Life Water

If life is like a box of chocolates, than Jesus is like a Brita filter...

I learn so much about God from trying to explain Him to my kids. One day, while talking to Jonas about the significance and importance of Jesus, this is what came out:

Let's say you're on a hike and (if you're like me), you forget a water bottle. You see a lovely, clear stream. The water looks clean. You want to take a drink, but we both know what that means. If you drink that water, it will make you sick. First, you must filter out all the unseen bacteria. Only then will it become drinkable and life sustaining.

We are like stream water. We make look like we have it all together on the outside, but inside we are being eaten up by sin. It is only through the filter and sacrifice of Jesus that we become clean, useful, and healthy.

Beauty

Over the course of the last month or so, I've been reading a book called Captivating: Unveiling the Mysteries of a Woman's Soul by John and Stasi Eldredge. Yesterday, I finished a chapter in beauty. Oh, such a hard chapter for me to grab hold of. I see the beauty in every other woman, but struggle to find what is beautiful about me. But...the concept might be starting to sink in. I know there are more beautiful, stunning, drop what your doing women out there. But that's not what God sees.

"Every woman has a beauty to unveil.
Every woman.
Because she bears the image of God."

Wow! Really?

After letting that statement sink in for a bit, here are some thoughts I came up with:

As a mother, I look at my boys, and my heart wraps around them. There are no other boys who are as handsome, talented, witty, cute, and crazy as mine. I see them through a parent's eyes. Other children are great, but when it boils down to it, mine are the best.

God sees us with his Daddy eyes. He sees our beauty even when we don't. He says, "You know that sunset over there? The one everyone had to stop their cars to get out and admire? Yeah, it was pretty nice, but it doesn't compare in beauty to you, my daughter." He groups us as a whole to say nothing in creation is as beautiful as His precious daughters.

Our beauty does not come from what the world sees as beautiful. It comes because GOD says we're beautiful. Why is that such a hard concept to accept? Why can't we, as women, recognize and feel God's heart wrapped around us? I think we are too busy comparing ourselves to one another which, in effect, tears each of us down. HE LOVES US AND THINKS WE'RE BEAUTIFUL!!!

If we are looking to the world for our worth we will always be bitterly disappointed.