I am now safe in Bangalore, India. We are working with YWAM this month and we have the opportunity to be a part of many ministries including orphanages, rehab center, preschool, working with women from the slums and teaching English classes. I am looking forward to what God has in store for my team this month. So I recently finished an amazing book called Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. It is about unveiling all the mysteries of women and what is inside our souls. I have learned so much from it and just figured I would share some of the key points from it. If you have not read it yet I definitely recommend it! The first thing that I learned is that as a woman our hearts long for three things: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. If you think about it I believe that you will have to agree. We all long to be pursued, to be desired and just to be a priority to someone. We also long to make a difference in others and do to something important in life. We all long to be beautiful. But as we all know all these things that we may desire are far from what we have in our present lives. Most of us have let the lies of Satan trickle in and define our sense of worth. But rather than dwell on how we think we have failed as women let’s go back and ask what a woman is and why were we place in God’s midst? To do this we must go back and look at Creation. It starts with complete darkness then God speaks and says, “Let there be light.” Then the waters are divided and God brings trees and animals to life. Then an amazing thing happens God creates man in his own image. But it doesn’t end there. God realizes something is missing and that something was Eve. Can you see how as creation unfolds it builds to higher works of art? Eve was the crown of creation, the final touch. She filled a place that nothing and no one else could fill. Just like her we as women are the crown of creation. We all have a crucial role to play on this earth. The world is incomplete without us. Allow that to sink in for yourself. You are the CROWN OF CREATION. We all have a beauty to unveil. We do not have to conjure it up; it is an essence that is given to EVERY woman at her creation. Another key point from the book is that the way that we view ourselves as women usually comes from our childhood. Some of you may have grown up without a father or been abused as a child. Whether you had a good or bad childhood the way we were treated by our parents is what begins to shape what we think about ourselves. It can also start through how we were treated at school if we were made fun of or not. This is where Satan starts to feed his lies into our minds. We have to be willing to see ourselves as God sees us. We are his beautiful daughters. First we have to be willing to let Jesus come in and heal all those wounds from our childhood and the truths that we have let ourselves believe since then. We have to invite him in to those dark places and heal our broken hearts. Then we need to renounce all those lies and the agreements that we have made from them. After we renounce those lies we need to proclaim Jesus’ truths over them such as Psalm 139:14, we are fearfully and wonderfully made and we are his beloved. Also we need to forgive those who have wounded us in the past. Lastly we need to take our question of who our identity and beauty is found in to him. Let him show you your beauty. The only thing that stands in our way of our beauty is our doubts and fears. When I realized that my beauty is defined in Christ, I realized that I don’t have to strive to be beautiful enough. I already am beautiful enough in his sight and so are you. One of the greatest things that I learned from this book is that I am and will continue to be romanced for the rest of my life. God finds all of us, even me, lovely. He moved heaven and earth to win us for himself. He finds us, EVERY woman captivating. I want every woman to remember this that NO man can tell you who you are as a woman. NO man is the verdict on your soul! Only God can tell you who you are! That is just the beginning of the things that I learned from Captivating. I could go on forever about that book. Allow these truths to sink in and set you free. I can now say that I am completely free because I am completely his! Amen? The more that you give him, the more of yourself you will be.
Here are some pictures from Nepal:
We had the awesome opprotunity to hand out blankets to the poor.
Here are some of the people who recieved the blankets.
Mary telling the village kids about Jesus
The kids at a school right next to us playing with the balloons I gave them.
Here is most of my team( minus Lauren) with our Auntie who was an amazing cook and such an amazing woman of God.
