Self-Esteem

Self esteem. We are ingrained in America that it is the the attribute most needed for success. It has become a synonym of confidence. In today's society, we have to look out for Number #1, self, because if we don't love self then we can't love others. Just typing in self-esteem quotes into google gave me all of these....


You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can make others happy. -Unknown

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.- Siddhartha

Your chances of success in any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself. -Robert Collier

I am sure 99% of the world would agree with those quotes. Even 99.9% of religions of the world would agree with them. Buddhism defines low self-esteem as a negative emotion, calling it a delusion. Hinduism has an entire website devoted to teaching you how to raise your self-esteem. LSD.net, the homepage for the Mormon church has a forum on how to host your own self-esteem workshop at your church. As a teenager I tried the Buddhist approach to reach him. I attended Jehovah Witnesses services. They all were about me creating a better self in hopes of attaining the perfect self, God.

Then there is Christianity. The Bible has stories like David and Goliath, victories, but even more it's filled with true, real men and their failures. That doesn't make me sigh in disappointment, but instead, is the reason why I love the Bible so much. Can you imagine how impersonal and unrealistic it would be if every person was this perfect "Christian"? Jesus wasn't followed by a bunch of rich kings and politicians, but prostitutes, thieves, and average Joe's. That's who He chose. All other religions of the world have this "man needs to reach God" mentality, where Christianity is the ONLY religion where God came to man. Likewise, where the world is trying to obtain self-esteem, Christ teaches esteeming others. Think about it....there is nothing that cures a case of the blues like doing something for someone else. It's so easy to throw a pity party for myself when I open all of my bills, but then I get a good dose of reality when God reminds me of all the men, women, and children in the world that don't even have a pillow for their heads.  And where the world promotes Goliaths, men who will do anything for a dollar, for the spotlight, the Bible puts the spotlight on people who cared more about serving and loving others than they did about themselves.  They had a right view of God.  Not that they hated themselves, but loved others more.

Oh, how different our world would be if we would stop trying to make ourselves fell good, look good, esteeming ourselves and instead esteemed those around us. Looked to serve at the sake of ourselves. How much more love would there be? 

To finish, here is a clip for a comedy stand up by Brad Stine that is just perfect...

Reaching out with HOPE and HELP

The Asha team message is simple.  We love you, and we care about you.  We don't want anything from you.  We want to make you smile, we want to give you a hug, and we want you to know how special you are.  Our cards say, "Reaching out with HOPE and HELP."  What is it that you are looking for in this life?  Do you remember who you are?  Do you know who you want to be?  Do you feel like you have purpose?  Do you have that card we gave you the other night?  There's a cell phone number on that card.  That cell phone belongs to a person who wants to help you.  We as the ASHA team want to help you in whatever capacity we can.  Just give us a call, let us buy you a cup of coffee, and let's talk about your dreams.  We want to help.  Our message is clear. 

The Veiw from a Sycamore

How many of you feel comfortable walking into a church? You take a seat, say hi to the couple behind you and feel as though you belong? I’m going to guess that majority wouldn’t exactly call that their idea of a well spent Sunday. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think it’s because you don’t like hearing a message from the Bible or listening to the song being sung. Like myself, you may have grown up with that and find it comforting. The fear lies more in the eyes watching you. The glares sent your way and you can just read the thoughts beneath them. E.H. Chapin said,


“When I contrast the loving Jesus, comprehending all things in his ample and tender charity, with those who profess to bear his name, marking their zeal by what they do not love, it seems to me as though men, like the witches of old, had read the Bible backward, and had taken incantations out of it for evil, rather than inspiration for good.”

I am so struck by what he says…”marking their zeal by what they do not love”. Have you encountered this type of Christianity? I have and it is the thing I hate most about the church today. Yep, I faithfully serve Jesus Christ, and I just said that there was something I hate about some of these churches that also profess Him. Back to Chapin, he calls Jesus “loving”. His life was defined by that! The most famous verse of the Bible, “For God so loved the world He gave His one and only Son…” LOVE! So why, when Christians encounter a person who has not chosen Christianity, do we jump condemn? And, really, I thought that this was a recent cultural change in Christianity. I thought back to the days of my grandmother or before, trying to figure out where we got off track. Where we started to call ourselves Christians because of what we don’t love instead of by what we do love. And you know when that was? Always. Even before Christ was crucified and every year since the church has struggled and fought against this.

As a little girl, raised in a Reformed Mennonite church in the woods of Pennsylvania, my siblings and I would attend what was, and still is call VBS or Vacation Bible School. There was always a theme, we would play a million games and make the coolest crafts. I looked forward to it every year. They would teach us these silly songs as ways to remember Bible stories…and they worked…! May be you know this one… “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he.” Yes, no? Well, either way, I wanted to take a look at this story found in Luke 19. The Bible says he was “the chief tax collector”. Think the big boss of the IRS. He had worked his way up and was no longer the one knocking on doors to repossess your car, but now had men who did that for him. It’s more extreme than that, however. See, at this time Israel was occupied and controlled by the Romans. The Jews were pretty much slaves in their own land, and extremely oppressed. Now, what makes this Zacchaeus guys so much more “evil”? This was a trader…what was considered the scum of society. He was a Jew, hired by the Romans to tax, rip off, and be the ultimate Oppressor of his own people.

To put this more modern day, Aldrich Ames is considered to have committed the worst act of treason against America. As a CIA agent, he passed on information to the Soviets and it’s estimated to have compromised at least one hundred operations and caused the execution of at least ten U. S sources. He is a Zacchaeus. In fact, besides characterizing Zacchaeus as being “the chief tax collector”, it says “and he was rich”. It’s interesting that the Bible even says that because it’s a given that as a tax collector he was wealth, so what this implies is that he was also very deep into dirty money. To further connect Zacchaeus to Ames, it’s believed that Ames had collected 4.6 million dollars for his espionage. He was seriously rich.

So, now, what do you think, putting yourself in Zacchaeus’ shoes (or sandals), would be your reaction when you hear that there is this Messiah, possible Jewish king, coming through your town? Excitement? I doubt it. The story says, being of small statue (hence the wee little man), Zacchaeus climbed into a tree to see Christ. I think two things put him there. First, fear of the Jews who despised him. He had stolen their money flat out, so I don’t think they wanted him to now stand next to him. Second, I think Zacchaeus was further spying. If Christ really was this Jewish king then he could be out of a job! If Rome was to be overthrown then his time of wealth was over. So there he is, perched like a small bird and Jesus walks by. Christ’s reaction and conversation with Zacchaeus has pierced my heart to the extreme this past week. If we had our way, we would have Christ look up, rebuke Zacchaeus, lynch him in the street and then ransack his house till everyone was given back their money. The Jews were so blind to even think that Jesus was there to see them, but, no, Jesus went to that town for one man. Zacchaeus. He even knew his name. Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down. I must stay at your house today.” Don’t miss it. Don’t miss the fire this must have lit in Zacchaeus. He was an outcast, hated by his own people. Accepted? Never. Now, right before him was the Messiah and He knew his name. He wanted to stay with him!

This is acceptance. Love. Grace. It’s like Zacchaeus walked into a Sunday morning church service, tried to blend in, even sitting in the bleachers, just to see a glimpse of Love. He even heard his name. The Pastor read “For God so loved the world that if Zacchaeus believes in Him and he shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” He is broken that someone, a Jew, a King wants to be with him! Then, he catches the eyes of the crowds. Whispers start and soon everyone knows who he is. They know what he does for a living. The Bible says that the crowds complained saying, “Jesus had gone to be a guest of a sinner.” Ha. Oh, the church…we always think Christ lies with the saints when He spent His life serving the sinners. It’s true that Zacchaeus was a sinner. That wasn’t a false title. Their wrong understanding comes from thinking that Jesus wouldn’t want to associate with him because of it. Jesus actually turns to the crowds and says, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Now, I am not lumping you in with the Aldrich Ames’ of the world. I am not calling you traders or scum. Far from it. That is what the “Jews” of today (aka those that mark themselves by what they do not love) want to call you. It’s their eyes you feel catching you. I wanted to tell you Zacchaeus’ story so you could hear what you are from the Man himself, Christ. That He calls you by name. That it’s YOU He wants to be with. He is more concerned about loving you than even the most righteous priest. This world hears your job title and either a. wants you for their gain b. looks down at you. And I am lumping me in with the Jews. I know there are problems with the church. I know that I have to remind myself of my own sin, of how I am still in such need of acceptance and love as you are, BUT, I hope that with every visit you get from us ladies at Asha, every bag we pass out filled with goodies, that you understand one thing… God is in love with you. Not the cleaned up, post-dancer, perfect saint version, but the perched-in-a-tree, hidden from society, ashamed to walk into a church version. (Or anything between). God is ALWAYS about acceptance before obedience. And like Zacchaeus, who it says that he repaid back to everyone 4 times the amount he stole, I pray that any change you make in your life would only be out of being completely blown away with God, seeing that all that matters is His acceptance. He wants to give you a life beyond the money you make, the rush you get. It’s not a life where now you can look down at the Zacchaeus’, but can be just as defined by love as Jesus was.

Beauty and the Beholder

First, being that last month was my first time joining the Asha group and meeting all of you gals, I want to give a warm, “Hello”. I honestly was expecting to walk into the dressing rooms and be greeted with cold shoulders, or the conversations to be not as happy and easy as they were. How silly of me! With the conversations I did have, I quickly learned that you are some of the strongest women I have ever met with amazing life stories. So, thank you. Thank you for making my night with your excitement and smiles!


As many of you saw, I am expecting my first child! It’s hard to stay focused on my everyday tasks when my mind wants to dream up what this little one will be like! My husband is a redhead and so, naturally, I pray that gene to be passed on. (Who doesn’t love a little “Ron Howard” boy!). But, maybe you can relate, moms, I have thought about a question most first-timers do….”Will my baby be cute??” No, seriously. I really want an over-the-top adorable baby! And what is the usual response to that question? A mother always thinks her baby is the most adorable. Right? Ok, where am I going with this? I wanted to talk about the idea of beauty, what it is, who has the right to think it and where does it come from? Is beauty really only in the eye of the beholder?

Your jobs revolve around your beauty. You are constantly being critiqued by each other, by the people who come in and, the harshest critic, yourself. You aren’t different from any other woman in the world. We all worry, think or stress over our “beauty”, however, I give you gals so much credit since you deal with it to a higher degree. One girl I talked to tonight, said, when I asked her about the business and what makes a good night said, “Sometimes the men just don’t like you”. Then, you also have your regulars who only want you. Beauty and the beholder. But is that really true in all areas of life?

The dictionary defines beauty as being “the combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and please the mind”, which can be very subjective, but let’s think on this further. Is there beauty we all agree on? I think so. I have never known a person that would call a good, over-looking –the-ocean-sunset ugly. Or see a field of flowers and be disgusted. And how about the sky at night, with a million stars or the Northern Lights? There is such a thing as beauty for every beholder.

I never had a good view of myself which is why at 15 it was so easy for me to fall into a long, unhealthy relationship. For the first time a man was calling me beautiful. I disregarded that his idea of beauty was only as connected to me as I was “loose” with him. I just wanted to hear him say it to me. What I was once dying for, to be beautiful to someone else, was suppose to be fulfilled here, yet, it only made me feel more empty. This man had the ability to train my heart to think that I was not beautiful to anyone except him and therefore I was trapped. When he eventually replaced me and the relationship ended, I was devastated. It wasn’t until, during my new search for beauty, I learned that there is beauty beyond the beholder. Yes, there is the subjective, but beauty goes so much deeper!

When I was “re-introduced” to Christianity at 19, it wasn’t the cross or redemption that first grabbed my attention (And I say re-introduced because I grew up in the church), but what God had to say about beauty, His beauty and how He viewed me. I was so broken and felt as if I deserved no one. Furthermore, my view of love was almost irreparable. The man I had loved changed his mind so easily that I thought love was something that could be taken away at any moment by anyone, including God. Sheldon Vanhauken, one of my favorite authors had a similar experience with Christianity and says it much better than I could: “A creator seemed necessary, a creator with an immense intelligence embracing order. Apart from reason, the one quality that we attributed to this creative power was awareness of beauty. Everything in nature, in creation, was beautiful, except where marred by man. So there was a power-a god-of beauty with a high and inscrutable purpose quite unknowable to man except for such inklings as might come through the contemplation of beauty. Beauty was somehow at the very centre of meaning.”

I titled this blog as Beauty and the Beholder and the capitalization of Beholder was because I attribute that title to the Lord. Beyond the subjective, your own thoughts and those everyone around tries to tell you about yourself, you are beautiful . God thinks you’re beautiful and what I love most about that is that He does it without any expectations. There is no clause that you must be perfect, without out any sin or become a “Jesus-freak” to earn that beauty title, but you just are. He isn’t a boss. He isn’t like your never-satisfied-father, or your ex-boyfriend. You are beautiful because He is beautiful and nothing that God creates can be anything less. Not the sky, sea, or that perfect flower. Because of God, our beauty transcended this world. I was captivated with God and no longer held down by man’s views. All that mattered to me was that God, the Creator, saw me and called be Beautiful. It took me MANY years to work through all the baggage I brought with me, but God was patient.

One of my favorite verses of the Bible (and I want you to read this as if it was written just for you, because it was) says, “I, the Lord saw you struggling…I said to you, Live! I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured and became beautiful.” The chapter goes on to explain all that God did, making this woman into a queen, His queen. He then says, “And your fame went out among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God.”

Perfect through His splendor. That is was drew me to Christianity and once I saw the beauty God “bestowed” to me, I started to see the beauty in everything else: the beauty of the Cross and the love story of the Bible. We don’t go into the clubs to hit you with our beliefs or our “religion”. I hope you, more than ever, get from me the understanding that I believe you are beautiful and there is nothing I’m asking in return for that nor is it based on the external, but because you are. Simple. Love is what you can give another, not what you get. The best love is sacrificial and you moms can attest to that! You are giving all day long for your children and it isn’t based on how good or how many hugs you get, but because you love. And in an industry that demands so many returns, we hope to be fresh air and listening ears. We will look you in the eye, talk to you like a long time friend and encourage you when you’re down. We know you’re in an industry that demands so many returns and we hope to be fresh air and listening ears.

Happy Easter Everyone!

We had a blast dropping off Easter baskets, Easter egg-decorated cookies, jewelery, lotion, and Cathy even made one lucky club a homemade chicken crock-pot meal!  It was quite the assortment of goodies last night, and we had a blast delivering to clubs all over the Phoenix area.  We really have a heart and passion for loving you gals and hope that we were able to deliver a little happiness and cheer.  Feel free to shoot us an e-mail or call the number on our cards if you have any prayer requests, could use assistance with something, could use a friend, or simply just need to talk to someone.  We exist to help YOU! 

Make-Up, Bagels, & Cookies Galore!

Tonight we handed out make-up, bagels, and cookies---what a combo right!? :-)  A little somethin' somethin' for everyone!

We had so much fun seeing all of you tonight.  It brings us so much joy to bring smiles to your faces and to just give you all a little bit of cheer at work.  Spending time with you guys is always the highlight of our weeks.

As many of you know, we love to meet new friends and hang out with you ladies, so if you ever want to grab a cup of coffee--please don't hesitate.  We exist as a support group for women in the business, and we just want to be there for you all.  If there is ever anything we can do, give us a call or shoot us an e-mail at ashagirls09@yahoo.com.

Love you!!
Joyce, Cathy, Heidi, Morgan, and Brianne

Valentine's Extravaganza!

We had so much fun delivering red roses and brownies to 5 clubs last night!  We met and hugged so many friendly dancers.  It was nice to meet all of you ladies!  It is such a blast to just go deliver kindness and love.  Be sure to comment and say hello or to e-mail us with any prayer requests you may have. :-)  We are happy to help you in any way we can.  Happy Valentine's day everyone!