Stampin' Sisters In Christ!!

I just love this site!!

The ladies there come up with the most

thought provoking things!!
I especially love this weeks theme:

Ecclesiastes 3:11a (NIV) "He has made everything beautiful in its time."

Sabrina Jackson the challenge hostess this week had this to say:

“Only five more minutes,” I whispered to my daughter who was giggling with another girl on the playground. The girl she was playing with was a strikingly beautiful child. Long curly hair with fanciful eyelashes and a bright smile!! As the child’s mother approached we began to chat. I told her how beautiful I thought her daughter was. “I wish she thought that about herself” the mother replied as tears streamed down her face.

She then began to tell me of how much money she has spent on trying to make her daughter “feel” beautiful. The dresses, shoes, hair accessories, and much more were purchased with an intent to make her daughter feel more beautiful. The Mother explained how her daddy, friends, and Grandma continually tried to reaffirm her daughter. She confessed it was all to no avail for in all she tried she felt her daughter did not seem any happier with herself or life. In all she tried to do, she could not convince her daughter of this beauty.

The mother repeated over and over how she felt it was VERY important that her daughter “feel” beautiful. When I asked her why, she paused for what seemed like forever then said, “I don’t know, I guess I want her to have a strong self-esteem and to always know how valued she is.”

With the best of intentions this mother’s concept of self-esteem and value was building insecurity in her daughter. We can never find true beauty in and of ourselves. You see, when our value is measured by outward beauty or by the ability to “be someone,” we begin to exchange character for the superficial. A child need not know how beautiful they are outwardly to feel valued; rather the beauty our children must find is through the gift of valuing others.

Are you beautiful? Do you FEEL beautiful? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “Why do we care so much about how beautiful we look?” when what really matters is where we find our beauty.

We must remember in Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says “God makes all things beautiful in its time.” "God" is the key word, for it is HE that makes beauty possible. In this scripture the word "beautiful" is translated as “appropriate.”

The next time you look in a mirror or question your beauty, ask yourself this, “Is this appropriate?” If it is NOT an appropriate way to look, if it is NOT something appropriate to say, if it is NOT appropriate to wear, if it is NOT an appropriate place to be, then according to the scriptures it is counterfeit beauty. From such deceptions you should hide and make the beauty of HIS holiness your portion.

For the beauty of Christ is where we can find true beauty in place of what once may have been ash.

As I was reading this devotional I started thinking on all the things that GOD has created. After all, he has created the heaven and the earth!!

Just the other day my girls and I were in our backyard pulling weeds and cleaning up what the wind had blown into our yard, when all of the sudden my 5 y.o. said: “Mommy, Mommy, look at this cute birdie!” She was pointing to a tiny bird, just a little bigger than a hummingbird, who was sitting on one of the weeds we were about to pull. It was for sure a beautiful bird and I had never seen one like it before. I turned back to my daughter and told her that GOD makes all things beautiful. My 9 y.o came over and said: “Yeah, just look at all of those beautiful butterflies we saw when we went to Butterfly Garden.

Sometimes I truly wish we all would see things like God has intended for us to see them. God had and has a plan that we focus on him to see all the beauty around us. Yes, we think money can buy beauty and all things beautiful, but we have to realize that GOD already provided it all for us, we just have to put him first and see through his eyes.

I am sorry that I was a little long-winded today. I just wanted to remind us all, that includes me, to keep our eyes on GOD and not on things. We all are beautiful in our own way. Beauty does not always come in appearance, sometimes the love and heart that people show is more beautiful than anything else and that is what it is all about. GOD had it all planned out!

Thanks for listening. I pray that you all have a blessed day and that this was just a little food for you to think about all those things that GOD has made beautiful for us!!

I have to say that this message came to me at a good time!!
My DD is 13, and starting to feel the pressures that all girls do at this point in their lives.

Some of the girls in her class won't eat lunch because 'they will get fat, and then their boyfriends won't think they are beautiful.' How sad that our little girls....yes, 13 is still little, much to their dismay, that they feel so much pressure to be thin and beautiful at the is point in their young lives.
I read this to my dd and we talked about what it means to be beautiful on the outside, but how it's VERY important that God sees you as beautiful on the inside.

I just love this line:

 "Beauty does not always come in appearance, sometimes the love and heart that people show is more beautiful than anything else and that is what it is all about."

In closing, I too want to look for and find all the beauty that is around us.

I want to remember that outside beauty isn't the most important thing,

but being beautiful on the inside and sharing God's love with others is!!

What do you know, Stampin' Sisters in Christ, did it again...

A challenge within a challenge!!

Thank you!!

Until next time.............tootles!!

OOOOOppppppSSSS!!

The card: