In the last month or so I have really been tossing around in my head what real beauty is for me as a woman. Like what does that look like? Is there a certain look or style that portrays beauty or is it more a matter of the vibe somebody puts out. I mean really what is it? Then I begin to ponder...where do we get our ideas and cues from in regards to what real beauty is? Then I realized that a lot of what I have been told is beautiful or acceptable as a woman comes from the culture we live in. We see it in advertising where there is a super thin girl and she is wearing certain clothes, has a certain hair style and make up done a certain way and we have the message conveyed to us as women that this is what beautiful looks like and if you don't look like this well...you know the rest because I am sure you have heard it before if not from somebody literally than from yourself.

But as these weeks have progressed and I have encountered several women who struggle with their self-image I have been driven to the scriptures on what real beauty truly is. This is what I came to, it is more than the appearance. True beauty encompasses the heart of an individual and not just the outward appearance. While appearance is important it does not have the right to hold the highest standard for what is beautiful about you as an individual. Your heart is what matters! Now I know some of you are thinking, "Yeh ok if this is the case why am I still single?" Well I honestly don't know the answer but I do know that your beauty is not based upon how somebody else views you but rather upon how your Creator views you! In Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says, " He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart..." God makes everything beautiful in His time and he made you in his time, Psalms 139 says that he knit you together in your mothers womb and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. So take these words to heart, you are beautiful to your Maker, you are lovely, you are desired, and you are loved beyond measure. 

I think being yourself and who God fully created you to be is being beautiful. I delight in seeing people who step out and dress differently and put items together that others might think looks crazy, but they own it and nobody says anything. So I say step out, find out what you feel confident in and rock it out to the fullest. Be who you are and don't let society or cultural norms define for you any longer what "beautiful" is, because you being you is beautiful!

Ok one final note. I have struggled with having a positive self-image in the past and one thing that the Lord has really highlighted to me that has helped is the way I talk about myself. In middle school-my early 20's I use to make fat jokes about myself because I assumed that others were going to make them and thought I would beat them to the punch to soften the pain a bit. So I did this a lot and had no clue how badly I was actually hurting myself. I was setting the standard with my words for how others were allowed to treat me. If I made those jokes I was saying that I really believed that and it was ok for others to believe that about me and even refer to or treat me in such a manner. The Lord corrected me a couple of years ago when I started losing weight that I could work out and the weight would come off but I had to change on the inside how I viewed myself on the outside and it began with me changing the way I talked about myself, especially in front of others. I can honestly say that years later it has made all the difference. I stopped viewing myself the way I always had and started viewing myself the way the Lord views me. He says I am loved, accepted, beautiful, desired, pursued, a delight, and part of the family. 

So I would encourage you to watch what you are saying about yourself and begin to set the standard for how you treat yourself and allow others to treat you. 

you are beautiful,

misty

My alarm was set for 7, the Lord woke me up at 6:30. As I was waking up a idea that I have been pondering for quite some time came to my heart and I began to just seek the Lord on what it means. This thought that came to me is "what does it look like to be content in singleness?" I am not saying being hopeless and thinking that you will be alone forever, I am more so coming from a standpoint of Abraham when the Lord promised him a son and he in faith had to take a stand that he was going to wait it out regardless of what circumstances were telling him. I know that I will get married, but right now my main goal is to simply be in communion with God in this single season. So I was seeking the Lord on what that looks like, because not only am I single but my good group of friends around me are as well, which is a blessing. Here is the other half of it as well. I have seen the enemy come in offering counterfeits to the real thing when it comes to husbands and it has really wrecked some hearts and practically ripped them in pieces, and so I wonder if there is a way in which the Lord has already established that I can rest in faithfully while I wait for the promise to come to pass. 

So as I was seeking the Lord out this morning on this matter of my heart he gave me some verses in His word. Here is what he dropped into my heart, being single is a blessing and in this season it is important to, "hear, o daughter, and consider, and incline your hear, forget your people and your father's house, and the king will greatly desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. Psalm 45:10-11. It is absolutely necessary in this time to daily seek the Lord and inquire of him, to be wholly submitted to Him and not seeking whom the next man is that I can give a piece of my heart to. But rather taking on a stance of being in this moment and gleaning from the Lord all that he has for me in this season of my life. 

Also just listenin

This is something that I was thinking about today. How different would our lives be if we lived like Jesus was alive instead of dead and hanging on the cross still? How many of us really truly live like he is alive? I mean maybe you do? But me being honest, I do not know that I do all the time. A lot of times I get caught up in well, Me. Then I do not gravitate very far outside of myself and my issues and what is going on in my small realm of the world. I stay in Mistyville and when a problem arises there it sends me in a upheavel and I often think to myself, "what happened everything was going so perfectly?" The reality is that when I live in a world where I can fix and solve every problem I am not truly living in Christ or in reality for that matter. I am living a selfish life full of myself and if something does not interest me or directly affect me then I do not have to be involved with it. What a lie I have and maybe you too, have believed for so long. When I am living like this I am living like Jesus is dead. I am denying Jesus and saying, "hey I know you died on the cross for me so that I can be free, but I'd rather take care of my own life and live it the way I want to."

The Bible says that Jesus is alive, that he is risen that the snares of death could not hold him down. He was destined to live and we are too! Right now I think of what my life is going to be like when I step into the full reality that Jesus is a real man. He isn't just lyrics in a cute song we sing at church or on a praise CD we have and listen to because, "thats what Christians do." HE IS ALIVE!!!! He came to defeat the works of the devil. Maybe you do not believe there is a devil, thats cool keep believing that let me know how that works out for ya. Jesus came to bring his Kingdom and the fullness there of it. He did not die on the cross so that we could go about our lives as business as usual. You know what I'm talking about, "wake up, eat breakfast ...maybe read our Bible maybe say a prayer for somebody or you know pretend to be engaged with a God we think we know.....go about our day....complain about a lot of stuff that we have no real interest in being part of the solution to the problem for....go home....engage in everything else...say a prayer before you go to bed ...maybe read your Bible, you know do a "devotion" ...go to bed...wake up again the next day and do it all over again. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Jesus is ALIVE! He isn't dead, sin does not have to entangle us any longer neither does a mundane so so life have to either. Death has no power over you, unless you allow it. JESUS IS ALIVE! Can we live accordingly in relationship with a man who is alive no longer dead? Can we walk in obedience to the man who did die on the cross and come back to life? Can we be so sold out for our Maker that we love people without selfish motives and say, "yes I will enter the battle for your soul and will stand right beside you and fight for your freedom." Can we? I can....are you willing to?

Misty