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| My Beautiful Sister Who is Beautiful Inside and Out |
Christiana Aguilera got it right when she sang, “You are
beautiful, no matter what they say.” God
made all of us beautiful. Ecclesiastes 3:11
says 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. EVERYTHING. (That includes you and I) –Isn’t that exciting? The God of the universe
calls US beautiful! So why don’t we
always see ourselves that way?
I asked the Lord to give me a personal story
of when I have felt insecure about who I am and the beauty He created me to be
and as I waited, I had about a zillion memories come to mind. But the one I want to tell you about is one
that I think every woman can relate to.
Back in 2006 my husband
had landed a large account and we were invited to go to the corporate party in
Bellevue. I was so nervous, not really
knowing what to expect and of course I had to go shopping for a new outfit
because suddenly everything I had in my closet was old. –Nobody else ever does
that right? .... So I’m at the mall, looking at every store, not finding
anything (Because that’s just how it is when you need to find an outfit, they
all just aren’t good enough) I finally find this cute top and skirt and decide
to go with that.
So we’re headed to
the event and I’m feeling pretty confident in the way I look. My hair was lookin’ good, my make-up was on,
and I had on a new outfit. I felt
beautiful. That is until I got off of
the elevator and walked into the conference room. I had never seen so many physically beautiful
people in one room in my life! Suddenly
I felt like I had on the most boring outfit ever and when I checked myself out
in the mirror in the ladies room next to the other women, I felt like I wanted
to just hide. They were so externally
beautiful and my view of myself at that moment was that I was not. I was believing the lie that I was NOT
beautiful, but average. While all the
while I’m sure God was trying to yell to me, “Hey Tasha! Remember you are beautiful, I’ve made you
beautiful!” -I just couldn’t hear Him with
the loud voice insecurity that I was carrying.
Insecurity. That’s
one of the Beauty Secrets that we need to know about. It functions like some really UGLY sunglasses
that block our view of who we really are.
Do you think that
the women in the Bible ever wore UGLY sunglasses of insecurity? You know those women in the Old Testament
wore a lot of things both UGLY and Beautiful just like we do today. In fact, you might not realize it, but the
matriarchs of Christianity had struggles just like us. They weren’t perfect. –Isn’t that great
news? The Bible says that we are to
model ourselves after the holy women of the past.
1 Peter 3:3-5
(New International Readers Version)
3 Braiding your hair
doesn't make you beautiful. Wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes doesn't make
you beautiful. 4Instead,
your beauty comes from inside you. It is the beauty of a gentle and quiet
spirit. Beauty like that doesn't fade away. God places great value on it.
5 This is how the holy
women of the past used to make themselves beautiful. They put their hope in
God. And they followed the lead of their own husbands.
Who were those holy
women? They were the women who were married
to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob –Anyone
remember their wives names? They were
Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel. I want to
look at just two of these women; Sarah and Rebekah.
In my book “Path of
the Blessing,” you’ll learn about a few of the choices they made that
determined their path in life and how beauty played a part on that path. –I’m talking external AND internal beauty. So if God says in His word that we are to
look to these women and follow their example, then we should do that!
In Part 1 Chapter 2
of my book, “Path of the Blessing” we see how Abraham’s wife, Sarah, Sarai at
the time, experiences how beauty brings about blessings from God.
Here's an excerpt from my book:
Now we’ve come to a situation in Abram’s
life that dispels any misconception that he was “perfect.” There was a famine and he and his wife Sarai
went to Egypt because Egypt always had more than enough food. While there he lied to Pharaoh and said that
Sarai was his sister.
The Pharaoh
believed his little lie and because of Sarai’s beauty, Pharaoh gave him
wealth. Pharaoh was so taken with her
beauty that he was going to make Sarai one of his wives, so he blessed Abram
with abundant wealth.
(So the Pharaoh found out that Sarai was Abraham’s wife and
let her go and the Pharaoh sent them on their way with everything they had)
Let’s look at
the situation that Abram and Sarai just walked out of in Egypt. They received favor from men, especially
Pharaoh and they received and acquired abundant wealth. These blessings were not attained by lying,
but a direct result of Sarai’s beauty.
Sarai’s beauty is a blessing that came from the Lord. So we can
attribute every blessing that Abram received in Egypt as from the Lord. It had nothing to do with Pharaoh or lying.
Nevertheless, Abram kept on walking on his path of blessing, slipping a little
but still moving forward.
So what we see here
is that Sarah was so beautiful even the Egyptians desired her for her
beauty. Do you think that the Egyptians
saw her internal beauty at first? -I don’t
think so. I think it was her external
beauty. –But remember at this point,
Sarah and Abraham were not very wealthy.
Their wealth was in livestock and not jewelry. So Sarah had a beauty that didn’t necessarily
require the enhancements that we have today.
She was beautiful all on her own.
Let’s look at
Rebekah. In Part 2 Chapter 1 of “Path of the Blessing” we see how Abraham’s
chief servant adorned Rebekah with gold:
The chief servant gave Rebekah gifts and
asked who she is. The gifts were a gold
nose ring and two gold bracelets.
Rebekah ran and told her family about what
was going on and her brother Lehman ran out to meet the man at the spring. “As
soon as he had seen the nose ring, and the bracelets on his sister's arm, and
had heard Rebekah tell what the man said to her, he went out to the man and
found him standing by the camels near the spring. ‘Come, you who are blessed by the Lord,’ he
said.”
(Wow! Now this time God was blessing Rebekah with a gold
nose ring and gold bracelets; enhancing her beauty! AND do you know what
happens next?)
After hearing the whole story, Rebekah's family
agreed that this is from the Lord. They
then said to take her and go and let her become the wife of the servant’s
master. When Abraham's servant heard what they said, he bowed down to the
ground before the Lord. (Praising God)
Then the servant brought out gold and silver jewelry and clothes and
gave them to Rebekah. He also brought
out costly gifts to her brother and her mother.
God blessed Rebekah
with gold and silver jewelry and clothes to enhance her beauty. –Are you getting a picture of how we are to
be beautiful like these women? Which one do you model your beauty after; who do
you relate to, Sarai or Rebekah?
So in one case, beauty resulted in blessings and in the
other, blessings resulted in increased beauty.
–Ah Ha! Another Beauty
Secret! When we walk on the path of the blessing
we become more beautiful!
So I ask you to
think about what is stopping you from walking on that path; from realizing your
own beauty?
Sometimes we don’t recognize the beauty that we are because
of the UGLY we’ve layered on top. –What
do I mean? Well since I’m a fan of
fashion, think of yourself; your beautiful self as who you are right now. Then we tend to cover that beauty up with
UGLY fashion.
-Like the UGLY sunglasses of Insecurity
-The UGLY scarf of Gossip
-The UGLY jacket of Lying and Deceit
-The UGLY hat of Jealousy
-The UGLY handbag of Unforgiveness
And the list goes on…
Have you ever known
anyone that is beautiful until you get to know them? Then you start to see the UGLY that’s all
over them. Have you noticed how this
UGLY can really weigh a person down?
It’s much harder to be the person that I’m supposed to be if I’m being
restrained by all of this UGLY!
So what can we do about this all of this UGLY? The Bible
has a solution. In fact it’s another
Beauty Secret. It’s better than any
beauty treatment you can find. –Oh and
it’s free! –Even better right?
Hebrews 12:1-3
1 Therefore, since we are
surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that
hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance
the race marked out for us, 2 fixing
our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before
him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of
the throne of God. 3 Consider
him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary
and lose heart.
Fixing our eyes on
Jesus and throwing all of that UGLY off reveals the true beauty that you
are. Jesus is the ONLY one that can help
us start the process of revealing more and more of the beauty within.
What is the Beauty that you are? Who were you created to
be? –Start the process by inviting Jesus to be the Lord of your life and if you
already are in a relationship with Jesus, then start by getting alone and just
ask Him to reveal the UGLY in your life and let the Beauty Treatments of
refining begin!
If you've realized the love that God has for you and how He views you as beautiful, then share about it in the comments below! *You can also check out pictures from this talk I held as a Women's Event at my website: www.pathoftheblessing.com
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