Composite

Many people are blessed to be able to have one job/career that makes them money and gives them purpose.  Shoutout to those people. My papa was a PA, my cousin’s wife works in geriatrics. My aunt and cousin are elementary school teachers. My uncle and cousin are pastors. Several other family members (second-cousins, great-grandparents) are teachers and ministers (preachers, elders, deacons).

But God has blessed some of us, namely me, differently. I am the sum of all of my parts - my mothers and fathers, my sisters and brothers, blood and earth.To try and cut out pieces of myself in order to fit a cushy, 9-to-5 mold is to dishonor the composite God has created.  It might not be easy this way, but it’s what I’m supposed to do, where I’m supposed to be. I am not only the artistic daughter of an artistic father. I am not only destined to teach. I am not only destined to preach.  I am not only destined to write.  I am not only destined to serve my community.  I am not only destined to mother. 

I am the sum of all of my parts.

I just pray that the Lord continues giving me strength and diligence to honor them all.

Did you all see this?  This woman is very brave. God bless the people around her. 

From "So Worth Loving"

Ashley Fielden at So Worth Loving wrote:
I like many other woman have been obsessed with romantic love. The idea of it. The possession of it. The identity I cling to from it.
It is altogether a whirlwind of magic and or devastation.
When any person places the weight of their entire identity on a house of cards it will smash into a thousand pieces.
I’ve come to learn "Friendship makes a LIFE even more deeply than (Romantic) love" (Elie Weisel).

I am all for love! I love- love! However I am not EVER for placing your hands around someone in an attempt to control them for the sake of your own happiness.
I am also not a fan of ultimatum “love”, the I have to have it “love” or the being entirely lost without him love.
I was once this girl. Fragile and needing to cling to a man. In affect suffocating him and unconsciously hating myself for it!
This way of being was never intended for us as women.
I am coming to learn the value of investing in myself. People may say it is self indulgent or selfish. But I can say with the utmost confidence it is the best gift you can give the world!
Nurture your own light and love!!!
Being in a place of utter contentment with who you are is a very rare beauty indeed.
Unimaginable for most of us. But I have slowly put in the hours of truly, undeniably loving myself. A friendship is built on hours of time spent in mutual trust and admiration. Not on a high of a look or touch. And so it is with yourself.
Time must be invested in oneself so that you may and WILL have that rare beauty of loving yourself!

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I don't have much of anything to add. I agree with what she said, and she said it more simply than I usually do.  If you want to be beautiful, you have to know inside and outside, up and down, front and back, in the morning and at night that you are beautiful.  It took me about two years to learn this.  Perhaps if you don't hate yourself to start with, it won't take as long.  But this mirrors a relationship with another person. You get to know them/yourself and then you come to love them/yourself.  If you won't do it for yourself, why should someone else do it for you? 

I saw the So Worth Loving post on To My Future Spouse

Proverbs 31:30

Click here to see the  original post:

(I copied what I found)
After going viral on Reddit’s ‘Funny’ section for being odd-looking with facial hair, the girl above gave the following graceful and fresh response:

“Hey, guys. This is Balpreet Kaur, the girl from the picture. I actually didn’t know about this until one of my friends told on facebook. If the OP wanted a picture, they could have just asked and I could have smiled :) However, I’m not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it’s who I am. Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I look different than most women. However, baptized Sikhs believe in the sacredness of this body - it is a gift that has been given to us by the Divine Being [which is genderless, actually] and, must keep it intact as a submission to the divine will. Just as a child doesn’t reject the gift of his/her parents, Sikhs do not reject the body that has been given to us. By crying ‘mine, mine’ and changing this body-tool, we are essentially living in ego and creating a seperateness between ourselves and the divinity within us. By transcending societal views of beauty, I believe that I can focus more on my actions. My attitude and thoughts and actions have more value in them than my body because I recognize that this body is just going to become ash in the end, so why fuss about it? When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. So, to me, my face isn’t important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are. :-) So, if anyone sees me at OSU, please come up and say hello. I appreciate all of the comments here, both positive and less positive because I’ve gotten a better understanding of myself and others from this. Also, the yoga pants are quite comfortable and the Better Together tshirt is actually from Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that focuses on storytelling and engagement between different faiths. :) I hope this explains everything a bit more, and I apologize for causing such confusion and uttering anything that hurt anyone.”

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What a beautiful story!

Ladies, are you this comfortable with your face, hair, skin, body? Better question: are you this submitted to the God who gave you your features? Even better question: are you this proud of who you are, who you were very specifically made to be?


“Why would a loving God create a woman like this, who will get made fun of? Why would He put her through that?”
Why are you offended on her behalf when she is not offended? Why are you mad about what she has embraced?  If she were as commercially beautiful as YOU wish she was, would she have an opportunity to gain national media attention about being comfortable in the body she was given?  Perhaps she was created for this photo, for this moment, in order to teach you that what matters is REALLY what’s inside.

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised (KJV).

Psalm 37:4 - Delight

“Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” (NKJV)

I know this verse by heart. When I saw the reference on @KrissysToyBox ‘s profile, I immediately knew which verse it was.  And as often happens when I think of my friend’s life, I wonder how I can get on her level, how I can love and serve God more and get the desires of my heart.

My heart has one primary desire: a Godly marriage that will minister to both of us, our community and our future kids.  Mostly everything else I want I have, or I know exactly how to get it.

But this morning, for the first time, I realized that I have been reading a few words into that verse that don’t exist.  If you had asked me, “What does Psalm 37:4 say?” I probably would have quoted it correctly, as it’s written above.  But in my head and heart, I have always believed it to say “Delight yourself IN THE LAW OF the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”
Huge difference!
 
I am learning more and more, better and better to love God’s law (almost as much as His grace) - read Psalm 119 over a week or less - but that’s not what that particular verse says.  That verse says delight yourself in HIM, in His person, in His personality, in His presence. 

It reminds me of a song I learned my freshman year of college.
“I want to sit at Your feet,
drink from the cup in Your hand,
lay back against You and breathe,
feel Your heartbeat.
this love is so deep,
it’s more than I can stand,
I melt in Your hands,
it’s overwhelming.” 
 
It sounds like she’s talking about a man doesn’t it?  She’s not. She’s talking about God.  And I used to feel that with God often.  John and Stasi Eldredge write in Captivating that “the essence of holiness is romance.” So moments with God when you can feel His hands and His heartbeat, that is when you have entered into the Holy Place, maybe even the Holy of Holies.

The statement my friend made that caused me to look at her profile was: “The best thing I ever did was fall in love with Jesus!”  I relate to the sentiment, but in my memory, not in my current practice. I spend a LOT of time dancing in the outer court, I even worship in the inner court.  And I live to serve God and His Kingdom.  But I haven’t spent a ton of time lately in the deeper places, delighting in God, being romanced by Him, romancing Him. The Eldredges also assert that the Lord waits to be wanted. I can surely relate to that. 

Let me be clear. I am NOT saying, let me get close to God so that I can get my man already.  Because you cannot get that close to God with an ulterior motive. But I do believe that the more I am wrapped in the glory of God, the sooner I can partner with the man who wants to dwell with me there. There is no greater love than God’s anyway.

Reach Out Your Hands

When I was young, I let my feelings run me.  When I was happy I laughed, when I was sad I cried, when I was angry I cursed.

Somewhere around 17, when some people I trusted saw my love for a boy, my dedication to it even though he didn’t return it, and made fun of me and told secrets behind my back, I started teaching myself to cover my feelings.  I can’t act like having composure is bad.  Grown-ups have to learn not to take their problems with them everywhere, crying at work and such.  But I over-corrected.  I put my feelings so far down that I hid them from everyone but God.  And honestly, even when they came out before God, I was angry at my vulnerability.  As far as I was concerned, a strong person simply never cried.  A smart person never allowed anything to hurt.  Unlike many who close off their pain, I let my laughter run free.  For years, the only emotion I had was laughter.  I learned to laugh at things that weren’t funny, because laughing kept me from hurting.

Over the last months, I have learned how to be vulnerable again.  I have learned how to say when I’m sad and be sad without falling apart.  I have learned to say when I’m irritated, and be irritated without cursing.  And amazingly, I have even learned to love in moderation.  That sounds so false.  Love in moderation.  But I’ve learned to do it, not because it’s good for me - I prefer to go all in - but because moderation is all some people can stand.  And I can’t be mad at them for that.

At the beginning of the year, I learned (more or less against my will) that I still want to love and be loved.  I had convinced myself that I was fine without it.  And I am fine.  But I want better than fine.  Interestingly, even the man who reminded me that I wanted that was unable to meet me in love.

Now, I can pretty well say that my emotions are all back in the right place. I still laugh way more than I cry, and I relegate my tears to safe places.  I keep my love and affection at levels people can handle.  And I want a love to call my own.  It’s hard to want and not have.  But I am untrue to myself if I behave like I’m not a feeler.

As a told a dear friend just the other day, “God can’t give you what you’re not ready for, but He won’t hold back what you are ready for.”  And sometimes, He’s not holding back what we’re ready for, we just need to reach out our hands.

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