above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it, part 3

Above all else,
guard your heart,
for everything you
do flows from it.
(Prov. 4:23, TNIV)

3. to unveil beauty.

just in case the desire to be romanced,
and the want to be irreplaceable
in the midst of a great adventure
weren't tough enough to address
or try to come to terms with,
i think that personally,
unveiling beauty is the
toughest one for me.

let's backtrack for a second.
think about the last sunset you've seen.
or think about the last time you've been to the beach.
even picture the prettiest meadow
from the best dream you've ever had.

God's creation is an obvious display of beauty
and it's resourcefulness just makes it more beautiful.
God has a heart for beauty.
He spent 6 days of the
first week of time creating the natural world,
and animals, and man,
and GOD in His infinite PERFECTION
realized it was missing something

....woman.

eve was created to fill that irreplaceable
need for companionship, and relationship,
and beauty in the world.
and God created woman
not just beautifulon the outside,
but her entire essence is of beauty,
the beauty of God,
fearfully and wonderfully made. (Ps. 139:14)

and then sin happened. and now,
how often does the world
force us to compare ourselves to
the other girls and women around us?
how often does satan convince us
we're not skinny enough, or tall enough,
or tan enough, or 'fill-anything-in-here' enough?

and in case that isn't enough,
what about feeling ugly on the inside too?
feeling like our hang ups,
and mess ups,
and the things we're most ashamed of,
are so ugly that we can't possibly
be forgiven,
or have any beauty in the inside either.

but then grace stepped in.
then Jesus spread his arms wide enough
to cover the sin of each of us,
with enough room left over to hold us tight
when we don't feel pretty enough or good enough.

and in doing that, Jesus proved that,
He's bigger than anything this world has to offer--
bigger than the standards society sets,
and bigger than the guilt we let sin force us to feel.

And like I said before,
God's creation is beautiful.
He's unveiled His beauty in creation,
and crowed it in eve.
because of our hearts for relationships,
and our desires to be irreplaceable,
we have God's beauty deep in our hearts as well,
entirely ready and wanting to be revealed--

and that is a beautiful thing.

listen to phil wickam's "you're beautiful,"
and if you need a reminder that God's creation--
and that we, as women, are part of that--
check out this video ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGlTzH9xkXQ