isn't she lovely?

for pics: go to http://community.webshots.com/user/whitehousegirls

Shannon's wedding: What a great time! Yes God made us in his image and there was definitely beauty all around: from Shannon herself to her awesome grandmothers who were beautiful inside and out (They seem like very wise graceful women of God: someone i aspire to be like) to her outside reception. It was all amazing. Shan was gorgeous. She definitely set a high standard for other weddings to come.
We had the best weekend enjoying each others company and catching up. My favorite part of the wedding was at the beginning when Shan says "I'm SO excited!!" when she got to the front of the church. Everything was so perfect. Everything was beautiful. As much as I complain about weddings it still gets me when I watch a nervous/anxious groom and when the back doors of the sanctuary fling open for the whole sanctuary full of people to see a beauty to behold. That's us! The bride of Christ and all creation is waiting for the day we are reunited with Him! Yesss...

Do you know who you are, women of God?
Do you know he made you because it was not good for man to be alone... You are the final addition to creation, the crowning glory made in the image of God to bring beauty in human form?
Do you know you are beautiful because that is your essence?
Do you know God makes his creations beautiful because He is beautiful, and beauty is a special power designed to draw us in a leave us wanting more?
Do you know that He designed the complexity of your heart and emotions stirred in with that beauty to make you pursuable for a lifetime (it is the glory of God to conceal things- Proverbs 25) just like himself!? We can never know the depths of Him!

Beauty transcends words and tangibility because he made it to stir our hearts. How amazing is it to behold something beautiful, or to behold someone who is beholding something beautiful.
...And then you feel your heart melt in your chest... And a gentle whisper speaks: You're welcome. Behold ME. I AM beautiful. This is all created so that you may worship me... I love you. I love you enough to create your heart in such a way that it desires to behold beautiful things.

We were made to be in relationship with the beautiful one. Our relationships here on earth are just snapshot pictures of what God wants with us.

Try to ponder the intimacy of the Trinity. Father Son Holy Spirit have existed as ONE for all eternity. That is the image we are made in... what release it will be to be fully seperated from this earth and tempation to be independent. Some moments I close my eyes and think I just might feel it: the fact that I am in Christ and He is in me and we are one. United. Sealed. And at my core, I know that is where my spirit is: It sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven in Christ, but I long for the day when He returns in all his glory to take his bride home to stay.

Read Captivating by John and Staci Eldridge. Everyone read it.

What is is about Diet Coke? I often characterize it as a warm blanket: It just has a calming effect. Maybe its the fact that you taste sweetness but you know you are getting a sweet taste without the calories maybe there's some crazy chemical that has us all coming back for more, but I thoroughly enjoy it. I am an unashamed member of Diet Coke addicts anonymous on the facebook. It brings relaxation, release, and familiarity of that biting sweetness dancing on my tastebuds with again no calorie conviction. Some how the syrupy stuff has me believing that it quenches my thirst and the carbonation, um, hydrates me?! Does it?! Well my heart has convinced me and my body expects it. Am I dependent? I am not sure of that but it's amazing how something that I once thought so disgusting and foreign is now so wonderful to me. (and how CocaCola: the real thing is stifling and guilt-giving. Dang more than 100 calories) But I have been changed- I am a believer. Yes, I believe in diet Coke and it sustains me. I was once skeptical but now i have tasted and seen that IT IS GOOD! Hmmm... I had no idea what I was missing out on! Some people tell me I am crazy: "who would want that stuff?" "uuuuuuuuhhh that nutrasweet gives you brain tumors" but that's how we work- the more we discover about something great, like Father, the more we taste him, the more we see how he makes us better and offers us a huge inheritance the more we LOVE him and become an advocate of him, excited to share all that he does for us and in us and through us. Some may think we are nuts but who cares?! We love him and i would gladly make myself a fool for the ONE I love. He's worth it. He is better. Even better than Diet Coke. Far better.

Lord reveal to me your infinite value and worth. Blind me to lesser pleasures.

Nightingale, Sing us a song
Of a love that once belonged
Nightingale, Tell me your tale
Was your journey far too long?
Does it seem like I'm looking for an answer
To a question I can't ask
I don't know which way the feather falls
Or if i should blow it to the left
All the voices that are spinnin' around me
Trying to tell me what to say
Can I fly right behind you
And you can take me away

I think Norah Jones painted a cool picture, if we were asking the Lord these same questions He would tell us the tale of how he made us for relationship with him, how he loves us so very much that he took a long journey to the cross but not too long. This world is spinning around us and the pleasures and passions are dancing around us trying to tell us how we "should" be and what a "good person" looks like but I want to flee the world and fly right behind Jesus and he rescues me from the shallow world for HE is better and is worthy to be passionatly pursued. He pursued us first, and has awakened our hearts to the love relationship extended to us.

Take me away dear Jesus in your strong, loving arms.
Rescue me from this world that deceives and brings harm.
Awaken me to your grace and with your love restore
The intimacy I desire, that you created me for...

So one cry of my heart is to know my need for Jesus. To know that I need him is to be desperate for him and the more I see my deficit apart from Him the more I am dependent on him. This results in such a neat kind of intimacy with him that I would NEVER ever trade.

You know those days when the Holy Spirit clears the table so that you can just sit down with him and hash some things out? Well today was one of those. I started out at Colorado Coffee with my omelet, toast, and HASH browns and frozen mocha ready to hear what he had to say.

He exposed me! He exposed more places where I look to lesser pleasures that disgust me! He is still BETTER. I spent the majority of the day in James which referred to these pleasures or passions while warning us about worldliness. That's it! Worldliness which He clearly commands us to steer clear of is exactly what creeps in... How often do I ask him for things for my own ends and to fulfill my own passions and pleasures. I need him to renew my mind in this area to the fact that the old me who pursued these passions is no more and he lives and dwells inside of me. James is pretty straightforward in saying "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" Oh Lord thank you for showing me my need for you. Hello! I cannot do this on my own.

What a joy it is to dig into this truth.
John Darby states in his commentaryon James that:
"The doctrine of Christianity is not the subject of this epistle. It gives God His place in the conscience, and with regard to all that surrounds us. It thus girds up the loins of the Christina, presenting also the near coming of the Lord and His present discipline-a discipline with respect to which the assembly of God ought to possess intelligence, and activity founded thereon. "

Don't you even wonder how the head and the heart connect? How in the world does our imperfect will reel in our deceitful heart/emotions? Our emotions or lack thereof for me are deceitful and tell us things that are NOT truth. The Lord has used this prayer to show me my need for him and he has used friends who are so incredibly passionate about the word to point me towards knowing it so that I may be "perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (1:4) God is so faithful that he allows all types of trials simply to build our faith, causing us to run to him not supremely out of emotion but out of desperate need so that he alone can meet it and he can fill us with the confidence that comes only in Christ. The next verse goes straight into "if any of you lack wisdom..." probably b/c if you were reading this letter you'd be like "how the heck am i gonna have the faith to be perfect and complete! ??!" Well, wisdom i think is applied knowledge and godly wisdom is just that with the Holy Spirit behind it. Its motives are pure and it brings peace and we can renew our mind by the promises that he gives us in His word. James says wisdom is reasonable so why not have specific reasons (promises) to stand on when we encounter these trials?!

Oh God, that you may fill my mind with your promises and give me the wisdom to apply them and change me from the inside out to make me more like Jesus!

Yes, that's it- He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him (piper) and what is more satisfying then knowing our security in him through his promises and that he is faithful. Praise God for scary times and weird feelings so that he can use those to build our faith and make us more like our Saviour, reflecting His glory all around.

OK so here's the connection: God gave us a mind to use in a reasonable way with His wisdom that we receive by faith (we take scripture and apply the truth of it- not living by our deceitful emotions) and we choose to walk in his word. Slowly slowly but surely it reaches our hearts and we are pincheds and pushed and molded and shaped into His likeness so that others may know the joy of chrisitianity- we are fulfilling the image in which He created us originally: His own. Read James for yourself.

26If anyone thinks himself to be religious (piously observant of the external duties of his faith) and does not bridle his tongue but deludes(To deceive the mind or judgment of:) his own heart, this person's religious service is worthless (futile, barren).
27External [a]religious worship [[b]religion as it is expressed in outward acts] that is pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit and help and care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and need, and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world. -amplified james 1-

God, still give me a distaste for this world so that I see how shallow these passions at war within me are!

He's making you and me different for His glory. I find such joy in him pointing out my weaknesses because it gives grounds for a greater need and greater dependence.

Consider it PURE JOY my friends when you face trials of many kinds! He is working with you in an intimate way! Soak it up.

When will we recognize the extent of our freedom? There is true beauty to this stuff! No more bondage to pleasing others, keeping our "image" what we think it should be or what others would expect of us. Free from finding pleasure in lesser gods... things that are fleeting.

I fear that Satan is creeping in convincing people with the lie that joy and pleasure are found in the formerly listed things. Cheap thrills are not life, not worth pursuing. HE is! Man oh man when will we see what God has rescued us from?! I have prayed to recognize the depths of this so that I may get a glimpse of the depths of his love and forgiveness (mere shadows of His amazing character), living out of the fact that I am deeply deeply loved by a God who is indescribably and inconceivable. Wow- much to chew on and pray about!

More thoughts to come... I pray that the Lord stirs more hearts to pursue Him passionately, to know the reality of the gospel, and to recognize that we are made to live our lives as a reflection of Him by His grace and in His power (definitely NONE of mine!)

God, grip me with your truth! Guide me by your grace! Change me for your glory! Take me deeper.