Beyond Me: Finding Your Way to Life's Next Level by Melinda Doolittle & Ken Abraham

Author:Melinda Doolittle & Ken Abraham [Doolittle, Melinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sonador Entertainment
Published: 2013-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

1. “Imagine Me.” Words and music by Kirk Franklin. © 2005 Zomba Songs/Kerrion Publishing (adm. by Zomba Songs/LillyMack Music [BMI]). Used by permission. My best motivation is often to prove somebody wrong. Case in point: I once received an offer to be on a television weight-loss program. Now that’s an offer you don’t want to get. For them to even offer meant that they saw me as someone who needed to lose weight. That got me thinking, I need to get back in shape so they won’t ever consider asking me to be on that show again. Television adds at least ten pounds to a person, so when I’d see myself on various shows, I’d cringe. Okay, time to go back on the healthy eating plan and start exercising again. I bought an exercise machine and put it right next to my bed, where it would be the first thing I saw every day. If I had put it in another location, I could have found some excuse to avoid it, but with the machine staring at me each morning as soon as I opened my eyes, I was forced to confront it. I knew I needed to exercise, and I don’t really care for gyms, so the home exercise unit really helped me.

I did find one program where I was comfortable exercising with other people. My friend Mandisa introduced me to Zumba, a hip-hop, Latin aerobics class. I fell in love with it the first day, and I can’t get enough, which is good, since I can’t get enough pie either.

Good Hair Another source of insecurity for me has often been my hair. While on American Idol, I started wearing wigs so I didn’t have to deal with it at all. A couple of years after the show, I finally got to the place where I wanted to experiment with my own hair. Society may say that long, straight, flowing hair is the essence of beauty, but I beg to differ. I love my curly and often unruly hair!

An Invaluable Reflection Knowing what you are worth, however, involves much more than appearance, talent, skills, or money. It involves understanding that you are wonderfully made in God’s image, that in some profound way you are a positive reflection of Him.

I meet many young women these days who tell me their stories, and I have recognized a pattern in them. A couple of years ago, I performed at a charity event and met two young women who were volunteering there. When they sought me out to tell me how much they loved the way American Idol makes dreams come true, I asked—as I often do—what their dreams were. They told me that their families didn’t think they’d amount to much, and they had heard this so much growing up that they had started to believe it. As I listened to their stories, something rose up within me. I said, “You have to know your worth. You can’t let anyone determine that

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