Beauty in Vulnerability

We’ve come to the end of the school year and everyone is excited for their summer to begin. We are excited for you to read our May story. This month we got to travel out of the Birmingham area up to Lake Guntersville to interview this months lady. This lady gave us the warmest welcome, really it was as sweet as she is. This lady has one of the sweetest most genuine spirits about her and we truly didn’t want to leave her cozy home. So here we go…

Her name is Allison Gruenenfelder

Alli welcomed us to her cute home with such a warm welcome. If you can imagine your perfect little dream home, this was it. Not only was her house so cozy, she welcomed us with homemade blueberry scones… which were delicious. As we sat on the couch, Alli got to open up about herself and give us more insight on her life. We asked her to tell us a little bit about herself and what all she would like for y’all to know. She answered, “I am the only girl in my family and I feel like I relate really well to the opposite sex. With a lot of my girl friends, I can relate more to their husbands than them sometimes. I lost my mom when I was 15, she had cancer. I think that was a huge part of my life. When she was living she was a huge tomboy but she really wanted me to be girly. I wanted to be out playing football with my brothers and not staying inside by myself. I grew up in that atmosphere, which has shaped a lot of how I do things. I think it also skewed my mindset about relationships in general with women. And not having my mom in very vital parts of my life, like dating and getting married had an impact. I also lost the second motherly influence in my life, my grandmother, in 2011. That stuff has really played a role in the Lord putting it on my heart to work on relationships with women. It’s been hard for me though.”

Alli goes on to describe different relationships that she has with women in her life and she talks about how she has other amazing women in her life, but she’s not quite where she wants to be with relationships with women in general. It led to a discussion about social media and how it’s hard not to compare ourselves to each other. Alli mentions that she will look on social media and it’s hard not to want to be in another person’s life and to be where they are. And she is learning that it’s okay to not be there and in the same places that some people are in. Alli mentioned that she wants people to know the vulnerability of where she is in all of this and she discussed with us her value on vulnerability. She states, “I want to encourage everyone to be vulnerable and be real. We all crave vulnerability and to know that we struggle.” We got to discuss some of our favorite women on social media who promote vulnerability and give real insight to their life.

We went on to get Alli and her husbands love story, and boy was it an adventure but I’m sure some of you can relate to their experience. She explained, “I met my husband in college. He was a nursing major and he was in choir at UAB, where I was studying music education, so I was also in choir. At first, I thought he was weird and was not attracted to him. One day I did see him wear chacos and I thought he might be cool. We started hanging out with some of the same people. Then we started hanging out one on one, but we were just friends. He reminded me of my little brother, since he’s two years younger than me. One weekend, he wasn’t going home for Easter so I invited him to come home with me for the weekend. He came with me and of course my brothers were asking when we were going to start dating, and I honestly didn’t think of him in that way at that time. But when you see a guy getting along with your family and stuff it sometimes makes you think in a different way. After that, I thought that we might could do it. I told him that I couldn’t hang out with him with these feelings that I had so I told him I couldn’t do both. He then decided that he wanted to date me and that lasted for a week. He decided after that week that he wasn’t ready for it. It was weird. He then worked at a summer camp that I previously worked at and was suppose to go to that summer but ended up not working at it, which worked out. It was good for us to have that summer apart which made him realize that he wanted to be with me and got closure for things in his past. When he came back to school, he tried the whole lets hang out all the time, and I told him I couldn’t do that again. Then he decided that he wanted me to be his girlfriend, and the rest is history. We’ve been married now for a year.”

After hearing their love story, I asked Alli to give some insight on marriage and her thoughts on their first year. She described that it’s been challenging for her. She explained that they both come from different backgrounds and family, which makes it challenging to communicate with each other sometimes. Also, not trying to set expectations on each other, which is such a big thing in marriage. She also discussed with us the challenges of growing spiritually. She describes how sometimes you can have an idea of what a Godly man looks like and everyone is different on how they grow and where they are spiritually and it’s accepting where they are and how they grow. Alli has learned that the more they grow individually and own their own spiritual life, the better they can serve together. When talking about their spiritual life she spoke about how they were really able to grow spiritually, when they went to a youth conference together. Her husband ended up getting a tattoo that represented one of the messages but he told Alli that he got it so he could remember a time when he was broken and always wants to remember that. Alli shared, “I think the biggest thing in our marriage is learning how to be broken in front of the Lord and being broken with each other.”

We transitioned into talking about how Alli is a middle school teacher and that she is interacting with young girls every day so she was the perfect person to ask what her advice to young girls these days. She answered, “My advice to young girls is to not find their identity in other people. Whether it be female or male. I think that so often we get hung up on this idea that we want to get married and have boyfriends and I was that way when I was in high school. You may marry the person you’re with in high school or you may not. But don’t find your identity in that. That person will fail you, whether it be a boyfriend or friendship. Hold loosely to those relationships and hold firmly in who you are.”

We hated to end our time with Alli, but as we always do, we asked her to define beauty and if she finds herself beautiful. She answered, “to me, beauty is sitting on my back porch, in the morning with my cup of coffee, just me and the stillness. To translate that to a person, and what a person can do beautiful is being firm in what they are. And being confident in who they are. There’s also beauty in vulnerability, and being real. And I think I struggle to find myself beautiful. My mom raised me to be confident in who I am, and I can come across to think that I am, but I have struggled with image and what it means to be physically beautiful and not feeling that way. I am reminded that that is not what beauty is. So yes, I do think that Lord sees me as beautiful, and my flesh may not view myself as beautiful but my heart says yes.”

Alli is in her late twenties, but has so much wisdom to share. I wish we could’ve stayed longer with her. She even introduced her to one of her friends, which got to be our stranger for the month and it was so fun to sit with the both of them and to hear a friends commentary of their life. It was truly a pleasure to have Alli open up her home to us and allow us all access into her life. I know she has more to share so if you ever have a chance to sit and talk with this girl, you should.

Thanks Alli was allowing us in your home and letting us see a glimpse into your life, and for the best blueberry scones. Keep being awesome and vulnerable, you’re truly making such an impact on the world around you.

As always, a big thanks to Emily for capturing our moments with our sweet friends. This journey wouldn’t be the same without you.

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