Beautifully Intentional
1. Exercise everyday.
2. Eat healthy. Absolutely no bread or sweets.
3. Have the best brand of makeup.
4. Wear an outfit that everyone will love.
5. Take your hair vitamins so your hair will be thick and long.
6. Make sure you’re whitening your teeth at the least once a week.
7. Take and post a photo on Instagram so everyone knows you exist.
9. Check out everyone else’s Instagram to stay updated, secretly comparing yourself and your life.
8. Don’t forget to read your bible and pray so that your heart will be beautiful too.
Sound familiar?
It does to me.
This is the checklist that often goes through my head to achieve the height of beauty/perfection. That’s what every woman and girl wants, isn’t it? To feel absolutely stunning in every way, to be the whole package, or even just to be simply noticed as beautiful.
I could go on and on about how we are all beautiful in the eyes of the Lord, which is truth, but you’ve probably heard that in some way or another at least a million times. What I am going to go on and on about though is that you need to receive that truth.
Accepting the truth can be hard – especially for women in today’s society. Our natural instinct is to protect our hearts and ourselves. You need to accept that no matter how many days you perfectly complete that checklist it’s never going to fulfill the desire inside to feel beautiful. You have to dive into what the Lord says about you. You need to bury the truth into your heart, so you’ll be ready to rise up on those days when Satan comes at you to steal, kill, and destroy. To receive the truth and bury it in your heart, you need to know how the Lord feels about women.
Take a look at Rahab, a harlot. Her destiny was set in front of her before she was even born. She did not even follow God until a couple of spies came to her home and needed to hide from the king of Jericho. In that moment she knew that they were God’s people. She risked her own life to hide them on her roof to save them – even when her faith was so fresh. When the pursuers came she directed them wrongly to save the spies. She knew that the spies were men of God and that saving them was her purpose. Because of her faith, Rahab, once a woman of the lowest reputation, became a woman that would forever be known in the lineage of Christ. She knew that when she hid these spies that she would be delivered. Rahab and her family were spared when the city of Jericho was destroyed because the spies kept their promise to return the favor to Rahab. God wanted her name to be associated with His son’s. He saw the beauty in her and desired to bring that to life.
Recently, I took a trip to Israel with my husband. While we were visiting the Garden Tomb, a pastor in our group spoke something that really pulled at my heart. We went back to the beginning and focused on the Garden of Eden. God created man and immediately felt that he was incomplete. He tried to pair animals with him, but no partner was suitable enough for him. He finally created woman from Adam’s rib, and realized that she was the suitable partner for him. As women, God’s purpose for us is greater than we could ever imagine, just like Rahab’s. God has our lives so thoughtful and delicately planned out before we are ever born. Eve was the instigator in the fall of man. She took the apple from the forbidden tree, by temptation, and offered it to Adam. This brought sin into the world and caused a separation between God and us. At this point, it could easily seem like woman’s place is far lower than what God intended for us.
Let’s fast forward to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. God sent Jesus to save us all from our sins. He was the living sacrifice that took the place of the lamb to save our souls. He was beaten, died on a cross, and put in a tomb for 3 days. On the 3rd day, three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Salome went to the tomb to bring spies to anoint Jesus’ body. They saw the tomb was rolled away, and the angel appeared to them and that Jesus had risen. The angel told them to go and tell everyone about what they had seen.
God intentionally allowed a woman to be the first to find Jesus, and to tell the good news to everyone else. Here is where the woman is redeemed. A woman gets to break the news to the world that there is no longer separation between us and God, and our sins are forever covered through Jesus’ sacrifice. Our role and our story is important in the eyes of the Lord. You don’t have to complete that checklist everyday to achieve beauty. You don’t have to even think about it because God has already created a beauty deep within your soul that cannot be achieved through a checklist. He has placed it in us since Eve. God’s story for you is intentional and perfect. No matter your struggles or insecurities, He believes that you have purpose and that you ARE beautiful. He has been planning it since the very beginning.
