he thinks of me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have been challenging our students to ask God what He thinks of them.  We have been telling them what we’ve been learning: that men reflect the strength of God and women reflect the beauty of God.  We have been talking about the wounds we receive in our lives and how God wants to heal them.  How He is raising up His bride to be strong, healthy, and able to weather whatever comes.  We see them as parents usually see children: unusually beautiful, talented, funny, smart, sensitive.  Perhaps we’re a bit biased.  But we really think our students are the most amazing in the world.

So during all of this, have I thought to ask God what He thinks of me?  Of course not.  Well, maybe once in passing.  Then I forgot. 

We were gone a lot this fall.  Once when we came home, the painting you see above was lying on our kitchen table with a note.  The note said that it was for me, and it had a story behind it.  She had been up late one night trying to come up with an idea for a project due the next day. (ok, so add “beloved procrastinator” to that list up there!) Then she heard it: “I want you to do your best, but this isn’t for you. It’s for Michelle.”  And she got an idea.

My first thought when I saw it was that it was just a beautiful painting.  If you look closely, and you probably can’t see it online, you can see that the rain the little girl is holding her hands out to- is in color.

Later, when I knew it was for me, that God had actually spoken to someone else about me, I realized that He had answered my prayer that I had prayed and forgotten.  This is what He thinks of me, how He sees me.  He sees me as a little girl, trusting, with her hands out to catch the rain.  Rain symbolizes the Holy Spirit.  But not just rain…colored rain.  Spirit full of life and color.  We live in a black and white world compared to the color of the Holy Spirit. 

He thinks about me.

for women only..

 

(Every quote from this blog was taken from Captivating, the chapter entitled: What Eve Alone Can Tell)

 

What is Woman? 

What is her design? 

Why did God place Woman in our midst?

 

                            

                “with passion and brilliance, the Creator works in large, sweeping movements on a grand scale…”   He starts with land and sea and light and darkness….and works toward more intricate, more intimate details.  Creation ascends in beauty…each creation more intricate and noble than the last.  “The morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy” (Job 38:7) 

 

                Then comes Man –“ the image of God, the triumph of His work”  – but God says that something is not good, something is missing….and so He creates Eve.  “She is the crescendo, the final, astonishing work of God…she is the Master’s finishing touch….she is….breathtaking.  She is the crown of creation.” 

 

                God seems to think that “the whole, vast world is incomplete without me.  Creation reached it’s zenith in me.” 

 

Tuesday night at chi alpha, one of our young men approached my husband and told him to tell me this:  that I was beautiful.  He works at a department store in town, and he said that women are always coming in in search of Beauty, but that I had it, more than any of them coming out of the salons and fine clothing departments.  He wanted Phil to tell me that. I have been thinking about this.  It is the highest compliment this young man could have given me, because it says to me that God is flowing out of me, which is the deepest desire of my heart.  So I went to “Captivating” and read the chapter on Beauty….this is what I learned, again:

 

Eve is desperately needed.  The Hebrew word – “ezer kenegdo” is used by God to describe Eve.  It is most commonly translated “help mate.”  This does not describe it.  Closer would be “sustainer beside him.”  “Ezer” is used 20 other places in the OT and every time it describes the times when you need God to come through for you desperately.  Like, if He doesn’t come through, you are dead.  “Lifesaver” would be a better translation. 

 

                                

 

“That longing in the heart of a woman to share life together as a great adventure – that comes straight from the heart of God, who also longs for this.  He does not want to be an option in our lives.  He does not want to be an appendage, a tagalong.  Neither does any woman.  God is essential.  He wants us to need him – desperately.  And so you’ll see that women are endowed with fierce devotion, an ability to suffer great hardships, a vision to make the world a better place.”  

 

So….Beauty is the essence of God.  God has given us beauty in the natural world “with such generosity and abundance it is almost scandalous.” 

 

                      

 

 

“Beauty is in and of itself a great and glorious good, something we need in large and daily doses…nature at the height of its glory shouts, Beauty is Essential!  revealing that Beauty is the essence of God.  The whole world is full of His glory.” 

 

Why Beauty Matters

 

“Beauty is powerful.  It may be the most powerful thing on earth.  it is dangerous.  Because it matters.” 

 

Beauty speaks.  Augustine wrote:  “I said to all these things, ‘Tell me of my God who you are not, tell me something about Him.’ And with a great voice they cried out: “He made us!’ (Ps. 99:3)  My question was the attention I gave to them, and their response was their beauty.”  What does Beauty say to us?  Think of being caught in traffic – horns blaring, exhaust fuming and choking, people swearing..think of the movie “Joe vs. the Volcano.”  His life was black and white, until he went and lived it.  Then think of coming to a quiet place – an empty beach, a sunset, the first hours of dawn when the birds are all singing you awake.  Why do we go camping?  Because our souls can rest…there is “room for our souls to expand.”  Our hearts get quiet and peaceful.  Beauty says, “All will be well.” 

 

“This is what it’s like to be with a woman at rest, a woman comfortable in her feminine beauty.  She is enjoyable to be with.  She is lovely.  In her presence your heart stops holding its breath.  You relax and believe once again that all will be well  and this is also why a woman who is striving is so disturbing, for a woman who is not at rest in her heart says to the world, ‘All is not well.  Things are not going to turn out all right.’”  

 

Beauty invites.   

It draw us in – we want to sit down and drink it in.  Like a beautiful garden, we want to go in, explore, breathe it in, rest in it. All of the responses God wants of us.

 

Beauty nourishes. 

The gift that women have to breastfeed their babies is “a stunning picture of how Beauty itself nourishes us.”   William Blake wrote: “Too much of eternity for the eye of man”

 

Beauty comforts.  It is profoundly healing.  Why do we send flowers to the sick and the bereaved?  Only beauty can say enough, or say it well.  Beauty soothes the soul.

 

Beauty inspires. 

Jack Nicholson to Helen Hunt in As Good as It Gets:  “You make me want to be a better man.” 

 

Beauty is transcendent. 

Think of sunset – we long to linger.  The end of a great book or movie – we want to live there.  Beauty reminds us of the Eden we never knew.  Beauty haunts us with eternity – when all shall be well, all shall be beautiful. 

 

All this is true of beauty, but especially true of the beauty of a woman, because she is personal.  Her beauty – her eyes, her form, her voice, her spirit, her heart, her life – flow to us through an immortal being.  We are all immortal beings – we will live forever in one place or another.  C.S. Lewis said that we have never beheld a “mere mortal.”  Beauty is the most essential and the most misunderstood of all God’s qualities, and of all feminine qualities.  It has caused untold pain in the lives of women.  We ache over beauty, striving to find it, to keep it.  Why?  Because God is Beauty, and God created us to reflect His Beauty – it is in us, it is our gift to the world, and somehow, we know it. 

 

Every woman has a beauty to unveil. 

 

Every woman.

 

“There is something uniquely magnificent and powerful about a woman.    It is God who longs for romance, it is God who longs to be our ezer, it is God who reveals beauty as essential to life.  We are the image bearers of this God.  That is why we long for those things too. There is a radiance hidden in your heart that the world desperately needs.”  

 

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine as children do.  It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

 

This is why we love Arwen, Galadriel, Eowyn, Cora, Grace (Bruce Almighty), Sandra Bullock in just about everything she does, Elizabeth in Pirates, Mary Jane in Spiderman, the Princess in Braveheart, Miss Elizabeth Bennett….because they live at rest in their beauty.  They are warrior princesses like we know we need to be but can’t figure out how.  Their forms are beautiful, but the form has come from a beautiful spirit and heart first.  It is the only way to conquer the addictions of our society: to be at rest with our inner beauty first, to know beyond knowing that our great Father loves and adores us and that we are like Him, becoming more like him every day that we walk with him.  It is when we realize that living for ourselves slowly kills us and destroys our beauty that we find freedom in surrender to Him and His will…and nothing causes us to shrink back from His refining touch.  Because we know that the more He touches us, the more we will be like Him, the more beautiful we will be, the more we will fulfill His purpose and reflect His likeness…the more we will be who we were meant to be.  Outward beauty, beauty in form, will come then, because we will have the courage to lay down our addictions – to food, to sex, to unhealthy relationships, to alcohol, to drugs, to any kind of sin – because sin tarnishes our beauty.  Sin kills beauty. And as we walk with God, He will lead us into deeper and deeper beauty: physical, emotional, spiritual.  Then we will be life givers, in every sense of the word.  And people will drink from the wells of our lives and be freed to do the same. 

 

And God will be glorified.

 

So do not hold onto resentment, jealousy, unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred, grudges, pride.  They will set you on a muddy slide of putrid dung that will lead to the death of beauty.  You may be able to hold on to outward “coolness” for awhile, but those who know the truth will be able to see it in your eyes: the beauty has gone from here.  The only ones who will be attracted to you are those on the same slope, those who will thrash and spew and lie and kill to get what they want, those who will use and destroy and laugh at your misery and despair.  Eventually your body will succumb to sickness and death, and you will be alone.

 

So choose life, ladies.  The world desperately needs you.

 

 

little blessing drops

I exist not because my mom and dad accidentally conceived me and then married to try to make it work. I exist because God wanted me to be part of the story. I was my parent’s gift of grace.

 

This just occurred to me. ALL crisis pregnancies are the same. God is a God of mercy and hope. He’s constantly dropping babies into sad or hopeless situations in an attempt to bring hope. Only we don’t see it that way, so half the time we kill them, not realizing that we’re killing ourselves in the process, killing the hope God has put within us.

 

So if you’ve survived the gestation process and the abortion holocaust, consider yourself a survivor indeed. Especially if your birth parents kept you safe through those things and then handed you to another family. They understood. Your life was too precious to throw into the incinerator of twentieth century idol worship, and they wanted you to have a better life. And you think you’re unloved and abandoned?

 

Think again, dear people.

 

And addendum number two of the day: if you’re a survivor of abortion, meaning you’re the mother, know that there is just as much mercy and hope for you too. there is not judgment from this end of camp. bless you.

a boy for us both

I just locked the door of the office and sternly ordered my son to stay away.  He was up late late late and I was up during the night with a candida reaction, and when I woke this morning, he was up already. I love that boy. He is my boy-joy. But right now I need time with the Lord. So he’s locked out.

 

I am reading Samuel, and it is striking the similarities between Hannah and myself, Samuel and my Sam.  I knew it when he was born. I am being reminded now.  Hannah said, “for his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” (1:28)  “And the Lord was gracious to Hannah; she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.”  (2:21) “And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and favor with the Lord and with men.” (2:26)  “The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.” (3:19)

 

Ian (my Samuel) was in a class at his public high school where they were debating abortion. He remained silent as the discussion went back and forth. I know not whether it leaned to one side or the other. But at the end of class, with only a few minutes left, he raised his hand and said, “Well, I’m adopted, and I know my mom was having a hard time.  Abortion was an option for her. I’m really glad she didn’t abort me.” 

 

Silence.

 

Who can answer to that?

 

This is my son, growing up in stature and favor of God and man, in the presence of the Lord, and none of his words fall to the ground.

 

And God has been gracious to me, and granted me three daughters and one son, “to take the place of the one I prayed for and gave to the Lord.” (2:20)  I am not like Hannah in many ways. Hannah was married, Hannah was righteous, Hannah prayed for a son for the right reasons. I was unmarried, I was walking in mire, I prayed for God to do whatever He needed to do to bring me back to Him.  My only righteousness was the Jesus I had invited in and cast off.

 

And God gave us sons. 

 

Hannah made Samuel a piece of clothing, a “little robe,” every year and brought it to him. I think it’s interesting that the Bible calls it “little.”  I wonder if her heart ached to see him, to leave him again. Did she wonder if he was treated well? Did she fear he felt any abandonment? Did she doubt and think she had failed him? He was so small when she left him…

 

But God was –and is- so faithful to us both.  His mother tells me that he is so happy and content with his life that he doesn’t ask for me. I pray he will, in God’s time, and just as I am sure God comforted Hannah, He comforts me with the knowledge that he is not suffering, he is loved, he is safe.  I get these little stories of his life to comfort me and know that he is growing up in the Lord’s presence.  If I have to feel the ache of missing him from time to time- whenever I dare to think about him- that is better than him feeling it.  I can live with that.

 

Guess I better let boy-joy in.  He needs his mama.

SexGod talk

I just read something really great in Rob Bell’s book. It’s something I would like to print out and hand to every woman I know who’s getting married, or dating, or wondering about dating, and I think I will.  Even as a married person, it really put things into perspective for me; it named stuff I couldn’t find words to name. Read this:

“If you’re dating someone, what kind of man is he?  Does he demonstrate that he’s the kind of man who would die for you? What is his posture toward the world? Does he serve, or is he waiting to be served? Does he believe that he’s owed something, that he’s been shortchanged, that he’s gotten the short end of the stick, that life owes him something? Or is he out to see what he can give? Does he see himself as being here to make the world a better place?

These are the big questions that you need to ask yourself.

Take him to a family reunion. Do some sort of service project with him. See how he interacts with people he doesn’t like.

Does he have liquid agape (the kind of love God loves us with: just because we have inestimable worth that comes from our creator) running through his veins?

A friend of mine was engaged to a man, and some of her friends were not excited about them getting married. As the wedding day approached, one of her friends decided to say something to her. He said, “when a woman is loved well, she opens up like a flower.”

She broke off the engagement soon afterward. In one brilliant sentence, her friend taught her what agape is and what it isn’t.

What does he expect of you? Does he expect you to sleep with him when he hasn’t committed to you forever? Does he want all of you without his having to give all of him?

Can you tell him anything? Is he safe? Can he be trusted?

Can you open up to him, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, knowing that he will protect, not exploit, that vulnerability?

Are you opening like a flower?

When you live in your true identity, when you find your worth and value in your creator, when you live “in Christ,” in who you really are, you force him to rethink what it means to be a man.”

(SexGod, 125-126)