Project Beauty and a Challenge

I've recently introduced you to Jessica Hover.  Her blog continues to challenge me and so now I'm inviting you to take up a challenge with her and I as well.  Project Beauty!
Project beauty is a journey to discover who God created me to be and to see myself the way He sees me!  I want you to join us as well and we want to hear about what you discover!
You can read more about the challenge and what Jess is going through here.

Imagine what could happen if the amazing daughters of God began to discover their destiny in Him and began taking that destiny to the world showing it the beauty of God!

Here's what to do to take the challenge:  (FROM JESSICA'S BLOG)

It's day one of the project and here is where I am at....  
ENCOURAGEMENT.
I am choosing today to encourage myself. The same way I would encourage a struggling friend.

Everytime I look in the mirror I will think of at least one thing I love about myself, and I will thank God for that thing.
And when I lay down for bed I will thank God for 5 things I like about myself.
I did it last night... and again this morning when I woke up.
That's all. Day one of project beauty is encouragement. Simple.

The Bible says in Genesis 50:20--

"But as for you, you meant evil against me; 

but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, 

to save many people alive." 

Satan wants to destroy us through our insecurities and perversions of beauty. He wants to convince us that we will never be good enough. But here is what I have decided... the more the enemy lies to me... the more I will pursue truth... and the more truth I find ... the more truth I will share... which means more freedom for both myself and others.

Join us!  Leave me a comment and keep us up to date in what God is showing you about your own identity and beauty! Pin It

Discovery

So based on my last post I felt compelled to begin a list of what or whom I think God created me to be.  I started by thinking back to the things I've always loved, even as a little girl.  Here is the list I've begun, in no particular order:

I love my boys - all 4 of them!  I love their smiles, their faces, their victories and accomplishments, I love their failures because I know it teaches them to overcome adversity and that their worth is not based on what they do;

I love my husband - I believe with all my heart that God purposely placed him in my life to teach me about love.  Unconditional, I'll never give up on you - I love you even when you're ugly kind of love.  I love that he is honorable, that he desires to please God with all his heart, that he wants to make me happy, that he thinks I'm beautiful.  I love the deep, genuine love he has for people - all people.  I love how nonjudgemental and gracious he is - GRACE - that's his super power!

I love animals - especially bunnies - but pretty much any baby animal - except bugs!

I love to worship - no, I mean I REALLY LOVE to worship God - it refreshes and re-energizes my soul without exception

I love to dance - with out reservation or fear of judgement or worry of how I look - to dance with utter abandon - like David did.  I love to dance at weddings, in church, in my living room - I love to dance.

I love pink and blue and I love pink and blue together!

I love flowers - almost all flowers but ESPECIALLY the full kind like peonies and roses!

I love dresses!  I might wear them everyday if I could - the very simple sun dresses and the very fancy ball gowns.

I love weddings - everything about them - planning them, attending them, being a part of them, having them - all of it - the love - the celebration, the dressing up, the party, all of it!

I love sweats - yep, I know I said I love dresses but I also love sweats, not the lulu lemon dressy yoga pants that you can wear out to the store, but the old grey baggy sweats that feel WAAAAAYYYYY toooo big, even when its you're period and you've just eaten four helpings of icecream! 

I love high heels - especially stilettos! (I don't love how I'm scared of breaking an ankle whenever I wear them - LOL)

I love long hair!

I love to travel!

I love decorating and I love color!

I love to laugh!  Not the small, grin kind of laugh but the belly, I can't breathe, no noise is coming out and I sit here and clap my hands looking like a retarded seal kind of laugh!

I love romantic comedies - not the kind that make you feel sad at the end and have unrealistic expectations for your husband and marriage but the kind that make you celebrate the love you have in your own life.

I love seeing people love and pursue God!  Not because the bible tells them to but because they genuinely love Him - because they have a relationship with Him and have decided that their lives are no longer their own, not out of compulsion, but because of a realization of His crazy, over the top love for them.

I love the mountains and I love the water.

I love wood burning fire places.

I love cleaning my house. It makes me feel like I'm honoring God by taking care of what He has blessed me with and it makes me feel like I'm creating a great place for my family to come home to everyday.

So, these are a few of my favorite things - whether they are popular or not is irrelevant - they are MY favorite things.  And, as I read over the list above - I think I might be starting to like this little girl God created - maybe even uncovering layers of expectation and disappointments to uncover the beauty He created.

What are a few of your favorite things?

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Identity

Identity - the condition of being oneself and not another; the sense of self; the state of having unique identifying characteristics held by no other person or thing.

Do you know who you are?  Do you know why you are here and what God created you to do?  I'm not entirely sure I do, so I've determined that I'm going to figure it out.  Here's where I started:

Psalm 139

O Lord, you have searched me thoroughly and have known me, 
I’m an open book to you;

(God knows me - thoroughly, better than I know myself - there is nothing about me or in me, that He doesn't know)

    even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
    I’m never out of your sight.

(He is Always watching over me and watching out for me)

You know everything I’m going to say
    before I start the first sentence.

(He knows my past, present, and future and is already there)

I look behind me and you’re there,
    then up ahead and you’re there, too—
    your reassuring presence, coming and going

(the comfort of his presence always around me)

This is too much, too wonderful—
    I can’t take it all in!

(How can His love for me be understood?)

I can never escape from your Spirit!
    I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
 if I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I flew on morning’s wings
    to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
even there your hand will guide me,
    and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
    and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

(Even if I tried, even if I run, even if I hide, I cannot escape His love for me)

To you the night shines as bright as day.
    Darkness and light are all the same to you.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
    and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!

(Being in health care we only touched on the miraculous way our bodies were created, have the ability to heal themselves and function on a regular basis, only a master craftsman could have designed such awesomeness)

My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret and intricately and curiously wrought as if embroidered with various colors in the depths of the earth a region of darkness and mystery.

("being formed in secret", it was a secret, the shame of my conception, the fear regarding my life, the weight I was on the future, the desperation and dispair); (various colors, curiously wrought - it seems He took pleasure in the creative process of my being, that it somehow brought the creator joy to see his creation)

You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,

(He saw the expanse of my days - past present and future and is there in it all - He is I AM)

The days of my life all prepared
    before I’d even lived one day.

(Soverignty in my life - the thought that His protection, love and guidance, have always been a part of my life, even when I was unaware of them) 

How precious are your thoughts about me,^[b] O God.
    They cannot be numbered!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.

(God obsessively thinks about me - I am ALWAYS on His mind, the object of His affection, the center of His universe so to speak)

Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!

(sustain my life and let it glorify and tell the world about you)

Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my anxious thoughts!

(Look in all the dark, ugly dust filled corners of my heart and change me, clean me, transform me - make me like you - take over those areas until they are exactly the way you want them to be)

Point out anything in me that offends you,
    and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Why do the messages of failure, of defeat, of fear, of dissappointment and regret play so loudly in my head on a regular basis.  Why does comparison consistently steal my joy and why is perfection the standard to which I hold myself?

I find myself asking, "Who am I Lord?  Who am I really?  Who is it you created me to be?"  I need You to show me, change me, recreate me.  Heal me.  Help me to be all that you created me to be.  Help me to see what it is that you are so in love with.
Help me to be me - help me to see what it is that is unique about me - what are my gifts and talents, what is it that you really created me for.  Allow me to see the beauty you see when you look at me.  Clear away all that fogs my vision and help me to see clearly what you see when you see me.

What do you hear when you ask God who He created you to be?

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