Day 5

OK so i have to confess, this whole lesson on beauty is the most annoying thing to happen to my life since the lesson on patience. Which i am sure i will be revisiting on a regular basis.

Anyways yesterday i already gave in on the whole not eating fast food thing. Which made me angry and then I felt guilty. I watched myself spiral downward into feeling like a total failure. i know that i should allow myself more grace then that. Especially while I'm in the process of learning. I mean i would never punish my child for pronouncing words wrong while trying to learn to read. So why must i torment myself while trying to learn to appreciate my beauty....
It's that fine line between grace and making excuses for your behavior, punishing yourself and humble repentance.........

I read this book by Angela Thomas " Do you think I'm beautiful" and while it's an amazing book i have taken nothing away from it. I have learned that i am a surface reader. I read the words, I understand the words but i never let them fully penetrate my heart. i get emotional and tears fall down my face as i read the sentences and the possibilities that they hold for me but i quickly shut it all down. I ignore those feelings wipe the tears away thinking they produce weakness. All the while forgetting

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

2 Corinthians 12:9

I have recently gone back through the book and read a few chapters that have stood out to me determined to allow every word to sink in a wash out the stink. The first chapter was "Whispers of unbelief" Mine aren't whispers of unbelief it's more like screaming. But I'm sure it started out as whispers. But one thing that she said that stood out to me, that i actually allowed to sink in was this:

" We look into the mirror with our eyes. That is the problem. God does not see as we see. He never has. And we try to rationalize that he thinks and acts like us, but he does not. He is God."

It's such simple truth but so easily forgotten. God's eyes are filled with love, grace, compassion. His heart is for us.......for me.....yes for me.......he longs for intimacy with me. He finds me beautiful. As awkward and ugly as i feel some days He, the creator of all the universe, the one who has seen it all, finds me beautiful. I have never even come close to experiencing this from someone. I can't even begin to imagine the depths of His love for me..........I still doubt.........

"Why do we have such a hard time believing that God would look at an ordinary or disfigured woman, call her beautiful, and long for intimacy with her?"

"We struggle with unbelief because we insist on humanizing God. We have resolved that God must think and process the same ways we do. Essentially we have decided that God is not able, when in fact we are the ones who are not"

I'm just gonna meditate on this, praying for revelation.