Beauty

Here is a post from my first blog I started (and stopped posting on last year because I started Sweet Swan Songs, and I liked it a lot better.)
I am going to be sharing the posts from my first blog here in the next few weeks, because I think they are relevant and I want to transfer them over to this blog. So, if you've read these posts, sorry! But in most cases, it's been a year since I posted them, so here is a fresh look at some of my thoughts from the past year.
This was written last summer. I'm about to plant the same kinds of flowers this year, and am looking forward to them looking as beautiful as they did last year!

Some thoughts on..Beauty.


My flowers are finally blooming!

Remember way back in the springtime when I said I'd take pictures of my flowers when they stopped looking like sticks and dirt?
Well, the ones that looked like sticks never really did anything except die. (mental note: do not buy flowers from root stock. None of the ones I planted this year came up! )
Thankfully,  my bulbs and seeds did decide to emerge from the soil and now I have lovely, lovely Zinnias and Dahlias and Sunflowers and Marigolds.

They are so beautiful. And peaceful!
Just out there, waving in the breeze, letting their beauty shine forth.

I think that's what God wants us as women to do- to be carefree and let our natural beauty shine forth effortlessly instead of striving towards that un-attainable standard of beauty that the world puts out there for us.
You know; the airbrushed, stick-thin, over made-up, over sexualized   "perfect woman".
Just look at the cover of Glamour if you're not sure what I mean.
I'm sure you won't have to. You know.


I'm all for make-up (its fun!) and making ourselves look pretty (I don't wanna be a worn-out momma) but there is so much more to life that we have to contribute to other than just looking hot. How about focusing on our inner beauty for a change; on the grace that has been bestowed to us through our salvation, on loving others even when we don't feel like it and we're tired?
How about just...being us? And being comfortable in that?

In the Bible, Peter talks beauty a little bit:

"Your beauty should not consist of outward things like elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold ornaments or fine clothes. Instead, it should consist of what is inside the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very valuable in God's eyes. " 1 Peter 3:3,4 (ESV)

Apparently, our quiet spirit of beauty says way more than the way we choose to adorn our outward appearance. Flowers are quietly reflecting God's beauty without even trying to. They just do.

God made us as women to do the same thing. We don't need to strive to be beautiful, He made each of us uniquely to reflect his beauty in different facets. We just need to rest in that, and focus on what is really important: our inward beauty, which comes from Him and His love for us. Then we can truly "bloom." :)