Dear Women,

Don't we crave it? Adventure. Beauty. To be pursued relentlessly? It's the deepest cry from the pit of my heart; to be delighted in and enjoyed by others, and most of all by my daddy in heaven.

We run from it sometimes, run to our corners and sit down covering ourselves in hopes that noone will ever find us. Wishing, for a time, that we can forever shut all of the disappointment out and control our invisibility (don't we love/hate control so?). Hoping that we'll never be wounded (this badly) again. Wondering if we'll be okay if our beauty remains completely hidden.

From the time i can remember i always sought the attention of others: Look at me, tell me I'm caring, good, wonderful. Tell me my passion and intensity isn't too much, that it's okay to be "this way" whatever "this way" is. The thing is, others will never be consistent, anymore than i am. They will always question, critique, and some may even abhor my personality and pursuits.

But.

But my daddy in heaven always welcomes me. He has never, and will never, reject me or refuse to love. Despite my glaring inadequacies, desires, and pride he has never once ran away from me. It's His beauty that i give, It is His love that grants me permission, and even encourages, me to go on adventures (most i would never be on without Him). Ultimately, it is He who has relentlessly pursued my heart from the beginning.

& so yet again I will say: forever and always, I am His because He FIRST loved me.

One Descriptive Word

If I could explain God in one word it would be this: Beautiful. Not loving, merciful, just, righteous, glorious… or any other of the trillion correct attributes of God but simply beautiful. A friend once questioned me on this, acting shocked that I would describe God this way… “Beautiful?” He said, sounding incredulous, “that doesn’t make sense”. At first, I felt a little silly and withdrawn… maybe my view of God wasn’t accurate and it was just my inaptitude which caused me to see Him this way. Then… I continued reflecting.

Beauty is enticing, alluring, it calls to us asking to be delighted in and searched for. It is life-giving. Is not God these things as well? Does he not tell us “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” Jer 29:13. God does not throw himself at the feet of people, begging them to love Him. He does not throw himself away as a prostitute. No, he requires us to search for him, and that we all do even when we don’t know it’s Him we are searching for. Why? Because His beauty is alluring, enticing and mostly because His beauty makes us free.

Beautiful. My creator, daddy, king, and savior is radiantly beautiful.

*Citation Note: I am currently re-reading Captivating, the second paragraph is a
reflection of my reading.

Jumbled Notion

Beauty flourishes amidst pain, it does not wilt or bend to agony instead in the depths of great anguish beauty is often found. As i struggle through life, it is my weaknesses which have humbled me to my knees. Then, a beauty that is not from my own work or doing is revealed, a beauty that cannot be weighed down by this world but that overcomes it.

Even now, as I look up to my Father i feel his arms wrapped tightly around me, pouring His self through me. HIS BEAUTY streaming through that brings life into my brokenness. Without this beauty I would be... well... gone. I would have wilted by now in my own weakness to bitterness, anger, and hatred but He has given me amazing grace so I am able to forgive. PTL!


Random Thoughts:
It's hard for me to publish my thoughts... it makes me feel naked. Interesting how the digital world does such an excellent job of that.
Transparency seems like such an impossibilty, do we really ever allow ourselves the freedom to simply pour out our hearts?

Fear despite a faithful God.

It's a familar place with slightly different scenary and an almost identical feel to an old comfortable spot i love. To the untrained eye, it might appear to be worlds apart from that familar place... but the heart can see it's exactly what i'm used to. You may ask, what place? Well it is colored forest blue and filled with a solitary depressiveness that somehow makes it bearable. It is fear; fear that i try and deny but that exists nontheless. Yet here I am still.

My place of fear can overwhelm if i stay sitting for long. Even having the ability to lead me, staggering drunkenly from one side to the next, sure of where I want to go but unsure I will get there. I've visited it so often that the owners, whom i've never seen, call me a resident. It is interwoven into the very fabric of my being as places sometimes can become. Despite my ability to charge ahead with God's strength it remains, continually evolving.

There isn't a good ending yet, for i can't even see the end. It is a fighting point, a place where God leads me to look up and cry "Daddy, I have no idea how to move on from this spot". I have hope, knowing that He has brought me out of this comfortable place before, but for now... I sit here. Struggling to move, yet remaining. Clinging to the promise of 1 Cor 1:9 "God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful."