Beauty That Lasts

As I left work today, it started pouring rain. I literally live 7 minutes from work and I thought I could make it home before the storm got worse...7 minutes turned into 20 and as raindrops fell hard against my windshield, I drove slowly down the road trying to make out the scene around me. There was lightning and thunder and the only thing I thought was "My poor puppies are probably so scared!", I finally made it home only to discover the electricity was out! As I laid in my dark, somewhat hot, apartment I thought of all the things I needed to do and how much of an inconvenience this was on my evening! When the rain finally stopped I decided to go run a couple errands and as I was driving I noticed the most beautiful skyline and a rainbow hidden in the clouds...A reminder that God always keeps His promises.

God then brought a particular promise to mind...
A little over a year ago I was listening to Kari Jobe in my quiet time and I was meditating on the lyrics to her song, "Beautiful". The chorus says:


Beautiful, beautiful
Oh, I am lost for more to say
Beautiful, beautiful
Oh Lord You're beautiful to me  

I began to sing these words over and over and just express to the Lord how beautiful He was to me.  And then I thought, 'beautiful'?  Most commonly, beautiful is a word used to describe something that is physically attractive, but I have never physically seen God.  But I HAVE seen His works and His hand upon my life and I've heard His voice and I know His character and His love for me...that's what makes Him beautiful to me.  Personality, character and actions are far more beautiful than anything physical, physical things never last.  I smiled at this thought and told Him again how beautiful He was and began to write down my thoughts, then He said: "Rachel, this is how I see you", tears!  Streaming down my face!  Lots of them!  As I wrote down what He was telling me, I began to realize how my heavenly father saw me and it wasn't exactly how I saw myself.  This was another turning point in my identity and it changed the way I saw myself and what I thought of myself.

As I gazed in awe of the rainbow today, I decided to pull out my journal and read everything I wrote that evening and something jumped out at me.  Something else He told me that night was that my future husband would be able to see me the way God sees me.  At first I thought, why did I write that?  Why did he say THAT to me?  But today I realized why.  

I'm not in a relationship and I haven't been for a while but over the past 3 years or so I have kind of been developing a fear of marriage.  Only because I am constantly surrounded by people who's marriages didn't work, who 'fell out of love', who 'lost their connection, their spark' and for some reason they just aren't enough for each other anymore.  I see people who are either divorced or staying in a lifeless marriage, both seem miserable.  That is what I'm scared of!   Marriage is a lifetime commitment and I'm scared that I won't be enough for some person to want to make a life long promise and actually work at keeping that promise.  BUT, my future husband will see me through God's eyes!  Our God is constant, He is the same in the past, present and future.  That is more than a lifetime.  And if my future husband can see the things God sees, I will always be enough! 

We are God's perfect bride, He chose us and He will always love us with an unconditional love.  To me, there is nothing more beautiful than that!  I have to constantly remind myself that the God of the universe, my heavenly father, looks down on me and calls me beautiful, He says I'm enough.  That's worth more to me than what I see in the mirror and it will last longer, too!!!  

My darling, you are so beautiful!
Oh, you are beautiful!

-Song of Solomon 4:1

It's kind of funny how one minute I'm driving in this storm and not one hour later, I was gazing at His beauty in the sky!  He makes all things beautiful!  And no matter what kind of storm you have been through or if you're in one right now!  He can turn it around in an instant and make it something beautiful!  This song by Gungor is a great reminder of this: 

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

He is jealous for me

"He loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy." -John Mark McMillan

Think about this for a second.  I can't listen to this song without being overwhelmed.  I have heard this song so many times and sang it in church hundreds of times but I heard it again last night as I was reading and God just embraced me with his loving arms and all I could do was cry as I soaked in his goodness and faithfulness.

He loves like a hurricane, now I don't know about you but when I think of love I think of red hearts and fluffy teddy bears and yummy coffee! I do not think of a hurricane! But God's love is like a hurricane! And yo know what, it isn't always warm and fuzzy but it's REAL! I read a little bit about this song and John Mark McMillan says: "This song is a celebration of a God who would want to hang with us through difficult and messy things, who would want to be a part of our lives through those things, and, despite who we are, He would want to be a part of us."

A little over a year ago I read this book titled "Lies Women Believe and the truth that sets them free" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. (If you are a woman out there and you haven't read this book...go get it..now!)  It is an amazing and powerful book that talks about every lie that we as women tend to believe and how it hinders us and blinds us and prevents us from being all we were created to be.  I got it out again last night and I'm going to read it again.  One part talks about the lie we believe that God doesn't really love us.  DeMoss explains how we, as women, are led by emotions and feelings.  All of us at some point have been let down, rejected and disappointed.  Whether it was a family member, friend, husband or boyfriend.  Each of us have experienced that feeling of rejection by that person who was supposed to be the person that loved us and that person that we wanted to receive that sense of security from.  So, the devil says, "Hey, if God is supposed to be your LOVING father and you are supposed to find SECURITY in Him, how is that going to be any different than your past experiences?"  And we believe it!  We think that we have to EARN His love and when we mess up, He wont love us anymore.  We think that in order to receive forgiveness of our sin there must be a list of things we have to do and a period of time before we can go back to Him and after it's happened three times, He must really be sick and tired of me and not want anything to do with me!

This is the furthest idea from the truth!  It's a lie from the enemy and this is not who God is at all! DeMoss says in her book, "The truth is, God does love us.  Whether or not we feel loved, regardless of what we have done or where we have come from, He loves us with an infinite, incomprehensible love."

Back to the picture of the tree bending in the hurricane, we've all seen something like this whether in real life or on TV.  But we'e seen that tree completely overtaken and controlled by the wind of the hurricane.  Bending almost to the ground and completely vulnerable, this is us under God's love.  It's not always pretty but it's real and He is always there.  As McMillan said, even through the messy, ugly stuff in life, God still loves us and  His love never changes despite our circumstances or our actions.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. -Hebrews 13:8

The Bible tells us that God has loved us since before time began, before the creation of the world and before we were even conceived, He loved us and He loves us with that same love today and He will love you with that same love tomorrow and next month and next year, no matter what you do.  I remember the first time I actually realized what God's love was like and that it had nothing to do with what I had done or could ever do.  He spoke to me through this song:

WHO AM I 

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love and watch me rise again
Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are

-Casting Crowns

Until we realize that nothing we ever do can make our God love us any more or any less, we will not fully comprehend how great God's love is for us.  "Melana Monroe was battling breast cancer and after her double mastectomy she thought her husband would never love her the same: As we wept and trembled when he took my bandages off the first time, I was so ugly, scarred and bald.  I was in intense grief that I could never be a whole wife to him again.  Steve held me tightly and with tears in his eyes said, "Melana, I love you because that's who I am."  I instantly recognized Christ in my husband.  As His bride, we are also eaten up with cancer--sin-- and are scarred, mutilated and ugly but He loves us because that is who He is.  No comeliness in us draws Christ's attention; it is only His essence that draws Him to us." (Excerpt from Lies Women Believe and the truth that sets them free by DeMoss)

We will never completely understand why or how God loves us so much.  Our earthly bodies and minds can't fully comprehend heavenly things but sometimes we just have to cling to the truth that He gave us in His word, He loves us with an everlasting love and nothing can ever change that.

BEAUTY for ASHES

Moving to Lubbock and being in a new place and not knowing anyone has brought memories of the first time I made a huge move away from home and my friends.  I was already at a place in my life where EVERYTHING was changing.  I had just left a long-term relationship, re-dedicated my life to God, moved back home, graduated college and got a "grown-up" job.  Talk about stress!!! And on top of all that, I was moving over 700 miles away to a place I had never been.  It was exciting at first, of course!  I thought, "I'm officially an adult".  I was completely on my own and had all the independence I could ever want...that lasted exactly 3 days...then I cried.  I cried myself to sleep almost every night for months, I was so overwhelmed and stressed and just sad.  At that point I was still struggling with so much pain and sadness from recent struggles and things that I had gone through that were just so overwhelming for me.  The thing was, I knew that I was led by God to Dallas and that I was exactly where He wanted me at the point but I still struggled with pain from my past.  It was a hard, long few months and I didn't really know what to do.  I just felt so overwhelmed and I felt better when I could just lay in bed and cry.

Finally, one evening as I was laying in bed and just crying and praying, I told God that I couldn't do it anymore and that I needed Him to take this sadness and pain because I could not bear it.  Now, I wish I could say that the next morning I woke up and I was a changed person, but I wasn't.  It was a process of constantly surrendering to Him and giving Him my struggles and pain.

"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."  -1 Peter 5:6-7

I had actually experienced the meaning of this verse in 1 Peter and learned what it means to actually give Him my struggles and fears so that He can "exalt" me.  In other words, so that He can pick me up off the floor and give me an unexplainable joy that is a testimony to Him.

"...to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor."  -Isaiah 61:2b-3

As I was coming out of this season and growing in Him, the biggest question I always had was "Why?".  I know obviously I had made some bad choices that led to pain and struggle.  But, why?  Why couldn't He have turned the situation around before I went through some of the things I went through.  Why did it have to go that far and why did it have to hurt that bad?  Why did the wounds have to be that deep that I felt at times that it would never go away?  One of my favorite songs by Matthew West is called "Strong Enough" and part of it says:

"You must think I'm strong to give me what I'm going through, well forgive me if I'm wrong but this looks like more than I can do on my own...Well maybe that's the point, to reach the point of giving up, cause when I'm finally at rock bottom, that's when I start looking up and reaching out...I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, so I don't have to be strong enough.

Through all of this, I have learned so much and I have grown a lot.  God has revealed to me and shown me so much that I have never seen or realized before.  First, He has showed me that I can never do anything on my own, that I need Him every moment of everyday and that with Him I can do ANYTHING.  He has showed me that when I find joy in Him, that is my strength to make it through the hard times and the struggles.  And lastly, He answered all my "why" questions with this verse: 

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."                                -2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Our God is so big and so good that He has so many reasons for everything and works in mysterious ways.  We will NEVER know exactly why something happens or why we are going through what we are going through but the good news is that He wants to comfort us thorough it and then He wants us to to comfort others through similar things so we can spread His love and be a testimony to Him.  This verse was enough for me to realize that even IF the only reason I went through the struggles and pain that I went through was to some day comfort someone else through the same thing and it would bring glory to my father and bring one more person closer to Him, that would be ok with me!!

I hear this quote all the time and I love it: "GOD NEVER SAID IT WOULD BE EASY, BUT HE SAID IT WOULD BE WORTH IT!"  This sums it up perfectly, because it isn't easy, it's a struggle but looking back, it was SO WORTH IT!  I'm where I am today because of it all.  When I look back on it all, I see that God was right there with me the entire time, I was just so wrapped up in selfishness to see it.

Standing on this mountaintop
Looking just how far we’ve come
Knowing that for every step
You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

-MATT REDMAN

Now that I have traded my ashes for BEAUTY and my mourning for JOY, I can be all He has called me to be and do all He has called me to do and walk with Him each day, a walking testimony of His goodness and faithfulness.