year 2009 will end, and the new year is getting ready to replace obsolete calendars.

I asked God, what lesson I can pick from  this year as a preparation in years to come. Every year the Lord always provides a vision that will be hold throughout the year.

In the beginning of  2009 the Lord promised us to give us direction where we must walk, which way should we go, whether we turn left or right. God taught us to be sensitive to His will, distinguished what good, fair and pleasing to Him. And we felt God’s participation and direction throughout the year in all things, whether for ’small’ or a ‘big’ thing.

From there we learned that for God there is nothing ’small’ or ‘big’, God requires us to just obey Him and faithful to the things that are ‘simple’. God wants us to enter His plan perfectly. ‘Small’ things have a great influence for the ‘big’ thing and the ‘big’ thing is formed by these ’small’ things.

At first we did not understand His commandments that sometimes ‘not reasonable’. As in the middle of this year the Lord commanded us to leave our city and moved to Bandung. According to the ‘logic’ is so ridiculous because we had to leave our comfort zone there. Our Family doubt our plan as well.

Then we went to Bandung with no job and no idea what will happen in the future. We just believe God will provide all our needs. 2 weeks after we were in Bandung, my husband suddenly get a good job and not so long after the Lord opened a door to enter ‘the Promised Land’ that He has promised us in Bandung. In addition many doors that had closed was opened by the Lord that will lead us to the greater blessings ahead. We can only weep at the foot of God’s for His abundant love and faithfulness in our lives. At the end of this year we see a bright horizon and hope that waiting us in the years to come.

An important lesson that can not be replaced by any treasure though: we are increasingly aware of His Presence and His real participation at any time and any where. Our faith grew stronger by the time we made it through the challenges that are far beyond our logic. Our challenges may be great, but God is greater than all the problems and challenges we face. We believe God will never lose control, because He is God who is sovereign over the earth. It is God who spread the heavens with His hands and laid the foundation of the earth by His power, He knows better what the right and straight. He know the beginning and end of all things.

The second lesson, true faith is never contrary to human logic. True faith is a decision to agree on the logic of a larger divine and noble. True faith is a ‘Power of Attorney’ of human being to God that we believe in His power and allow Him to act for us. So the true faith is a very big power that can draw God’s power to intervene. Because the Lord says: According to your faith be it unto you.

Faith and obedience to God has the power to ‘flatten the mountains, broke the bronze doors and broke the iron bars’ that will take us to the hidden ‘treasures’ that desired by our hearts. Whatever it is….

Anger Philosophy

Bahasa Indonesia

According to research conducted by the University of Toronto, the group of people that most often controlled by anger are: young children, small children and those who less educated. Economic pressures, pressures of time and conflicts with co-workers are 3 things that trigger the anger of people under the age of 30 years.

This is a social portrait of angry of U.S residents . What about in Indonesia? We are just shocked by the news of the ‘trial fart’ on television, a man hurt his neighbor because of farting and this case eventually ended up in court. Police officers who nailed the feet and hands of a young man in Gorontalo but recently this young man known as a tragic victim of misunderstood. A father who could run over his baby feet on the railroad tracks because of anger at his wife. A member of the House of Representatives (DPR) with a famous lawyer who almost fist fights in one of the television show arguing about Kpk case. Not to mention the old story about the chaotic DPR members in the courtroom.

It seems the anger swept this country in almost all social groups, sometimes the trigger is no longer the economic problems, time pressures or conflicts with coworkers as in the U.S.

As a woman, we are often angry at our  hair stylist when  we got too ’short’ haircut, or too ‘thin’ haircut, or the layer is less tidy, or the highlight is not visible, etc.. In fact, because we choose the wrong color of lipstick we can have a bad mood all day.

In addition to 3 factors above , in my opinion, why people excessively angry is that because we do not understand.

The Police: He did not need wisdom and understanding to perform physical violence against someone.

A father who could crush his baby foot in anger  did not understand, did not know and did not realize who he is. The man who understands who he is, will understand how to treat others. A Great Teacher once said: do unto others what you want others do to you. Conversely, do not do to others what you do not want others do to you.

The members of House of Representatives who have chaotic behaviour did not understand that their position / profession have a moral and ethics responsibility to the public so that their behaviour are not honorable.

A woman who nag for weeks because her haircut is too short or the wrong pick of lipstick color, did not to understand that her future is not determined solely by the length of our hair or our lipstick colors.

Wise Quote :

“A man is upstanding if he was away from contention, but a fool is a man who let his anger exploded. Because patience prevents many big mistakes.”

Top Search for Beauty Issue

inmagine.com

Bahasa Indonesia

At first I made this blog to evoke awareness of women to beauty issue and its industry. The beauty industry is worth very much in line with access to the media that created the ’snow white -like images’ on women in almost all the world. The beauty industry is very profitable on the one hand (of course employers) and many casualties on the side of consumers.

After a few months I run this blog, I noticed that the awareness of women to health issues associated with the beauty already starts to increase. Women are more critical to choose the beauty products from the legal side, the function and its effect on health. But not a few women also still looking for ways to be pretty instantly by injecting silicone, whitening injection, instant bleaching, etc..

Apart from the two opposites polar above – women are still not able to stop imagining to be a beautiful princess and an idol of all men. Really?

These are the most wanted list in this blog for 2-3 months :

w-ii navores	212
w ii navores	186
navores	155
navores whitening cream	111
wii navores	78
pemutih ketiak	77
kosmetik beracun	74
bedah vagina	60
w-11 navores	59
operasi plastik	57
kosmetik berbahaya	55
lipstik berbahaya	50
mascara berbahaya	50
krim malam	49
pencemaran pestisida	48
kosmetik	43
plastic surgery disasters	39
ponds berbahaya	38
too much makeup	35
operasi plastik michael jackson	32
krim malam yang bagus	29
kantung mata	29
navores whitening	29
kosmetik palsu	29
pubic	28
worst cosmetics	27

(not all included, since too long …)

Skin whitening issue is still a top search since this blog published . No wonder skin whitening business worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the world.

Although it never happened that a woman was succeeded whiten her skin in a healthy and permanent way because of using a particular whitening product, whitening products is still a best seller on the beauty market.

I think the issue of skin whitening is not about a beauty issue but regarding cultural issues and Body Image. It’s about how a woman imaging herself. If one think brown skin is beautiful, she do not need to waste money to buy skin bleaching right?

Wise Quote :

Ladies, You are fearfully and wonderfully made. For you are my treasured possession. (From God Almighty )

I praise Thee because my creation is powerful and fantastic; miraculous what You make, and my soul really noticed it.

Me, my dog and my God

Bahasa Indonesia

Approximately 3 weeks ago, returned from Jakarta, I took a bowl of lemon from my beloved in-laws. As usual, my dog -a white poodle- welcomed us with great enthusiasm.

Almost the same as human being, every dog has its own character. Some like to play, fight, sensitive, cheerful, and so on. My dog is somewhat different from dogs in general. In a way, he’s dedicating his life , attention, body and soul to cling to me. If  I go out, he would faithfully wait in the yard until I get home. As long as I’m at home, he just sat at my feet and looked at my face. Wherever I went in the house to the toilet, the kitchen, the bedroom- he always followed me. My dog is very close to me, that he had been ill for several days when I lived out of town.

So, I gave my dog a lemon. It seemed he liked it. He guarded the lemon, put in his mouth and carried it everywhere. Nearly all day he would sit near that small lemon, and even when he slept he was accompanied by that lemon. When I approached the dog, he growled like commemorating the enemy away from his property. Several times I tried to take the lemon, my hand almost bitten. During those days, my dog lost his attention to me, in that moment his attention is only focused on the lemon that was almost rotten.

After 3 days we lived like the enemy, while I was so angry at his affair with the lemon, he still retained his lemon. During 14 years I hospitalized, nurtured and loved this dog, he left me because of this not valuable lemon. My heart hurt hehehe …

Finally I took a firm stand. Because he did not change his allegiance, I took the lemon and discard it. Apparently after his lemon thrown away, he returned faithful to me. And he forgot the lemon at all.

3 weeks after the incident passed, I sat down to discuss it with my husband. Lately, my husband was busy with his dissertation. From day to day, week to week, only three things in his mind: stocks, work and dissertation. Like flowers that not watered for days , I felt withered. Life was very rigid and routine. I became bored.

After a long discussion to find the cause of our imbalanced life, we found out that it all began with the wrong mindset. We believe life should be balanced and have priority. Since we got married we have set our priorities: first: God -as the source of our strength , second: our household, the third: our job.

We know that we are not able to walk alone with our own strength to deal with various problems in our household. So early in the morning, we always provide a special time to dwell in God’s Presence. This is not just a religious activity, but alive relationship like a best friend even as a father and son.

This is our strength every day, even though we had experienced an economic crisis due to the falling of world stock markets, our big family problems, other problems that inherent in the household, we are still happy, peaceful and balanced. All problems we submit to Him who gives us strength. As we clung to the Lord, there is only love that flows from our Creator who can cover any shortcomings. We were able to overcome the problems in our big family without having sarcastic words to one another about our families.

Until one day the Lord entrusted my husband passed a test to enter the finances doctoral program at UI (Universitas Indonesia). We believe this is a blessing to our lives and  greater God’s plan in front of us. So at first my husband thought his lectures as a service to God and his household.

That was just the beginning. After my husband passed the preliminary exam in smooth way -as some of his friends did not pass the test and some got drop-out, my husband forgot his main goal to ’serve the Lord and the household’ through his study. At the time the trouble began to hit, while on the other side his family expectation to my husband’s graduation become more and more greater, his lecture shifted from just a ‘means’ to be a ‘final destination’.

His intimacy with God even more faded. Because day and night my husband’s mind was filled with worry about his lectures that compelled him to drive power beyond the limit. As a result, unconsciously, little by little, my beloved husband relied on his own strength and his friends. But because the power of human being is basically limited, the result is an imbalance life because many things must be sacrificed to achieve that. His thirst ‘little flower’ has forgotten.

At the time I was whining to my husband to ‘cultivate and water’ me, then God reminded us of the previous event about ‘my dog and the lemon’. We both were reprimanded for wrong mindset that have made us lose priority and ultimately made our lives become imbalance. We have treated God’s blessings that entrusted to us like our dog treated his lemon. We also worshiped ‘a lemon’, we hold it tightly for fear that this blessing would be taken from us, so we were not conscious that we were warning God: do not go near our ‘lemon’ because it’s ours. We forgot that this is just a gift. As we took the lemon from our dog when he was getting away from us for not valuable lemon, so God can take that blessing whenever He wants when ‘a lemon’, which is not valuable in front of Him, could harm us and make us lose relationship with Him as the source of our strength.

Since then we’ve been learning to view everything through the lens of the Lord, to make us wise.

Special thx for my lovely dog who teach us to be wise

Free Press Release

inmagine.com

There are many ways to sell your product through the Internet but not all effective. My budget for the advertising are often not effective, it’s a waste of time and money. In the midst of strict online marketers competition, we must use the right and informative way  to sell your product. Free-press-release.com is the tool for you who want to sell products in effective and informative way. On this site, products to be released must have complete information. Unlike other sales tools that sell grandiose promises, here consumers get the real information about a product. This site is profitable for the sellers as well as for consumers who need right marketing tools. Your Press-release will be read carefully by consumers because it has very useful information. The most interesting is that there is a free service for those who just want to try, and there are also premiere service, promoted service and customized service  to suit your needs.

Free-press-release