Thursday, October 26, 2006
Sunday, October 22, 2006
tiaras and plastic high heels can make a girl's day
this morning i saw something wonderful.
two little girls walked into a restaurant with their mom, completely decked out in sparkly princess costumes, tiaras atop tangled hair, and plastic dress up shoes. they proudly pranced in, completely unaware and unconcerned with the various reactions of everyone else in the restaurant.
many people (including our table) laughed or smiled, although i noticed a few dissaproving stares from people who clearly thought it was a ridiculous decision and/or poor parenting for the mom to let her kids out of the house like this. secretly i think part of me wanted to go shake those people.
i don't really care if the mom lost a battle with the little girls over getting dressed this morning or whether she actually encouraged the girls to dress up for their morning out. whether it was purposeful or not, i think it was a great decision. their excitement at wanting to show the world how special they were struck a chord in me. i think all girls want to know we are beautiful....that is probably why we like to get dressed up.
they made me smile because they reminded me of how little girls are by nature so secure in their beauty and confident in the belief that they are made to be princesses. its like it is instictively build into our very spirit. God made our hearts to work this way! ...sadly, after years of being hurt, rejected, taunted, or abandoned, the world strips us of our confidence, telling us we are too fat, too short, too stupid, or too weak. we are told that we are just like everybody else. bitterness and insecurity make us doubt that we are anything special...that we deserve to be loved.
and all the while God is gently trying to whisper to us how beautiful he thinks we are, how much he values us, how we are princesses and heirs to his kindgom. the King is enthralled by our beauty.
God whispered that to me today, and i am grateful.
two little girls walked into a restaurant with their mom, completely decked out in sparkly princess costumes, tiaras atop tangled hair, and plastic dress up shoes. they proudly pranced in, completely unaware and unconcerned with the various reactions of everyone else in the restaurant.
many people (including our table) laughed or smiled, although i noticed a few dissaproving stares from people who clearly thought it was a ridiculous decision and/or poor parenting for the mom to let her kids out of the house like this. secretly i think part of me wanted to go shake those people.
i don't really care if the mom lost a battle with the little girls over getting dressed this morning or whether she actually encouraged the girls to dress up for their morning out. whether it was purposeful or not, i think it was a great decision. their excitement at wanting to show the world how special they were struck a chord in me. i think all girls want to know we are beautiful....that is probably why we like to get dressed up.
they made me smile because they reminded me of how little girls are by nature so secure in their beauty and confident in the belief that they are made to be princesses. its like it is instictively build into our very spirit. God made our hearts to work this way! ...sadly, after years of being hurt, rejected, taunted, or abandoned, the world strips us of our confidence, telling us we are too fat, too short, too stupid, or too weak. we are told that we are just like everybody else. bitterness and insecurity make us doubt that we are anything special...that we deserve to be loved.
and all the while God is gently trying to whisper to us how beautiful he thinks we are, how much he values us, how we are princesses and heirs to his kindgom. the King is enthralled by our beauty.
God whispered that to me today, and i am grateful.
Monday, October 16, 2006
but he talks like a gentleman
"You sit there in your heartache
Waiting on some beautiful boy to
To save you from your old ways
You play forgiveness
Watch him now, here he comes
He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus
But he talks like a gentleman
Like you imagined when
you were young"
-the killers
interesting how we sometimes compromise our standards for simply "nice guys" because we are lonely and afraid that nothing better will come along....
yet its a constant battle to make ourselves (myself) understand and really live like we believe that, while someone may compliment your personality very nicely, no other person will ever be perfect enough to complete us - otherwise why would we need jesus?
such a delicate line between having legitimate spiritual expectations for a relationship and extending grace and understanding for the sin and failings that are present in all human beings.....
Waiting on some beautiful boy to
To save you from your old ways
You play forgiveness
Watch him now, here he comes
He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus
But he talks like a gentleman
Like you imagined when
you were young"
-the killers
interesting how we sometimes compromise our standards for simply "nice guys" because we are lonely and afraid that nothing better will come along....
yet its a constant battle to make ourselves (myself) understand and really live like we believe that, while someone may compliment your personality very nicely, no other person will ever be perfect enough to complete us - otherwise why would we need jesus?
such a delicate line between having legitimate spiritual expectations for a relationship and extending grace and understanding for the sin and failings that are present in all human beings.....
Sunday, October 01, 2006
working on finding some work
so its been a looooooooooooong time.
sorry.
the only excuse i have to offer is that i have been distracted by the extremely time consuming process of finding a job.
really, it takes an awful lot of work to find a good place to work. so far, i probably have written, oh...about...537,246 cover letters/resumes. i even applied for random jobs i found on the internet that i am extremely NOT qualified for...just to see if they emailed me back.
i think i feel pressured to find something that, well...fits. not only because this will be my first "real" job...but also because i don't think i could handle wasting my life away doing something that i don't agree with or feel passionate about. also i am tired of being asked what i do for a living and having to respond, "well thats a good question.." i think its funny that so much of what we consider our identity is wrapped up in what kind of job we have. but strangely, i feel....sort of lost....without this part of me being fulfilled. its not a lack of purpose...more of a lack of routine maybe?
i guess i am slowly narrowing down my options....for instance, during these past few weeks of interviewing/applying i have realized that God did not make me to work in a large corporate environment. yuck. just going into some of these offices drained a few years off my life i think...these interviews consisted of me outwardly smiling and nodding while the person tried to convince me that i could be very happy in a grey forest of cubicles, while inside my head i'm thinking "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"
we'll see what this weeks interviews bring.....say a prayer for me! :)
sorry.
the only excuse i have to offer is that i have been distracted by the extremely time consuming process of finding a job.
really, it takes an awful lot of work to find a good place to work. so far, i probably have written, oh...about...537,246 cover letters/resumes. i even applied for random jobs i found on the internet that i am extremely NOT qualified for...just to see if they emailed me back.
i think i feel pressured to find something that, well...fits. not only because this will be my first "real" job...but also because i don't think i could handle wasting my life away doing something that i don't agree with or feel passionate about. also i am tired of being asked what i do for a living and having to respond, "well thats a good question.." i think its funny that so much of what we consider our identity is wrapped up in what kind of job we have. but strangely, i feel....sort of lost....without this part of me being fulfilled. its not a lack of purpose...more of a lack of routine maybe?
i guess i am slowly narrowing down my options....for instance, during these past few weeks of interviewing/applying i have realized that God did not make me to work in a large corporate environment. yuck. just going into some of these offices drained a few years off my life i think...these interviews consisted of me outwardly smiling and nodding while the person tried to convince me that i could be very happy in a grey forest of cubicles, while inside my head i'm thinking "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"
we'll see what this weeks interviews bring.....say a prayer for me! :)
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