"The king is enthralled by your beauty." ~ Psalm 45:II

The world has deceived us all. Our longings are misdirected, our sorrows for nought. Together, in vain, we run from the grasp of God- trading in mercy and love for pride and starvation. We are human. We've made idols out of flesh and bone. We worship ourselves. We bow down to air-brushed bodies and plastic faces. Impossible standards taunt us. The media rapes our minds. We've been destroyed by degrading images and shallow expectations. We muddle in the puddles of indaquacy created by our own hands.

This road I've travelled down has ended. Again, I've found I can't do it on my own. My perceptions of beauty are distorted, damaged, and demeaned. My only desire now is to be undone. Undone from all the filth and lies that have bombarded me. I long to be filled with truth- with truth and beauty that has not been created by a world of ignorance, but by a God of knowledge. I long to be beautiful. In fact, to survive I must perceive myself as beautiful.

. . . but not false beauty, not beauty ruled by gods of thinness, straight teeth, and clear faces, not a beauty ruled by attractiveness and sexuality . . .but a beauty so grande and miraculous that it reaches beyond this world, a beauty made of kindness, of love, and of strength . . .

God, my heart hangs low. Without being told directly, I have been told time and time again that I am ugly, inadequate, and undeserving of pure love. Why am I am so ready to trust this?

Lord, help me to know You. Help me to know the things You know. Break down the walls of shallowness and insecurity I've built up around my body. Let me see the beauty that you have created, not on me, but in me. Help me to see it Lord. 

. . . and help me, most of all, to believe . . .

I can't tell you how frustrated I am with my relationship with God right now. I want to know Him so much! And I want to be faithful and obedient, and I want to share in His love. But every time I have gone to church or any kind of worship service in the last month I have felt like I was being attacked by evil in the worst way possible. It's gotten to the point where I am afraid to do anything of the sort. I do it anyway, and I prepare myself in prayer first, but it's the same thing every time. Plus, the depression that I thought I had kissed goodbye so many times before decided that it wasn't done with me yet. I'm fighting harder than ever these days. I'm determined not to be defeated.

"And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.'  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me." 2 Corinthians 12

When someone asked Jesus what commandment is the most important, he said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31

That was really powerful for me to read. Funny how things that should be so plain and obvious can just hit you a certain way and make you see things differently. Jesus' wisdom has a way of doing that. I realized that I don't even follow the two most important commandments in the bible. I do love Jesus but I don't think I love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. What does that I really mean anyway? Sometimes we take for granted that we should know what love really means. But, I have been realizing that I only recognize love when it is manifested in deed, but I can't grasp its meaning as a mental construct. Do you think we can ever get to the point where we love God enough while we are here on this earth? I am not sure I will ever be satisfied by how much I love him; I think I will be continually striving for more. And maybe that's okay as long as it doesn't come from a source of inadequacy and shame, but comes from a source of desire and passion to love more fully.

The second part of those verses says, "Love your neighbor as yourself". Someone pointed that out to me last night. Somehow whenever I had ever read that verse or thought about it in my head, I always cut out the last two words. I understand that we are called to love our neighbors, but as ourselves? I definitely don't do that... because while I have a love for other people, I don't have that same love for myself. In fact, I never really have, so I am not even sure how I would go about doing something like that. He has commanded something I feel entirely helpless to do...

"Even the darkness is not dark to You. And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. For You formed my inward parts, You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Pslam 139:12-14

I guess anyone who was reading this journal probably thought I had given up on it completely. That’s not true, but I guess I just haven’t felt very motivated to write in it for the last month. I’m not sure why, because God is working in my life in such amazing ways lately. I guess in order to explain how he is working in my life I will have to share a little bit of what I struggle with. I have a disorder that causes me to go through periods of severe depression. Part of what made it so hard recently was because I was praying against it so much and I know other people were praying as well, but I only had minor and infrequent relief from it the entire summer.  I couldn’t understand why He wasn’t taking away all the pain. After all, didn’t He want me to be well? I felt so useless because I wanted to serve Christ and love others in such a real way, but I couldn’t even muster up enough love for myself and God in order to make that possible. Intellectually I knew that God was on my side, but emotionally I felt so deprived of His love and everything He has to offer.

One thing I learned through all of this is how easy it is to love and trust God in some circumstances and how terribly difficult it is to love and trust Him in other circumstances, but most of all how important it is to be faithful to Him in ALL circumstances, just as He is to us.  As I was praying for relief for months without much result I became impatient and weary of it all.  My love and trust for Him was being tested in such a dramatic sense. In one respect it was easy to rely on Him because that was all I had… but in another respect it was very trying and part of me just wanted to give up altogether.

It’s so much easier to worship God when you can really feel Him working through your life.  It’s so much easier to trust God when He is answering prayers left and right.  It’s so much easier to serve God when He is giving you wonderful gifts to share with the world. It’s so much easier to love God when everything is going as planned.  But being a Christian isn't always easy. It is necessary for us to worship, trust, serve, and love God in any and all circumstances.  Of course there will be times when we can’t do those things as much as we would like, but the important thing is that we strive to do it anyway and press on through all the chaos and static that is in this world.

I think that God just expects our best at any given time, and that may be much less than we can give at another time, and it may be much less than what you see other people giving at that time… but that is of no consequence as long as we are lifting up all that we have, no matter how little that may be. If we remain faithful to Him then our best will grow in miraculous ways we never knew possible.

The depression is beginning to be lifted off of me just in time as I begin the strenuous semester of what will be my junior year. Having endured what I have, my faith in Him is reaching new heights. So I just encourage anyone who may be reading this who is going through a hard time--  I know that sometimes this world can be the most frightening and lonely place to be in. There will be times when you don’t get immediate answers to your struggles and it might feel like God isn’t even hearing your prayers in the first place. But, hold tightly to your faith in the Lord through it all, because He will never leave you or forsake you.  As utterly hopeless and impossible it may feel to get out of your current circumstances or to be freed from certain bondages, do not underestimate Jesus.  What is impossible for you to do alone can be made possible with the power of Jesus.

Why not sin if you will be forgiven anyway?  I know that appears to be a foolish question.. but don’t all Christians go through a point in their walk where that becomes an issue?

There are so many areas in our lives where we have temptations to do other than we know is right.  The fact that we are so mercifully forgiven again and again is often a motivation for Christians to give in to temptation.  Yet, I am beginning to realize how and why sin is such a stumbling block in our relationship with God.  

Maybe temptation should, insofar as you are capable of defeating it, be welcomed.  It is actually a great opportunity for personal growth.  Of course it is also an opportunity to fail, pick up the pieces, and go on again.. which will inevitably happen.  However, if we battle temptation successfully, we strengthen very important parts of our character.

Here is a really good quote that explains this:

"God develops the fruit of the spirit in your life by allowing you to experience circumstances in which you're tempted to express the exact opposite quality... You can't claim to be good if you've never been tempted to do bad. You can't claim to be faithful if you've never had the opportunity to be unfaithful. Integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest, humility grows when we refuse to be prideful, and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up."- Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life

That concept, simple though it is, has been helpful for me. We are continually improving parts of ourselves and becoming more like Jesus when we accept the fact that we are being tempted in a certain way, but then, for no other reason than that we strive to be obedient, we choose not to sin. Our efforts do not go unrewarded.