Of Men and Angels May 24, 2009

Today while standing in a spacious bookstore I picked up a book about letting go of spiritual burdens.  As I touched the pages I felt a great comfort, remembering with gratitude a God who lifts burdens like mine.  

“Excuse me.”  The stranger’s voice startled me.  I looked up to see a confident and attractive man, maybe five or ten years younger than me.  Confused, I wondered if I’d given him the impression that I worked there.  If you had offered me a million guesses I could have never predicted what would come out of his mouth next:  ”I think you’re GORGEOUS!”.  With that and a smile, he simply spun around and walked away.  By the time I had recovered enough to stammer ‘thank you’ he was safely out of hearing range.

Sometimes I wonder if angels still roam the earth, disguised as men.

Acknowledging the wound…. November 2, 2008

…..He made us accepted in the Beloved- Ephesians 1:6

 

All too often at the heart of every woman afraid to call herself beautiful is a woman who has been wounded. And I’ve learned over the years that avoiding beauty or refusing to pursue it is self-protection.

 

Why is it in our hearts we believe that we’ll never be good enough, that we will never be accepted? For too many years, and still do at times, I felt that I was ugly or plain….the ugly duckling, one who could never call herself beautiful. Truthfully, I didn’t want to feel the pain of my childhood or the choices I had made.

 

Do you remember the fairy tale of the mermaid girl who longed to be beautiful? Her mother would clip sea shells on her tail, and as the girl cried out, her mother reminded her that beauty must hurt. Today that is a true statement for many of us…beauty does hurt, but for a different reason.

 

It hurts to open ourselves up again to disappointment and rejection. Acknowledging our desire for beauty can reopen wounds we’ve fought to close. We chose silence hoping it would heal us, and avoidance would help us to forget.

 

But the little girl inside us, who longed to be beautiful, to be accepted, is still there. So what do we do with her?

In Luke 18: 16, Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for such is the kingdom of God.”

 

Are we willing to bring the little girl inside of us to Jesus? Or are we too afraid?

 

Women, Jesus will accept us just as we are. He will protect us, and give us courage to believe again. Jesus will allow us to believe again in love and beauty, and in a God who will always call us Beautiful!!

 

Jesus, we bring to you the little girl inside of each of us, thank you Jesus that you accept her just as she is……come Lord Jesus to your women, come Holy Spirit….protect us and give us the courage to believe….to believe again in love and beauty and in You Lord, a God who will always call us beautiful. Give to each woman reading here a supernatural vision of how You see her…..before others can see our feminine beauty we must first shed the cloak of aloofness and acknowledge that we need You Father to heal our hearts…set us free…..
….no longer do we want silence to heal us, or avoidance to make us forget…..we acknowledge that the little girl inside us who longed to be to be accepted, to be beautiful, to be seen and cherished is still inside….only You Lord can come and rescue her and heal her……restore to us a Holy passion.
Father God- heal our wounds….come Lord Jesus come….

Unexpected Grace July 5, 2008

I went to the river to find beauty.  I was hoping to catch an intensely beautiful sunrise to salve the sting of a bitter disappointment.  But the dense cloud cover from a brooding storm made the event a royal let-down.  The resignation in my heart spoke first.

‘Par for the course’,  I thought.  Have you ever seen a young child disappointed?  Unfamiliar with the possibility of failure a child makes his plans without a remote consideration that he might not get what he wants.  When I see such a child watch the object of his affection slip away I can barely tolerate it.  ’That kid needs to toughen up’, I like to think to myself.  You just can’t be so vulnerable.

How quickly the ambivalence of cynicism rears its ugly head against desire’s fearlessness.  Excuses spring up like weeds.  Sour grapes.

Two swans sliced their way across the river without a ripple — one directly behind the other.  I immediately thought of God and me.  I so wanted the swan in the back to catch up to the leader, to experience the intimacy I desperately long for.  As I watched the gliding race, the gap between the swans would shorten then widen again without warning.  I watched in frustration, until I understood the truth.  The point of my life is not how close or how far I feel from God.  The point of my life is that I follow Him.  Wind and current and a hundred conditions I can’t explain can pull and push and pressure me to give up hope.  But like the swans I saw on the river, the glory and grace of my journey is to glide along with my eyes on Him.  As I turned to leave the two swans were resting in the shallow water together — face to face.