How To Be Lovely

this was my soundtrack while I wrote this blog:

I think we've focused so much on being beautiful that we've forgotten how to be lovely.

I only noticed this because of the way that men have reacted to me lately.

It seems I have cultivated that "gentle and quiet spirit" that is of such worth to God and apparently--it's attractive.

People like to have a place where they can feel comfortable and secure--isn't that what most mothers offered?

We want to be safe and loved and cared for well--and truly, the only people who we can be safe and loved and well cared for by are those who have found themselves in turn safe and loved and well cared for. You cannot give away what you have never taken the time to receive.

I have received in abundance in the last few months--something beautiful. I didn't mean to end up in this place I am in--both spiritually and physically--but I have chosen into it. I have not turned my back or walked away or tried to distract myself from my reality. I chose, as I have chosen with every painful season that the Lord has had me in lately, to walk with Him through it. To see what He was saying and chose to take His kisses of love as they come.

Every once in a while it bogs me down (thinking back to just half an hour ago) but then I remember the goodness of my God and the way He has kept being faithful--the way He has taken such good care of me. It's astonishing, His faithfulness, and I will not fear anymore--even when I end up unemployed in Coarsegold--because God can take my deepest fears and turn them back around into something beautiful for His glory--and I'll never stop looking for that--and He knows it. He keeps asking me to trust Him and I just keep saying yes--because He loves me and I know it and that's all a human really needs.

That's what makes you lovely. That's how you can be lovely to the world--by knowing how well you are loved today.

Take that situation--wherever you find yourself today, whatever situation it is or relationship that you wish you could get out of or just the feeling in your head that you can't  shake--and offer it to the Lord. Be honest with how you feel about it--cry a little (cry a LOT!) and then look Him in the face and recognize that this love is for you. We can all choose into being His children, being His beloved ones, being lovely. All it takes is a prayer, a turning to Him with all you are.

And doesn't our world need to be more lovely?