Oh Sweet Summer Time!

I love the summers... I love the LONG evenings, bright sunshine, family time, celebrations, cook outs, spending time on the lake (or any body of water for that matter) and some what relaxing and slower pace. This summer I have not been up to anything in particular... but I have LOVED every minute of it! Here are some pictures of the fun....

Tubing....

Having fun!.....
Spending time with friends and family on the boat...

Friends having fun tubing...

Intense sunsets... and boats waiting for 4th of July fireworks...

Perfect sunsets at the lake....

Cadie stealing the ball and never giving back....

More beautiful sunsets...

Spending time with family, including the greatest niece in the world...

Seeing TONS of rainbows.... like this one when I went to my parent's house at the very beginning of the summer....

Next up is vacation up at the mountain house! Excited about getting to MUCH cooler weather for a week, spending time with some friends while there, and seeing Baba and Jack who are flying out for a few weeks from Seattle.

I am so blessed....

"...enthralled with your beauty..."

We live in a society that has created quite the definition of beauty. Only problem is that the definition, as society has defined it, is far from real or true. Society's idea of beauty is the "beauty" who shows up on the cover of the magazine in the check out line at the grocery store. Only she is not real. She is the photoshopped, air-brushed, retouched version of herself. That is not true beauty or the reality of who and what is beautiful. Every woman wants to feel beautiful- I don't argue that at all. We work hard to "make" ourselves beautiful by putting on make up, wearing just the right clothes, having perfectly styled hair. We are letting society define beauty and allow ourselves to get wrapped up in the wrong identity of who we are. We all wish we had perfect lips, or perfect hips, or beautiful legs, or chiseled abs. The problem is there is absolutely nothing spiritual about hating your own body. That is the first part of the battle of true beauty. We have to know who and where our beauty comes from. We are beautiful for who we are in Christ. We have to love ourselves, we cant compare ourselves to others, and we cant listen to voices from the past that come back up and haunt us. As women, we are the only thing that God did not create from dirt. We were created in HIS image. We are beautiful. God says it very clearly in Psalm 45:11 : "The KING is enthralled in your beauty." ENTHRALLED!!! Captivated! Spellbound! HE, the creator of the universe, is enthralled and captivated by your beauty!
True beauty lies in being able to embrace your beauty just as you have been created and just as you are. The first step is not beating yourself up. That does not mean you can't want to do things to change your appearance. (I fight that battle regularly-- I want to lose weight, but at the same time, I cant beat myself up for who I am right now. I can work to losing weight *which I am doing successfully at the moment* but I cant be ashamed of who I am right here, right now.) Beating yourself up only makes you feel worse and pulls your further from Christ. Women should even go so far as when you see your friend beating herself up, "take her weapons away and just hold her." We can and should be content, even grateful, for who we are right here, right now. Beauty also comes from truly finding what is important in life. As the quote in the last post said "There is no beauty in makeup. Expensive clothes will not make you beautiful. The secret lies in being an alive, awake woman with something to offer the world. Namely, yourself. Beauty is less about your face and more about your smile. Less about the shape of your eyebrows, more about the light in your eyes. Less about the length of your legs, more about the bounce in your step. Real beauty is being a viable, vital human being. As you participate in your life with a warm smile and generous spirit, you are beautiful." (Johnson, 86) Finally, and most importantly, you have to embrace the ONE who loves you more than any other person or thing- The true lover of your soul. "God is loving us passionately and intensely, and that love has nothing to do with the way we look... He simply loves us as we are." (Johnson, 87) HE formed each woman (again the only thing not from DIRT) and said "THIS IS GOOD." HE is held captive by our beauty.
We have to live by faith, not by sight. We have to embrace ourselves as we are and who we are in Christ ("Fearfully and wonderfully made"- Psalm 139:13-15). You have to be grateful for all that you have been given, including who you are physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Beauty is defined not by the American standard-- true beauty is defined by who you are in Christ and the person you are and become in HIM.

True Beauty.....

I will write more about this in another post at some point this week. But for now, I wanted to share a little passage from the new book I am reading. It sums up pretty well what true beauty is. In the longer post, I will dive in and give more detail including biblical references and such, but for now, just think on this for a little while.

"There is no beauty in makeup. Expensive clothes will not make you beautiful. The secret lies in being an alive, awake woman with something to offer the world. Namely, yourself. Beauty is less about your face and more about your smile. Less about the shape of your eyebrows, more about the light in your eyes. Less about the length of your legs, more about the bounce in your step. Real beauty is being a viable, vital human being. As you participate in your life with a warm smile and a generous spirit, you are beautiful." (Fresh Brewed Life, N. Johnson, 86)