Beauty is only skin deep June 22, 2008

Chances are, you’ve heard that statement more than ten times in your life already, and it’s true. At least, as far as physical beauty goes. As Christian young ladies, our true beauty is found in our Christ-like qualities and Godly characteristics.

But, we are human. As a teenage girl, I tend to focus much of my time on outward beauty/looks. Normally I don’t struggle with this as much as most girls, I guess, but recently it has taken up quite the majority of the battle with my thoughts. While other girls focus on make-up, skin treatments, coloring their hair, and getting weekly french manicures (all of which are not a priority with me, although I do make it a point to have good personal hygiene), I lean more towards thinking about beauty, rather than trying to enhance it. I’ve accepted the fact that this is how God has made me, and, in all honesty, I really do love the girl He has created me to be, so I typically shun wearing make-up (and, now that I’m allowed to wear it, I have to shove away my sisters, who think I should wear it!), and doing anything to alter my outward appearance from the way I was created to look (though I do want to note that I find nothing wrong with those who choose to wear it, or do any of the other things I’ve mentioned…this is just personal conviction *wink*).

I struggle, though, with keeping a Godly attitude towards beauty. There are two thought patterns that I generally take when thinking about it, and sadly, I more often than not, fall into the second category. Both are prideful thought patterns, and we know how God feels about pride (Proverbs 16:5).
#1: “Why can’t my ____ [insert physical feature you often think imperfect...for me, it'd be my hair] be gorgeous, or even just pretty? I hate how it looks!”
The pride in this type of thought can be interpreted in different ways, but I think it is prideful because it’s thinking we’re better, or more knowledgeable than God. Like we know a much better way He could have created us. I wonder how He feels when we think He just did an “ok” job on us…
#2: “I love my ____ [insert physical feature you often think perfect...for me, either my eyes, or, on a "good" day, my hair]!! I’m so glad God didn’t make it ugly!”
The pride in this type of thought is probably more obvious. If I were to speak my thoughts aloud, when I see a girl who I deem “plainer” or “uglier” than I, I would sound vainer than a peacock!

Whichever extreme we tend towards, Proverbs 31:30 is a good reminder to us all:

“Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.”

If I’m humble, and looking at the situtation with an honest heart, I’ll realize that I am by NO means ugly (God created us “fearfully and wonderfully” [Psalm 139:14], and all His creation is “very good” [Genesis 1:31]…to me, that means nothing He made is ugly!), yet I am also not His most beautiful creature ever. 
 
Every time I start to have the wrong attitude (in either extreme) about beauty, I now recite Proverbs 31:30 to myself until I have the right attitude. Outward beauty, yes, it counts for something in some situations, but all the Lord is concerned with is whether my heart is beautiful.

~HannahBeth

Inspired by Eric Liddell’s Life June 17, 2008

Eric Liddell: God made countries, God makes kings, and the rules by which they govern. And those rules say that the Sabbath is His. And I for one intend to keep it that way. “

“Chariots of Fire” is one of my favorite movies, and Eric Liddell is one of my heroes.  Eric Liddell’s immovable faith has always awed me. In great temptation, he remained firm! How hard it must’ve been for him! But he held true, and that will always stick out in my mind about him. How many of us give in when we’re tempted? I, for one, give in more often than not when I’m tempted! And I’m ashamed to admit that, because when I compare myself to Eric Liddell, I see a long way I have to travel before I have the strong courage to say “no” like he did. Too often, when tempted, I say to myself, “I’m too tired to put up a fight.” “I’ll have time to do it later.” “I really don’t care.” Over and over again I try to brace myself, and say no, but then give in so easily! My problem is, I face my temptations head on without asking for God’s help. My spirit may be willing but my flesh is weak! Weak, and how can someone who is weak conquer anything? Can you see a weak man picking up an enormous boulder without dropping it back down? Why do people, who are so weak, like myself, refuse to ask God for help and try things on our own? Time and time again I learn that I can’t do anything by myself. And time and time again I learn that I can do anything WITH God. You’d think I’d get it into my head by now! But no, it’s because of my stubborness, my pride, my laziness that I don’t want to stop to ask for help. I’ve been realizing just how wrong I am in this, and it’s been an enormous struggle for me to fight against these feelings, but I know in the end, I’ll come out the stronger, and the better for it all. I need to remember that God needs to humble me before He can raise me up.

I’ve also been thinking about my talents again. I seem to think about them every so often, it seems. lol. But I was rummaging through my files on the computer and found this little paragraph that I had wrote a few months back:

“There was one line in the movie, “Chariot’s of Fire”, that really stuck out to me. Not the one above, but it’s a piece where someone says “Run your best to honor God, and let the world stand back in awe.” (Not the exact words, but that was the meaning…) How many of us waste our time wishing, “I wish I had a better singing voice!” “I wish I could draw like that!” “I wish I could play such and such an instrument like that person.” “I wish..” “I wish..”Stop wishing! You have your talents! God chose those certain talents to suit YOU. So what, someone else is better than you at singing. So what if someone else is writing best-seller novels. It doesn’t mean that your talent is beneath those. Your talent is a gift from God. A BLESSING. Let’s use our talents to HONOR God. Not ourselves. Not our family. GOD. If we do that, the world just may stand back in awe. If not, who cares. God is still watching. And isn’t His opinion the one that matters? I highly recommend this movie. Don’t watch it just to watch a movie. Watch it to learn something. There is much you can learn from Eric Liddell.”

And it is true…no matter how many times I go back to watch “Chariot’s of Fire” or read more on Eric Liddell, I always come away feeling more inspired to walk along the “narrow path”. He is a man who I greatly admire and always will.

Sam

Death June 16, 2008

Death: a termination of life. Kaput, you’re gone. It’s happened since Cain and Abel, and it will continue until Armageddon. Have you ever thought about it, really thought? Of course not, it’s too morbid. Modern society has moved our thoughts away from the finality of death and on to ‘living our life to the fullest’. I have no problem with that, but people need to realize that what they do on Earth will not really make a difference to themselves. You can help others, but if you make a plan of having the best life only for yourself you’ll be in bad shape when it ends. Humanity goes on, but the individual does not. In short: influence and help as many people as you can.

I digress however, from my point. I haven’t really been paying attention to death lately, because I was wrapped up in life. Then, quite a few weeks ago, I got a weird feeling. There’s something in my veins, in my consciousness that gives me this strange feeling that something bad is going to happen to me. Sometime, at a school reunion, people are going to say “Did you hear…?” ,”Oh yes, so sad. She was so young.”. I feel  like my life is really leading up towards the end, and I don’t know why. When one of my friends told me (and two others) that one in three girls are raped, I felt as though it would be me.  I certainly don’t want that, but it was this feeling, quite like the one you get and say ’someone’s walking over my grave’.  I thought more about it, and I felt like I was going to die somewhere in my early twenties. I couldn’t really feel when, until a couple weeks ago when twenty-three came to mind (after which I told my friends, who immediately said “oh, like the movie 23?” of which I’d never heard of before). So I feel like I will die when I’m twenty-three.

Some people are shocked by this, and think me rather morbid. I think nothing of the kind, I’ve had time to mull it over. Everyone dies, and anyone can die at anytime, so that people should think me morbid is a bit harsh. I can understand them, but I just don’t agree. On the humerous side, I have many things to be thankful for if this should occur: no children (I do not want any), I need not worry about retirement, growing old and wrinkled, so many things that others have to deal with.

In all seriousness, I hope I die (if I die) well. I hope that I save another person’s life. I have this image of someone being mugged and I stop by and the guy shoots me, then runs away because he didn’t actually mean to kill anyone. Then I’d die, but the victim would be alive.

So what is the ‘hidden meaning’, what is there to learn from this? Think about death, savor it, roll it around in your head, dissect it. We’re all going to die, so there’s no use not spending time on it or being afraid. The truth is we could die anytime, so think about it. How would you want to die? Then take that, remember it, and live each day as if you would die tomorrow. Be nicer, be more generous, or even say ‘thank you’ more.

Faith on Faith Alone June 13, 2008

So many of my friends seem relaxed with their faith and confidant in their belief of God; I envy them. My faith is not so steadfast or surely built as theirs, there are times where I feel like the foolish man who builds his house on the sand. The parable chastises him and turns our feelings so that we pity and view him as an idiot who does not know better. I do know better but it is hard, very hard, to put all ’sure foundation’ on something that does not seem to be real.

When I was young I believed it all blindly. Jesus felt like a brother, and God felt real. I can understand now what it means for us to go back to the mentality of a child, I know what God meant. Now I reason things out, I cannot help it. My mind takes apart everything that I used to take for granted and I analyze it. Effects of such behavior has let to both good and bad things. I believe in evolution, but I think God caused it, later I will post a section on that. I believe that the Bible is an book that tells us how we should live, and shows us God’s love, again, more on that later. I have other liberal views that my parents do not necessarily share, but I think them true.

Still, that does not solve my main problem: God. There have been so many times that I felt that I was in his presence, and so many other times where I did not believe he could be real. I would look back at the periods of peace or comfort that I attributed to God and labeled them as actions my body took for psychological rests. Times where I was under great stress and my mind would just relax to protect my nerves. Chemical imbalance or things like that. I would look at the world and at everything and doubt the existence of God. There were so many times that I called to him and felt nothing, that’s my most painful problem. I know so many people who have ‘felt’ God in their lives, and I cannot truly claim to be one of them. I prayed and I cried and I did not feel answered. It grieved me so much, I thought myself to be wrong. This has followed and hurt me for quite some time.

But then my reason, which had hurt me before by doubting God, came back. I remembered all I’ve been taught, and realized it didn’t matter. Nothing in the Bible, no stories of my friends, no prayers and communion really mattered. They would not save me, they only tried to point me in the right direction. Of what, you might ask. Of the question; Do you believe in God? Do you, in spite of all opposition and facts that prove him fictitious, believe in him?

I don’t think anyone who has not fully grasped the enormity of the question can truly call themselves a follower of Christ. One needs to size up all the proof that God does not exist and ponder it. You need to really think, and allow yourself to not believe for a couple minutes. Think about the facts, and about the data. Then you need to clear your head, and find out what you say. I did this, I took everything in, all the doubts that my mind had, everything. I weighted it and soaked it in. it was quite plausible, I thought, that there was no God. Then, a tiny voice in my head said, no. It grew louder, and filled half my head-no, no. There was nothing else, just that voice that said no. I, not my parents, not the church, not my Bible, not my peers, I believed in God. I will still think about it often and test myself, but every time I think of a world without God I cannot believe it. That is the small comfort I have. I feel nothing, no God, no Jesus. I don’t hear God talking to me if he does, and I don’t recognize the Holy Spirit if it’s there. But I believe, and I believe with my whole heart, body, mind and soul. The only thing that I have to prove that God is alive, is that I believe. I have faith on faith alone.

So am I building on a rock or sand? I cannot tell.

The Only Cure? June 12, 2008

The other day I was reading through a medical magazine my Mom gets in the mail, and came across an article talking about panic disorder (yep, there’s now an officical disorder for it). Something pushed me to read it (and it had to be God, because I’m pretty cynical about all these disorders and syndromes that keep being invented, and reading about them is the last thing I want to do with my spare time), so I sat down and started to learn about it. The article was rather depressing (gee, seems like I might have a mild form of this disorder, if I read their list of symptoms correctly!), but none was as depressing as the last sentence, which said, in essence, “The only cure for this disorder is through a combination of medication and professional counseling/therapy.”

The only cure? Really?

Immediately this verse popped into my head:

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5 KJV, emphasis mine)

Since when have we let medication and human knowledge supercede the ultimate kind of healing, which is found in the Lord? He not only died on the cross for our spiritual healing from sin (the ugliest and most deadly disease!), but for our physical and mental healing as well! No matter what plagues us, whether it be the common cold, cancer, depression, stress or anxiety, all can be cured by the same One who raised the dead to life 2,000 years ago, who healed the blind, gave speech to the mute, and the ability to walk to those who’d been crippled from birth. Did I also mention His healing has none of those endless side effects most medicines do?

Medicine, counseling: the only cure? I don’t think so.

::HannahBeth’s note:: I’m not saying that I don’t think medicine, therapy, or counseling can’t/don’t help us when we’re sick (either mentally or physically) at all! My point is that they are not the only cure.

Which Do You Choose? June 9, 2008

In life, there’s always a time to make a right or wrong choice…and lately that thought has been bouncing around my mind. Do we stop and think about the choices? Which choice do we make? What about the ultimate choice that decides where your life will go? There are two voices being heard, telling you the good about both, but one of those voices builds her case up on “fantasy”/lies.  So, with these questions in mind, I just let my fingers mindlessly write up this poem: (Try to see it as in two different voices…)

 

Which Do You Choose?

Fear and doubt

Run through you

Until you feel a scream

Questioning all you do

Controlling even your dreams.

 

You hold on tightly

But you feel

Like you should let go

For the “lesser deal”

Sinking you down low.

 

“Choose the right choice.”

You are told

“Follow your heart

Be fearless and bold.

Take a stance and start.”

 

“Follow His set path.”

Someone else tells you.

It leads away

From what you want to do.

Your heart sways.

 

Which do you choose?

A life all about you?

The life of your dreams?

“Do what you want to do!

Follow the ‘right’ you deem…

 

…The other choice, not so glamorous

Is set on a narrow path

Choose only if you want a small life

No impact on that path

A glamor-lacking life.”

 

“It is the narrow way

But it is the happy life

One full of beauty and joy

Empty of selfish strife

Empty of all that’s coy…

 

…You will never be alone

Even when troubles come

Or despair fills you.

Love of a great sum

Guides and strengthens you.”

 

“What about you?

You follow that way

And you’ll never be a star

No one hears what you say

You’ll never go far!”

 

“In His eyes you’ll forever be

A star shining for Him

Shining in all you say

Never growing dim

In His life and way…

 

…People may not know you

But He knows and cares

He watches at all times

Helping with burdens you bear

He loves at all times.”

 

Which life do you choose?

A life all about you?

Or one about HIm?

One of what you want to do?

Or one living for Him?

 

Which do you choose?

In which, do you

Win or lose?

 

 

There’s a birthday today! June 3, 2008

I don’t mean to take attention away from Livi’s post, but since it’s her birthday I didn’t want the day to go by without wishing her a

Happy Sweet 16th Birthday Livi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How about wishing the lovely mastermind of this writing project a wonderful birthday everyone, hm?

 

If I could, I’d be gathering up all the Gibsons and Ladies of Elegance to throw you a humongous surprise birthday party today, but as I can’t (and as my gift to you will be rather late), hopefully this surprise post will make up for it just a bit. Love you, Livi!

All hail the teacup! June 2, 2008

So…what are your idols?  You know, I never really thought about it until I heard a verse related to the topic on the radio.  I hate to address this issue, since I usually can name a few idols, but never know how to go about de-idolizing them.  Let’s see if I can bring myself to name a few…
1. My computer, and furthermore, the friends I’ve made because of it
2. As an add-on to that ^ up there, the Gibson Girls, which deserve their own separate number.
3. School…yes, it’s horrible and unbelieveable, but I put school before God.  I use the excuse, “I don’t have time to spend time with God, I have too much school.” 
4. Basically I put myself before anything else, I think.  Not in every decision and every way, but in the way I live my life.  I don’t live it for God’s glory, I live it for mine. 
I think that my main issue is that I don’t know how to change that.  I pray about it, but I haven’t seen a change.  So I’ve set up some goals:
-Read the Bible more often
-When I’m tempted to sin, and I know it, walk to a different room singing a hymn or praise song
-Stop as many times a day and pray
Do you think I can pull it off?