God Knows the Heart

This morning I was reading in 1 Corinthians and I came across this:

“So look at us as mere servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God’s mysteries. Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful. As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide.” 1 Corinthians 4:1-4 NLT

Even if we think we are doing well (or bad for that matter!), we cannot know our own hearts which are deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9), so it is better by far to leave judgment of our own condition in God’s capable hands…He knows the beginning from the end and the hidden counsel of our hearts.

This is actually very good news for those of us who have a hard time keeping a healthy self-image and perspective. It means that no matter how you see yourself, God sees you as His child, saved and set free from the burden of self condemnation by the death and resurrection of Jesus!

Be blessed today and walk in the joy of freedom!

What should I write about?

I have too many interests.  I love to read and write.  I love to paint, draw, and create wearable art (sewing, crocheting, jewelry making, etc.).  I love kids (I work at a children’s museum).  I love music (I teach voice and piano lessons).  I love cats.  I love homemaking, I love gardening, I love DIY projects.  I love to cook…I’m interested in health, in financial management, in early childhood development…I love youth ministry and marriage ministry, and I REALLY love my husband!!  And my cat(s).  And most of all, I love God!

I started this blog a little over 2 years ago with the intent to write some inspirational posts for young women.  I wrote a few, but somewhere along the line, I got distracted.  Maybe it was starting a new job, maybe it was a nine month long discipleship program at my church, then a sudden up-rooting of our little newly married life and moving into a 20-something foot long camp trailer for 6 months, starting another new job, and then moving into our own house in the middle of a winter storm.  Maybe it was just getting too caught up in the stress of life and forgetting about the little things that make me happy.  I’m not really sure what caused the distraction, but I guess there is always time to start fresh and begin anew!

So this blog will be getting a little bit of a face lift, and hopefully a lot more posts soon 🙂 I’m pretty sure the subjects of my next few posts will be a little random, but hopefully you will get a peek into my life.

Beautiful

Beautiful…what defines beauty?  Who defines it?  Everyone has their own definition, their own idea of what beauty is.  Songs have been sung, books written, pictures painted as individuals strive to define beauty.  Each person perceives beauty differently.

Unfortunately, the idea of beauty most of us cling to is a beauty tainted by cultural influence.  Much of our perception of what is beautiful comes from Hollywood and the movie industry, the music industry, from celebrity magazines and glamorous advertisements.  These influences tell us that beauty is in the color of your hair, the smoothness of your skin, your height, your weight, your teeth, your clothes…the list goes on and on!

What girl hasn’t looked at a picture in a magazine, or a movie star in a movie and compared herself to the image presented there?  What girl hasn’t, at least once in her life, thought, “I wish I looked like that…she is so beautiful!!”  or, “I love her hair/skin/eyes/smile and wish I were that beautiful!!”  I’m pretty sure that if we were honest, every one of us would agree that we’ve thought something similar to that…at least once 🙂

The question is why?  Why do we look for beauty everywhere, and why do we longingly hope and strive to be more beautiful ourselves?  I believe it is because God built beauty into our souls.  God created millions of lovely things: from light refracting through droplets of water to create a rainbow to the perfect curve of a rosebud’s petals, from snow-capped mountains to the song of a morning lark, from brilliant sunsets to sparkling gemstones–God surrounded us with beauty.  Then, He made us and wrote “beautiful” on our souls and said that it was a good thing!

So then, let us redefine beautiful as something from God, something that is good and perfect!  We desire to be beautiful because God made us that way, not because there is something wrong with us or something missing from our lives.  With that in mind, what is beauty, really?  It’s not the external things we do to pretty ourselves up, but an attitude we live out from our hearts.  A beautiful woman is not one who is well dressed and well made-up…a beautiful woman is one who has beauty in her soul and lets it shine out from the inside!!

So go out and be beautiful as no other person can be!!  Share the internal stamp of beauty that God created into your heart and your soul, and live it out where everyone can see it!

Busy

In spite of our best intentions, sometimes life just gets in the way!  The past 2 months have been very busy for me, and I realized a few days ago that I got completely distracted from blogging!  It’s been quite some time since I last posted.  So I decided it was time for a new topic which I am hoping elicits some dialogue from my readers. 

Someone once defined the word “busy” with the following acronym: “Being Under Satan’s Yoke.”  I think that definition is particularly appropriate, because when we get busy, we lose focus on our relationship with God.  It’s easy to go one day, then two days, then suddenly a week or more without really praying, without really reading the Bible when there is a lot going on in life.  It’s easy to be distracted by all the little things in life and to forget the need to continually be building up our relationship with the Lord.  Don’t get me wrong, having things to do in life is important!!  Keeping the house clean, making dinner, going to work, studying for finals–all are important parts of the lives we live.  However, when the daily routine starts to cut out God, then it’s time to redefine priorities! 

Another equally dangerous pitfall in our walk with God is routine.  Sometimes we get so caught up in the “routine” of our relationship with God that we stop growing and start atrophying.  This can happen even when we are diligently reading the Word and praying!  I know I have been in the place before where I got so focused on making sure I was sticking with my plan that I forgot that the “plan” wasn’t what was important.  It’s a great temptation to think that if we are reading nine chapters per day, listening to 14 worship songs in the morning, and praying for 30 minutes morning and night that we have arrived.  But God doesn’t work like that.  Sometimes less is way more!  One song on repeat may be what I need for the day, or two verses may hold such depths that it takes me a week to grasp what God has for me.  The key is in growing to know God’s voice within each day’s events, whether habitual or unusual! 

Consistently be growing in your walk with God.  Don’t let life get in the way, and don’t let your idea of what it should be get in the way of God’s voice in your daily life!

KONY 2012 – How should we respond?

What is This All About?

Invisible Children’s new video, Kony 2012, is primarily focused on “making Kony famous,” which on the surface sounds like a great idea. For those who don’t know, Joseph Kony is one it the world’s most wanted men. He is the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (the LRA), an army of African children and youth.  For over 25 years, Kony has kidnapped children (approx. 30,000), primarily from Uganda, and forced them to become soldiers in his army, committing hideous acts including murdering their own parents.  Here is the link to the video if you have not watched it for yourself.  I would request, however, that you read the rest of my blog before watching the video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

The Kony 2012 video’s release created a huge controversy.  Many people are accusing the Invisible Children (IC) Organization of using their video to bring in funds which do very little for the people of Africa but actually go to line the pockets of the leaders of the organization.  There does seem to be reason to believe that IC is only telling a part of the Uganda story in order to make its point and gain donations, but I don’t know enough to say one way or the other.  Other people are worried that this cry for help in Uganda will end up getting the US involved in another war overseas, this one being “none of our business.”

Over the past week, I’ve been doing a lot of research about this movement – watched the videos, read the blogs, both positive and negative.  My goal: to come to some sort of conclusion about this suddenly gigantic issue.  I will not repeat here all the pros and cons because there are plenty of resources available elsewhere.  I will post a few links at the bottom to some articles I believe are particularly thought-provoking on the issue.  I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I think we, as Christians, should respond to this, so that is what I would like to focus on for the rest of this article.  

A Response to Kony 2012

I first watched Kony 2012 a few days with the intention of figuring out what all the hype was about.  I was immediately struck by what a great job IC did of marketing their cause.  The video is designed to tug on your heartstrings and inspire you to want to “do something.”  Unfortunately, I didn’t see that there was much to do.  IC advocates stopping Joseph Kony this year, 2012.  That is what needs to be done, but there is no way I can head over to Uganda and stop Kony myself…so what do I do?  The answer provided by Jason Russell, the co-founder of Invisible Children and spokesperson of the video, is to sign up for IC’s cause and support them in changing the world.  You have the option to buy the “Action Kit,” which apparently provides you with a bracelet to wear and a lot of posters to hang up to make Kony famous.  You can also donate a few dollars (at least $15) per month.  This will support Invisible Children’s efforts to get the United States Government to keep working on catching Kony, and will hopefully help rebuild Uganda after the Lord’s Resistance Army is stopped.

However, after I dug into the facts a little more deeply, I realized that a) Kony and the LRA are not in Uganda and haven’t been there for at least 6 years.  They are currently operating in remote parts of Sudan and the jungles of the Congo.  b) There are not 30,000 children in the LRA.  That is the estimated total number of children kidnapped by the LRA over 26 years.  c) Invisible Children advocates a worthy cause, but we need to realize that this is far from the only cause in the world.

My response to Kony 2012?  I am not going to buy their action kit.  I am not going to donate to the cause.  I am not going to hang up posters with Kony’s name on them all over my home town.  I am not even going to post the video on my FaceBook page, although I am including the link here for informational purposes.  Don’t get me wrong, I do not think Invisible Children is a bad organization.  I do believe they are a group of people with a heart for change in a war traumatized nation.  They have a wonderful cause, and they are right: Kony and others like him should be stopped, and the world needs to get behind bringing him and others like him to justice.  I just don’t know that IC’s answers are the right ones…There is a lot of passion, but I fear it may be a little misguided.  I praise them for taking a stand, for being brave enough to put their cause out there and get people involved.  That is admirable.

So, although I personally am not going to support Invisible Children financially, I do agree with one thing: We as Christians have a responsibility to act when we see injustice, and that includes not only speaking, but doing as well.  For IC, that injustice is Joseph Kony and the LRA.  I see far more injustice in the world than just this one cause, though, and I believe there are many things to consider before we jump on the newest bandwagon that parades by.  What is happening in our own country, in our own towns, right under our noses while we focus on Joseph Kony and the issues in Africa?  The statistics say that Kony has kidnapped around 30,000 children over the past 26 years, but there is something just as devastating happening in our own country:  over 200,000 young children are being forced into sexual slavery here, in America, every year.  I hope that catches your attention, because it sure caught mine!!  Sex trafficking is becoming ever more prevalent even in the US, and we sit safely in our homes and don’t even know about it!  Thousands of teen and preteen girls run away from home every year and are tricked or forced into becoming sex slaves.  They are looking for hope, help, their identities, meaning in life, and end up getting sold a pack of lies that ruins their lives.  And what’s even worse is that there is no one available to help them.  The only way for most of these girls to get out of sexual slavery is to turn themselves into the police and get put in prison for being a minor involved in sexual activity.  There are very few rehab centers and safe houses, and no one seems to notice or really care.  We can’t seem to admit that this is going on in our wonderful country and it is so much easier to assuage our consciences by donating a few dollars to help stop a killer overseas than to get our hands dirty finding a solution for the pain and suffering going on in our country.

So yes, we need to do something.  For some of us, the Kony 2012 issue will resonate deeply and we will be called to respond and do something.  For some of us, we will look around and see the need in our own cities and even our churches right here in America, and that will resonate with us and we will answer the call to stand up and do something in the here and now.  Neither is better than the other.  If God calls you to support IC and the Kony 2012 cause, then by all means do so!!  But if God calls you to recognize the need of teen girls caught in the sex trade, or any of hundreds of other causes all over the world, then do whatever God is calling you to do…but no matter what, DO SOMETHING!!  Above all, do not sit still and judge others for acting when you will not.

The Power of the People

One big lesson to take home from this whole thing is the realization that people have power, and social networking is a great way to tap into that power.  I have no hopes of my own blog becoming viral like Invisible Children’s Kony video, but I do hope that people will share it!  Post this on your page if you are interested in sharing a hopefully balanced perspective of this issue.  Beyond that, the purpose of my blog is not to get involved in politics or to step on people’s toes, but the purpose of my particular little voice is to address the growing issues of teen and preteen girls.  I have a deep seated desire to speak truth into the lives of young women and encourage them to be strong, healthy, beautiful women of God.  This is my own way of acting, speaking, and doing.  I see hundreds of thousands of broken and hurting young women in the US today who need to know that they are beautiful and that is what my blog is about.  If you know a girl who can benefit from having her identity as a daughter of God reinforced, please send her the links to my blog!

Resources:

Following are a number of links to sites that I found helpful in sorting out this issue for myself.  These are just a few of the responses to this issue.  Please take time to read through some of these posts and come to your own conclusions about what this means for you!

The Kony 2012 Issue:

Joseph Kony is Not in Uganda and Other Complicated Things

World Vision Welcomes Kony 2012 Awareness but says Issue is “complex”

World Vision Knows a Killer Worse than Kony

Joseph Kony’s Staying Power as One of Forbes’ 10 Most Wanted Fugitives

12 Lessons from from KONY 2012 from Social Media Power Users

Invisible Children’s Sites:

Invisible Children Website

The Official KONY 2012 Site

Links about Human Trafficking in America:

Sex and Money: A National Search for Human Worth

Enslaved in America

US Should Stop Criminalizing Sex Trafficking Victims

Refining

Sometimes life throws a curve-ball our way.  Sometimes, it throws about 20 curve-balls our way!  Have you ever wondered how much worse could it get?  Can anything else go wrong…only to have the worst happen the very next day?  I’ve noticed this seems to happen a lot.  Life will be pretty good with its normal ups and downs, and then all of a sudden WHAM!!!!  Right out of nowhere the floodgates open and you get inundated with an abundance of the worst possible situations.  And then, just when it should be getting better…something else happens.  

Some people call this fate.  Some call it karma.  Some may say you are getting judged, some say it’s just bad luck.  I would like to call it something different:  Refining.

When precious metals are mined, they don’t come out of the ground ready to slip on your finger as a lovely ring, or hang around your neck as a necklace.  Instead, they must first go through a process called refinement.  Gold, for instance, goes through and extremely complicated process.  It starts out in the ground, then is mined out.  Once the gold ore (rocks containing gold), is removed from the mine, it is then broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, then ground into powder.  Next, it goes through a process in which the gold is chemically separated from the rock.  Then the gold is melted and formed into bars, which then get melted all over again and processed even more to remove impurities.  Then you have pure gold, which although lovely, is not strong enough for most purposes, so the gold is melded with other, stronger metals to create alloys that strengthen the gold into a form that can be more versatile.  

Refined

I believe that the refining process can teach us a lot about what God does with us.  We start out as rough stones, sometimes with so little gold in us that it is completely invisible.  Then God uses life circumstances to break us down, grind us up, and get the gold out into a usable form.  Even then, He’s usually not done with us, but creates strong alloys of us so that we can be used for even greater purposes.  And he never leaves us in ugly lumps, but continues to shape and refine us until we are beautiful creations that reflect His image.  

Another interesting thought…Gold never complains about its circumstances.  You don’t hear gold yelling, “Hey, it’s hot in this furnace!!!  Let me out!  I don’t want to be refined!!!!”  No, it allows the process to continue until the gold is at its most pure, and it is shaped into the form it was created to hold.  We are born sinful, ugly, useless people…until we are mined out of the ground by God’s hand and smelted and refined into instruments capable of doing whatever He desires.  This is not an easy process.  It was never intended to be!  But next time the world seems to come crashing down on you, think about the refining process and thank God that He was not willing to leave you in an unfinished state, but has continued to refine and purify you so that you can be a true reflection of His beauty!

What are some of the refining processes in your life right now?  Pray about them and seek God’s wisdom for how He intends you to grow through them!

Bearing Fruit

The Bible is full of produce metaphors: the Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5), the True Vine (John 15), the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4), etc.  There are many, many more, but the main theme runs throughout: a Christian is expected to bear good fruit. No, this does not mean we grow literal fruit from our bodies.  This means that fruit is a metaphor for something of particular importance in our lives.  

Let’s think about the Fruit of the Spirit for minute.  We’ve all heard of it…you know, Love, Joy, Peace, and so on.  If you’ve gone to church more than a few times in your life, you’ve probably heard at least one sermon on the topic, if not multiple sermons on each aspect of the 9 fruits.  In the next few weeks, I’d like to throw a few more thoughts your way on the Fruits of the Spirit and how each one of them contributes to true inner beauty as well as how the beauty of each fruit is reflected on the outside.  For now, however, I simply want to make sure we all understand that the Fruit of the Spirit, just like all the other produce-related metaphors in the Bible, embodies a special message from God about the single most important aspect of gardening: what you get out of it.  AKA, produce.  

Every plant is grown for a reason, and that reason is the harvest, or produce.  For flowers, that produce is the lovely blossoms that we can smell and enjoy whether they stay on the plant or are cut to be placed in beautiful bouquets.  For fruit trees, that produce goes beyond the flowers to the true harvest of apples, pears, peaches, oranges, lemons, etc.  Herbs are grown to produce seasonings and flavorings, small leaves or flowers that add tons of vibrant flavor to any dish.  We don’t grow gardens just for the sake of having a garden.  We grow them to get something out of them, even if what we get is simply lovely smelling flowers!  

This leads us back to the inner gardens of our souls.  It doesn’t matter how carefully you cultivate your soul if you don’t bear fruit, or allow the fruit of your life to spill out and bless others.  When a plant has produced, it needs to be harvested.  Flowers need to be cut off, fruit needs to be picked.  If the produce is left on the plant, it gets shriveled and nasty, sometimes mushy and moldy.  It ruins the beauty and limits future productivity.  Roses need to have old blossoms plucked off so new one can grow.  Tomato plants need to have their fruit picked so it doesn’t fall to the ground and rot causing a stinky, slimy mess.  Herbs need to consistently harvested so that new sprigs can grow and so the flavor of fresh, young leaves can be continually enjoyed.  The same is true of our souls.  If we do not harvest our produce and share it with those around us, we will slowly get bogged down in a mess of slimy, smelly, rotten produce.  No one wants a life like that, and certainly no one wants to spend time with someone who stinks of rotten fruits.  

There is no surer way to spoil the hard-earned beauty of your soul than to try to keep everything to yourself.  Back to the Fruit of the Spirit for a moment.  If you have spent months cultivating the fruit of kindness, yet don’t share kindness with those around you, you will become legalistic.  Your kindness will be to good to share with just anyone.  You will start to look down on others and soon will become downright unpleasant to be around.  What about peace?  You can spend years learning to have inner peace, but if you hold that peace so tight inside that others can’t tell you are at peace and you don’t share your peace liberally with other people…you will become a hermit, a miser of your time and self, unwilling to expose yourself to outside influences in fear of losing your peace.  I could go on, but I hope you understand the necessity of not only bearing good, lovely fruit, but continually harvesting it and sharing it with others!  

The truly beautiful soul is one so transparent that the sweet fragrance of each “flower,” and the lovely taste of every “fruit,” is evident to anyone nearby.  Take some time to consider what produce you are hoping to cultivate in your life and how it will be a deep, lasting blessing to every person you come in contact with! 

Sunshine: The Art of Joy

Plants effected by light

Sunshine is absolutely vital to a healthy garden.  Plants that have no sunlight are sickly, thin, and die at the least provocation.  They are colorless and rarely produce anything worth while.  Plants take the energy from sunlight and convert it through a process called photosynthesis into energy that is usable by the plant for life and growth.  This is what sets apart a plant grown in full sunshine from a plant grown in darkness or only partial light.  Look at the photo to the left.  The first plant only gets some sunshine.  It’s lopsided and crooked, with spindly stalks.  The second plant got no sunlight at all.  It is pale and sickly, and some of the stalks have fallen completely over.  The third plant is full, healthy, and sturdy.  

Sunshine is vital not only to plants, but to humans as well!  We get the all important Vitamin D from sunshine which can help with so many things from lifting depression to strengthening bones and muscles.  There is something deeply healing and calming about simply sitting or laying in the sunshine for a while.  However, while there are many more benefits gained from sunshine than I can describe here, there is another kind of sunlight that is even more important to us as Christians: the light of the Son of God that shines into our souls and out through our words and actions.  This Sonlight creates a different kind of “Vitamin D” in our lives…an all-purpose healing agent that we sometimes call Joy.  

Joy…when a lot of people think of joy, they tend to define it as extreme happiness, but I believe it is something much deeper and more meaningful than that.  Psalm 16:11 says this: “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever” (NASB).  In the presence of God is found something called the fullness of joy, what I have come to recognize as a deep sense of inner peace and contentment that bubbles up into something that resembles happiness, but without stings attached.  Joy is what sustains the souls and fills it with the ability to remain at peace even when the world is falling apart around you.  Another verse that defines joy is Psalm 27:6:

“One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple.  For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.  And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD” (vs. 4-6, NASB).  

Sacrifice with shouts of joy.  Sacrifice means giving up something, and it is often a scary word and thought.  Yet, David sought to dwell in the house of the Lord, knowing that he would be sheltered and concealed in the day of trouble, and lifted high above his enemies.  With this knowledge, he was able to go through anything with a shout of joy, a depth of peace that allowed him to praise God no matter what he faced.  

I believe that joy is one of those things a Christian can’t live without.  Just like those plants pictured above, the joy produced when God’s love flows through us will build us up, strengthen and grow us.  However, when we as Christians live without joy, we begin to fade.  Our life loses its color and it’s ability to produce any fruit.  Parts of our character begin to shrivel and droop, eventually becoming ugly blotches of dead foliage that blights and mars our beauty.  Without joy…we die.  

Make sure your life is exposed fully to the light of Jesus.  Bask in Him.  Immerse yourself in God’s Word, worship with abandon.  Absorb the brilliance of Christ’s light into yourself and allow Him to fill your innermost heart with a joy that heals every hurt and lightens every load.  

You’re Beautiful Because I Love You…

Valentines Day?

Singles Awareness Day…Overly Commercialized Day When Retailers Make Way Too Much Money…

I hear the sarcasm dripping from the voices of many “unattached” people as they wake up on Valentines Day and bitterly realize that no one “loves” them.  You may shrug your shoulders, toss your hair, and proclaim that you are perfectly happy being single…but this is the one day of the year when there is no avoiding the truth: No one is going to buy you roses or bring you chocolates…unless it’s your single best pal coming over to commiserate.

No, I am not going to spend this post telling you to buck up.  I spent many years as a single young woman, and although I was perfectly content being single, there was something about walking through the store and seeing heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and soft, cuddly teddy bears hugging hearts that say “I love you” that makes a single person, no matter how content, feel just a little bit lonely and sad.  I can’t count the times when I would sigh and wonder if anyone would ever find me beautiful enough to fall in love with and bring me roses.  If you’ve read my post about our Love Story, you know that my Prince Charming found me just over a year ago…but until then, I’d spent every Valentines Day alone.

My commitment to stay single and not date until God brought the right guy into my life was not always easy, but it gave me the incredible opportunity to discover the true meaning of Valentines Day.  It is not, as commercialism would have us believe, all about cuddly teddy bears, roses, and heart-shaped chocolates.  It’s not even about hugs and kisses from the one person you love more than any other on earth.  Rather, Valentines Day is all about love.  True Love.  Love that cannot be defeated by sarcasm and the lack of roses.  Love that turns everything it touches into pure beauty.

This love I am talking about transcends earthly affection and romance.  It is the kind of love that endures pain, rejection, hatred, jealousy…and continues to love anyway.  It is the kind of love that would cross the Sahara Desert and swim the Pacific Ocean for the one beloved…or the kind of love that would leave heaven and descend into the darkness of earth to live, suffer, and die to save His beloved.

Have you ever watched Rogers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella?  If you have, perhaps you will remember the song Cinderella and the Prince sang minutes before the clock struck midnight:

“Do I love you because you are beautiful?  Or are you beautiful because I love you?”

This scene is so sweet and wonderful.  I don’t know any girl who can listen to Brandy and Paolo Montalban sing their lovely duet and not sigh somewhere deep inside, wondering if she is truly beautiful, if she is worthy of that kind of love.  Is she beautiful enough to be loved like that?  Maybe if she had a sparkly enough dress?  Or a fairy godmother??

Let me tell you this: God does not love us because we are beautiful.  In God’s holy sight, no one is beautiful, no not one.  All are stained as ugly as sin, and that is not a joke.  Sin disfigures and destroys anything and everything that is lovely about us.  With this in mind, none of us deserve a fairy tale like Cinderella.  However, something wonderful happened when Jesus came to earth and gave Himself on the Cross for us:  He loved us.  And He didn’t love us because we are beautiful.  No, we are now beautiful because He loves us.  He loved us so much that He left His princely throne in heaven and came to earth to live a lowly life and die a horrific death to provide a covering for our sin-scarred selves.  That covering is His blood, and it washes away sin, cleansing and beautifying us as nothing else can do.

To me, this is what Valentines Day is all about.  When you look around you and see red and pink and hearts everywhere…don’t feel sad!  Don’t feel lonely!!  Feel beautiful as you remember the sweetest Valentine of all was given 2000 years ago–for you.  It was carved in wood, etched deeper than any lovers’ initials on a tree.  It was stained redder than any foil-wrapped chocolate.   It was signed by your truest Valentine, the Lover of your soul, Who doesn’t love you because you are beautiful, but Who made you gloriously beautiful beyond compare by His love.

You are beautiful because He loves you!  And that knowledge is what will sustain you through this day.  It is not a day to be made extra aware of how unloved and single you are, but a day to recognize and realize the meaning of God’s deep love for you!!

The greatest Valentine

Happy Valentines Day!

Fenced In

BOUNDARIES!!!

Boundaries are interesting things.  We both hate them and love them.  We need them…yet we don’t want them.  A boundary can be found anywhere, in any part of life.  Boundaries are those weird scanner things at the store that go BEEEEEEEP!!! really loudly if you attempt to walk out of the store with some item with an activated security device.  Boundaries are the white and yellow lines on roads.  Boundaries are the walls around your house.  Boundaries are the clothes you wear.  Boundaries are fences.

Although all of the above are legitimate boundaries in varying forms, today I specifically want to discuss fences.  If you’ve been reading my blog at all, you will have noticed that all of the recent posts have to do with gardens and gardening, so talking about fences should make perfect sense:-)

Like any other boundaries, fences are only effective if they are strong enough to keep unwanted and unnecessary things out and wanted, good things in.  Check out the following picture:

This particular fence was built by my father to protect our garden.  It is at least 8 feet tall, and surrounds the entire area of our vegetable garden, plus many flowers and a few fruit trees (I’m making a wild guess that the area surrounded is just a little less than an acre).  It is a very strong fence, embedded in cement, and reinforced with barbed wire.  This fence is very effective in its purpose: keep the deer from eating all of Mom’s flowers and veggies!!

This is where it gets interesting.  Visitors to my parent’s property are usually granted the wonder of seeing at least 2 or 3, and often as many as 10 or 15, deer wandering through the yard grazing on the grass.  Most people gasp in wonder, point out the window and yell, “Look!! A DEER!!!”  At which point, all new visitors congregate around the window and stare for several minutes at the wildlife.  When they get over their initial awe, we then have to explain that although the deer are cute, they are pests, and because of them, we had to build our massive fence.  We enjoy the deer…to a degree, but consider them more of an inconvenience than anything else, since everything we want to grow has to be fenced in and protected with ever increasing creativeness as the deer indiscriminately munch pretty much anything floral or green.

The fence and the deer are a simple illustration of a much greater truth: fences are absolutely necessary if you want to grow a lovely garden.  Otherwise, deer will trample through your hard work, pulling out tender plants, munching a few bites, and leaving a trail of havoc wherever they go.  The same is very true of the beautiful garden of our souls.

We all have “deer” that trample our souls, tear up our beauty, and leave havoc in our hearts.  Unfortunately, many of us (girls especially, but this applies to guys as well!), have no idea how to protect ourselves and end up getting torn up and trampled again and again and again.  This is why boundaries are so very important, even if they are sometimes inconvenient and annoying.

For us girls, this means that we must put a lot of thought and effort into guarding and protecting our hearts.  When I was just entering my teens, I remember making some pretty wild decisions.  One of them was that I wasn’t going to date until God brought Mr. Right into my life (for me, that meant waiting until I was almost 27 years old).  Another of them was that I was going to dress modestly instead of following the fashions of my friends.  Another one was that I wasn’t going to hang out with people who tried to influence me in negative habits like smoking and drinking, or pushed dating and intimate guy/girl interactions.  These decisions set me apart from most of the other young people I spent time around.  I had to go through several years of being lonely and “weird” before God showed me that there were a lot of other young people out there who believed in boundaries too!

There are a lot of influences out there that will tell you that boundaries are bad, or at the least unnecessary and limiting.  They limit your fun, they limit your potential…they limit your life.  Those are all lies.  Boundaries do not limit, they protect.  I do not regret any of the boundaries I set in place around my life, nor do I resent any of the boundaries my parents set in place for me.  At times I was irritated by the boundaries, wanting to stretch out past them just a little…but all it took was one little nibble from a deer and I was happily back inside my fence.  Well, no deer actually bit me, but there were a few times when I chose to push the limits just a little and step outside some well-placed boundaries for a few moments, and I always ended up seeing right up close exactly why those boundaries were important.  Looking back now, I am so grateful for every one of those boundaries.

The heart of a woman is something truly beautiful, and it should be guarded and protected jealously.  Proverbs 4:23 says: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (NIV).  Your heart is the center of who you are, it is what truly defines you and sets you apart from anyone else in the world.  It makes sense, then, to carefully guard and protect your heart, does it not?  However, like the visitors who see the deer as adorable little lawn ornaments, most of us don’t realize that those cute little “ornaments” are about to destroy the beauty of what God created us to be!  It takes discernment to recognize that what may appear harmless and cute when it’s outside the garden is cruel and destructive when it gets inside.

Stop for a moment and consider this: Why would anyone choose to leave their most vulnerable and precious sanctuary open to be trampled, torn up, and devoured?  It just doesn’t make any sense, does it?  Why, then, do so many young women choose to open up their hearts to be beaten, trampled, torn, broken, and even devoured by the enemy of our souls?

What are some things that you need to guard your heart against, and what are the boundaries necessary to protect your precious heart?