A Lesson on Self-Worth

16 Aug

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“And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. “ (John 8:32, NLT)

How do you determine a truth from a lie? What is your litmus test for determining the truthfulness of thoughts that enter your brain?

Let’s step back a moment and travel to the food court inside our local mall. It was my husband’s day off and we were famished and ready for lunch. Ron took our daughter to place the order while my son and I located a table in the unusually busy food court. We found a table and borrowed a few chairs from other lone patrons and were happily people watching waiting for our food to arrive.

Off to my left was a Tropical Café Smoothie. (We have tried that as lunch before, but convincing the children that a smoothie was indeed a meal did not venture well for our family.) As I scanned the line of waiting customers, my eyes fell to a beautiful, tall, slender blonde. She was dressed in a black tank and dress jacket, with trendy jeans. She had long hair and perfect makeup, instantly allowing me to dub her Makeup Girl. She certainly had the look of a makeup counter saleswoman. You know the beautifully intimidating type that we “normal” women may shirk at asking for assistance in the case that we appear less than knowledgeable about powder, eye-shadow, and lip-glosses.

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Thanks for reading friends!

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Looking for Beauty in Tough Places

8 Aug

The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.

~Psam 115:16

Some days it is easy to see the beauty. Other days, amidst our clinched fists or tear soaked tissues, our psyches cry out for places of quiet beauty.

 

On Ron’s journey to Paris, Normandy, Oxford, and London, man and God’s beauty were on display. Brilliant architecture, sculpture, and art captured in his lens while the sacrifices of human life one for another were caught in his heart.

Today, are you in a tough place looking for beauty? Have you, like I, failed one to many times, or so it seems, at living life in obedience to God’s commands? Or, are you face to face with tragedy and heartache asking why?

I have to tell you that in writing this blog, I aim to create scribblings of beauty to bring glory to God and edification to His Body, but often-times at the point of my sin I question my authority to even write. I long to make this a beautiful life but I know my everyday ugly. I know my failings  and my utter ineptness to live out a perfect life. Further still,to an extent, I know what reality is out there confronting mankind everyday.

We live among people in tough places. Sometimes we are them. Being in a tough place is a spectrum term, because for all purposes my points of difficulty are someone else’s points of perceived blessing.

Perhaps we who are looking for beauty in tough places should ask as the disciples did in Luke 11:1, “Lord teach us to pray.” (See Luke 11:10-13)

In certain tough places we have not beauty because we ask not. If we were to ask, the Father would give us more of the Holy Spirit who supplies love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… all of which lead to a beautiful life. Or, in the very least, a life lived beautifully.

Asking Christ opens the door to answers unleashing beauty in the tough places. Perhaps not answered in the way we imagined nor in the timing we hoped but with the One who is faithful and true.

Lord, teach us to pray…

*All photos were taken by my husband, Ron, on his journey with Student Leadership University 301.

friday favorite things | finding joy

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Secrets of True Beauty

6 Aug

In preparation for my freshman year at Auburn University I was quizzing a godly woman who had gone to the plains of Auburn before me. It was only perhaps a five or ten minute conversation after church one Sunday night, but the words of wisdom shared have reverberated over the last 13 years. After recommending a few sororities at Auburn as I was preparing for rush, the woman looked at me and said, in essence, “Most importantly use this time to seek God. ‘Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.'” (Proverbs 31:30)

Those words took root in my heart.

I joined the same sorority that she had , and I am so thankful for that experience. Many of my friendships that I formed there spurred me on towards love and good deeds in Christ Jesus. However, it was the words of Proverbs graced on me that truly made my college experience. God used that 10 minute conversation and a lifetime of teaching from parents and church volunteers before her to impress upon me the need to study and learn God’s word.

While at Auburn, God placed many woman in my life who continued to pour out godly wisdom and sound teaching to lead me in the way that I should go. Women who were busy with families and small children of their own who made the time to mentor me.

If  I could give women of all ages the secret to true beauty, I would most assuredly utter the wisdom of Proverbs 31:30 and Matthew 6:33:

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised…Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

As well I would tell each woman to believe the words of Psalm 139 and their truth in her individual life:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Then in light of this knowledge, it is important that women of today heed the call of 1 Corinthians 3:16-17:

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

As Paul wrote in Colossians 3:1-17 we are to put on our new self. That is we are to “put to death what is earthly” in us and put on our “new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator.” (Colossians 3:5, 10)

My challenge to you today is to look around you. What women or young ladies has God placed in your life? Are you studying God’s word so that you too can reach out to them and share the truth? It may be in a mentor relationship or a word aptly spoken at a given moment of opportunity that God will use you to impact eternity.

Is there someone that God has placed on your heart to minister to? If so, perhaps today is the day that you should take the first step in that direction. If not, then this is a season of preparation for ministry opportunities to come.

In a world with many inaccurate air brushed messages of skinny beauty, true beauty stands out among the crowd. Let us be women of true beauty found in the fear of the Lord.

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