Precious

Today God is pressing me to examine my heart. I do love the Lord and I have considered myself to have been miraculously rescued from a place so dark that at the time suicide was what I considered to be my only way out. God has replaced the ashes of my life with hope and grace and mercy I will never understand but His love for me constantly draws me in.

1 Peter 3: 3Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious

Throughout my life from a very young age appearance has been an area of struggle. This ingrained belief that identity, value, worth and even happiness is all wrapped up in a pretty picture. That is and has always been false but I believe it is the biggest weapon the enemy uses against women today. The proverbs 31 woman is the picture of the perfect woman and today I am challenged with the thought that not any one woman can be all of those things but a working body of women very precious in God’s sight has all of those qualities. The generational sin of false value and self-loathing in my soul and the “put on an outward appearance” mentality has given me unrealistic goals my entire life. The confusing pressure to lose weight and exercise more and then running to food for comfort when I fall short has given me anything but a gentle and quiet spirit. The tears and begging prayers for God to give me more self-control and strength to endure have fallen on deaf ears because self-control is a fruit of the Spirit and I choose not to use it and the Holy Spirit is my Comforter and I choose not to believe it. “Let this mind be in you” I have allowed the voice of someone else’s picture of happiness to steal my joy and it has caused a war in my heart that I will never be able to win alone. “Greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world” to break generational sin I again need to surrender what I know to what God says. I am humbled by this revelation not that I haven’t heard it but that I have not stopped to apply it. To actually adorn myself with beauty God calls precious, I picture the time I spend applying makeup and fixing my hair and then taking on the challenge of learning to put on a gentle and quiet spirit. “Beautiful are the hands and feet of God” the life I share with the people God brings into it has got to be real to be affective and that is not to say I don’t have miles to go but it starts by learning to adorn myself on the inside where He sees me, to stop praying for things He has already given me, and listen to the “still small voice” and be precious.