Joan's Girls: The Gift of an Ordinary Day

Our Message

Joan Ruth Smith Stout passed away on September 5, 2007. She was my beloved mother and grandmother of the beautiful girls pictured to the right, Kim, Tiffany, Tara, Chelane, Stephanie, Tristen, Sara, Telisa, Mikel, Jenny and Ashling. My mother died due to complications from malnourishment, or in other words, an eating disorder. I believe it started in her teens and she was completely unaware of the insidious disease that took route in her mind. She was somehow blessed to give birth to four children, three boys and a girl. Joan loved her children with devotion and passion even though much of the time, she felt poorly. Stomach problems, headaches and heart palpitations were a daily occurrence for her. As her only daughter, I was oblivious to her plight until my very own sweet daughter started on that same journey in her teens. By then my mom had been suffering from her eating disorder for a good fifty years, and there was no redirecting her thoughts. Unfortunately for me, I was angry for a while when I realized that the route of all her illnesses was through lack of nutrition. That was shameful on my part, and I am sure that only added to my mom's illness. I hope she knows now how foolish I was. However, through the journey of Telisa's eating disorder, the girls in our family have learned much, especially Telisa! It is for this reason that we collectively, as Joan's Girls, are choosing to send the message out to the world of what real beautiful bodies need to support good physical and mental health!!!!!!! We watch with horror the unhealthy and unattractive images on TV, Movies, Magazines etc. We witness some of our dear friends struggle with body image issues, and frankly we are sick of the comparing and obsessing over one's size versus one's health!! We believe in good health, we believe in eating the food provided for us by our Heavenly Father, we believe in balance and moderation, we believe in exercise in moderation, we also believe the best exercise is done while serving others, we believe that God created many types of bodies and we thank Him for that! We believe in modesty and we believe that our bodies are a gift from Heavenly Father! We believe that true beauty comes from within. All of Joan's granddaughters are true beauties. Our legacy to her will be our commitment to the TRUTH of what is beautiful and praiseworthy. We seek after these things. We will strive for good health and the truth in all we do!

Monday, February 1, 2010

The Gift of an Ordinary Day

I know that Kathryn sent this to most, if not all of us recently, but I thought it was worthy of a Joan's Girl's Post.

Truly one of the most important things we can do is recognize the gifts all around us in every day life. After all, when experiencing a calamity or big change in life, all we want is to get life "back to normal", back to familiarity, back to routines, back to the ordinary. I hope we can all focus on finding and thanking our Father in Heaven for each of the precious gifts in each and every ordinary day.

3 comments:

Kathryn said...: Thanks Kim! I love it!! It's an important reminder.; February 1, 2010 10:21 PM
Beus Family said...: What a great reminder!! Thank you!; February 2, 2010 4:44 AM
Sara said...: I love that video!!
Thanks for posting it...it makes you want nothing more than ordinary.; February 2, 2010 9:59 AM