Blessed

This morning I was driving in my car, crying and listening to a beautiful story of a mother and a son on the radio. I wasn't sure if it was the Holy Spirit grabbing a hold of my heart or my fragile emotions awaiting the arrival of "Aunt Flo", but my heart was touched. It was as if my heart was filled with water. Someone grabbed it and squeezed as hard as they could, and the water had no choice, but to flow out through my eyes as tears. The mother spoke about the life of her son, and how he passed at a young age. It automatically made me think of a dear friend of mine who has recently lost her son. Sadness filled me up instantly. The mother kept saying how "blessed" she was to have had him in her life. The word "blessed" came flowing out of her mouth over and over again like a wave that keeps crashing onto the shore. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. I dried my eyes, parked the car and headed in for work.

The past few weeks or more, I have been stressed to the max. I have been trying to control my life, and I have been telling God what my plans should be. I've been mapping my life out trying to make things perfect. You know God won't allow that. I have NOT been using the word "blessed". My words have been more like "why", "how", "what", and "it's not fair". I have been mad. I have been complaining. I have been a spoiled little brat. Wow. How ungrateful I have been!

I am always amazed when people who are going through rough times can say that they are blessed. I am reminded of a precious lady in Mexico. I used to call her "My Mexican Grandma". She was always at the church working so hard for the Lord. Sometimes I was not able to understand a word she spoke to me, but I could feel her love that she had for me. One Sunday she invited me to her house for lunch. I arrived to her door and saw chickens pecking around the yard and a goat tied to a tree. I walked into her house and saw four make-shift beds in the first room. The floor was made of dirt and patches of concrete. There were four more make-shift beds in the second room. Eight beds in two very small rooms with ten people living there. It seemed there was no privacy. She led me to the kitchen which was about as big as my bathroom. We sat down at a small plastic table. She made me sit down in the only chair in the house while she used a bucket to sit on. The roof was a hand-me-down tin roof with holes all over it. You can tell where it was used on another house because the holes were where nails used to be. Many buckets were sitting around in case it were to rain. She fed me a delicious lunch of gorditas. I remember that we had good conversation, but I learned a new word that day. I lied to her in politeness and said, "I like your place." She looked around and said, "Bendito." Bendito means blessed. I was forever changed that day. What happened to me? How could I forget this moment? How could I be so absorbed with "the world" and act like a spoiled brat?

Romans 10:12 "For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile -- Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him."

This has been me lately...
Lord, I'm calling on You!!! I call on You day and night!!! Can you hear me?!? Do I have the wrong number?!? You are not blessing me like I want You to!!!

Throughout the day, I pondered the story of the mother and son, My Mexican Grandma and the way I've been acting here lately. My family was getting together for dinner for my Mama's Birthday. Before we left, I decided to say a little prayer...
Lord, Please open my eyes to see You in my life. Help me to see You work in my life. Help me to see the blessings You have given me. Please change my attitude.

I looked up the definition for "Blessed" before we left because I am weird like that.
Blessed - highly favored, fortunate, or enjoying the bliss of heaven.

We arrived at Famous Dave's and started enjoying each others' company. Before I knew it, I felt the waves of blessings beating up against the shore. My heart was overjoyed. Each wave would come in faster, bigger and strong. My eyes were open, and I saw the waves...Food - Blessed. Laughter - Blessed. Family - Blessed. Love - Blessed. I looked around and thought, "I AM highly favored with God. I AM fortunate. I AM enjoying the bliss of heaven. I AM Blessed."

Please don't be like me and get caught up in "the world." Open your eyes...You too are Blessed.

Unveil Your Beauty

As I sit here listening to the rain fall, I am contemplating the beauty of this world. What is beauty? Am I beautiful right now with snot constantly coming out of my nose? Is there inner beauty and outward beauty? Or is beauty just beauty?

As I stare off into a painting, I start thinking about the group of teenage girls I teach every Sunday evening. I absolutely love these girls. We have just finished a Bible Study called "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldredge. In this Bible Study, we have been talking about the core desires of a woman's heart. One of the core desires is to Unveil Beauty. Think about it. Every woman wants to be considered beautiful. It's something we long for and deeply desire. Unveiled beauty is something women all appreciate. We have inherited this from our Father. God enjoys beauty. Just look how He created Earth before we started messing it up. The oceans, the mountains, the sky, the sun, the trees, the animals, the flowers...well, I could go on and on about the beauty that God created. We get that core desire to be beautiful and add beauty from Him.

Have you ever been to a fancy party where everyone is dressed up in their best? Have you ever taken a moment to listen to the women speak to each other? It's nothing, but compliments. "Wow. I love your dress." "Your hair looks beautiful tonight." "Those are gorgeous earrings." We love beauty and we notice it. It's the part of God that He gave to women. You do not hear men talking like that do you? Imagine going to a fancy party and hearing the men say, "Your cuff links are stunning! I love how you did your hair tonight." Men usually do not speak like that to other men. Women want to unveil a beauty to the world. It is that simple.

Stay with me...I'm going somewhere with this.

One of my goals as I teach this to my class of girls is to help them realize that they are beautiful. Being a teenage girl is difficult. Believe me, I was one. You are going through awkward times with awkward things happening to you, and you just feel ugly. When you look in the mirror, Satan attacks you with whispers of lies..."You're too fat. Your nose is too big. Your ears are too floppy. You're too pale." We as women start believing these lies. If you hear a lie enough, you start believing it as truth. So I try to encourage these girls and help them realize that God doesn't make mistakes. He is perfect. So when He created you, He made you perfect... perfectly beautiful. Why is it you can say lies over and over and start believing them, but when you say something of truth over and over, you have the hardest time believing it?

I am 27 years old, and Satan has attacked me with lies all of my life. I look in the mirror and think, "Ugh!" I know it is not just me. I know it is all women who feel this way from 2 to 99 years old. I don't think I understood how beautiful God thinks I am until this morning.

I went last night with a couple of friends to a thing called "Sips n strokes". It is pretty much a fun, laid back paint class. They give step by step instruction on how to paint a certain piece of art. So here I am about to paint my first piece of art ever. I am not an artist, but they made it very fun and easy. Although everyone in the class got the same instructions, there was not any paintings that ended up exactly the same. They were all different. We all had our own unique twist in it where our personalities came through. When I left the paint class, I was so proud. I thought my painting was beautiful. There are some mistakes I made, and some places where I went a little crazy, but that is why I like it so much. It is so me.

My brother came over this morning, and I just had to show him my masterpiece. This was our conversation...
"Phillip, look at the painting I did last night!"
"Nice. What is it?" He was obviously thrilled to be viewing my painting.
"What is it?!? What does it look like?" I was a little annoyed that he didn't know what it was.
"Well, it looks like orange trees."
"Yeah, that's right."
"But they look like they are on the ocean."
"It's like a dream world, Phillip."
There was more to this conversation, but this is a good place to stop.

What really bothered me is that I believe my painting is beautiful. It is just like me. It has character. It is a masterpiece. I am so proud of it. How could Phillip not see that? If my brother had said anything horrible about my masterpiece, I would have fought him. (Lucky for him, he didn't because I would have won.) This is where God grabbed my heart. I realized that this is what God thinks about me...about all of His children.

When He made you, He said, "It's ready! She/He is absolutely beautiful. She is not like any other I have made before. She has character. She has pieces of me all throughout her. She is stunning. This is one of my masterpieces. I am so proud of my work." Oh my goodness! God is proud of the way I(You) look. Have you ever thought that before? He goes into battle everyday for you. He is ready to fight Satan for you and for your beauty. He is ready to whoop some tail for YOU. When Satan whispers those lies in your ears, God is saying, "How can you not see the beauty I have created? You are beautiful."

The amount of passion I have for my painting that I created made me realize that God has even more passion for His creations...you and me included. We have to decide which voice to listen to now. Are you going to listen to Satan's lies or are you going to believe the truth? God is waiting for you to unveil the beauty that He created you to be. Believe it! You have a beauty to unveil!

I am 27 years old, and I am just now really believing that...God made me beautiful.

The next step, I must unveil His beauty, but how? How do you unveil His beauty?