Psalm 45:10-11, 13-15

Listen to me, O royal daughter; take heart to what I say. Forget your people and your homeland far away. For your royal husband delights in your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord. [...] The bride, a princess, waits within her chambers, dressed in a gown woven with gold. In her beautiful robes, she is led to the king, accompanied by her bridesmaids. What a joyful, enthusiastic procession as they enter the king's palace!



Ultimate Blog Party 2009

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Unfading Beauty

Grace was in all her steps,
heaven in her eye, in every gesture
dignity and love.
- John Milton


Inner Beauty...it is a gift and it radiates much more than a pretty face. When you stop worrying about your outward appearance, your inner beauty shines through. In the past few months I've felt my inner beauty radiate. You have to let God mold you into what He wants you to be. And as that happens you find you are much more comfortable with yourself and you don't feel as insecure around people. Right now, what God is teaching me about inner beauty is to be strong in Him and to trust in Him because he will take care of you and everything else will fall into place in His will and timing. To just take peace in Him and then His glory and beauty will radiate through you, the closer you get to Him in a relationship.



Summer 2002. Topic: What is God teaching you about inner beauty?, from Fearlessly Feminine by Jani Ortlund).

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Yesterday my man made an illustration that is worth noting here. We were talking about waiting. In particular waiting for that time when a certain someone will get down on his knee and ask me to marry him. Since I won't be doing the asking, I have no idea when it will happen. No pressure, of course; it's all in God's timing.

But I do often struggle with the question of "when?." I ask it perhaps too often, to myself, to him...But I want to know. I want to know that it will happen. I want to know when I get to be his wife and he gets to be my husband. I long for that day. I hope for it. I eagerly await its arrival. And so I often ask when it will happen.

We were having this discussion yesterday when he quickly turned the conversation in another direction. He compared the waiting we have before we are married to the waiting we, as the Bride of Christ, have in waiting for Christ our Bridegroom to come and take us away with him to our eternal home. We wait. We want to know when it's going to come. We ask, "Please make it soon!" We desire to see the Lover of our Souls and to be made complete in Him.

This waiting period is an image of the Church eagerly awaiting the marriage of the Son and the Bride. It will happen. We know that, but we don't know when or exactly how...but we know that it will happen. That's what we can put our trust in, the Lord's word to bring us to completion and join us in marriage with His Son and our holy Lover, Christ.

(Funny as he is, my man did jokingly point out that I have a better understanding of what it feels like to wait for marriage though.)

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Still reading The Ragamuffin Gospel

"When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments, and the surprises of the Spirit. Evangelical faith is bartered for cozy, comfortable piety. A failure of nerve and an unwillingness to risk distorts God into a Bookkeeper and the gospel of grace is swapped for the security of religious bondage."
Brennan Manning