Pretty

What if today you heard heaven yell,

“Hell is up ahead!” Wouldn’t you listen?

And we all like to sing a thing called pretty,

and make it our reality. Isn’t that religion?

Well, I don’t want pretty; I want beauty,

because pretty doesn’t cut it for what’s been done for me.

 

Pretty is fine, but treasure is meant to keep.

What does it mean to put it deep, and also make it shine?

Heaven help me, because I’m going to trash

the treasure You gave me and make it just another

fashion trend. Let me wear what I need to wear,

and I know You’ll appear where I appear.

 

To lose a voice is hard, but to gain one is harder.

I hope it doesn’t sound pretty to You. I hope

it sounds beautiful just like You are. I know

it doesn’t sound right, in fact I’m sure its out of tune,

but You are welcome to coach me. I will sing of

how all the knees will bow. Even the pretty ones.

 

~by Josh Brannen, guest writer

The Beauty and the Beasts

Growing up, I loved watching Disney movies.  My all time favorites were the ones where a prince would come and rescue a princess in distress (of course).  I loved Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty…but my number one favorite was  Beauty and the Beast.  I still enjoy watching it from time to time.

Beauty and the Beast is different from the other movies on my list of favorites. The others all start off with beautiful girl and a handsome prince. But not this one…

In this movie a strange, but beautiful girl isn’t understood by anyone except her father.  Everyone in her home town is attracted to her beauty, but they stay away from her for the most part because they don’t understand her quirky behavior.

Later on in the movie, she stumbles upon an enchanted castle where everyone is under a spell because of the prince’s behavior.  The prince was spoiled, unkind, and selfish, and because of this, he was transformed into a hideous beast until he could find someone to love him.  The beautiful girl starts spending time with the beast and falls in love with him.  At the end, the spell is broken because of the beauty’s love for a beast.

I put myself in the beast’s place to see if I could understand his feelings, and slowly I realized that he and I are a lot alike.  Because I’m a human being, I am spoiled at times, unkind to others, and I’m very selfish!  Wow!  He and I do have a good bit in common!  Once I realized this, I started thinking… if I was the beast, who would be my Prince Charming to save me?

A revelation started dawning over the horizon in my mind…my Prince Charming did come and save me, and his name was Jesus!  Jesus, this beautiful and pure man came and saved me, the beast, because He loved me just the way I was!  How special and wonderful He is to bestow his love upon a worthless, selfish beast!  Because of His great love for me when I was unworthy, I became WORTHY!!

His great love for us is more powerful than anything we may be experiencing today, this week, or this year.  He is a great God and He loves us, and because of His love ,we are saved.  We are all indebted to the Beauty that saved us Beasts.

~Elyse

The Little Prince

Each year, I pull out my tiny, 40 year-old, worn paperback copy of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery and read it again. It is a beautiful story, but only for those who are not too consumed with matters of consequence. For that sort of person, the story may be pointless, childish, or frivolous, having no rhyme nor reason. But for me it is a reminder of the value of friendship, the beauty of a flower or a star, and the treasure to be found in things unseen. There is much to be learned from this simple little volume… I share some of these simple lessons here with you, for those of you who are not too busy to listen.

“All grown-ups were once children – although few of them remember it.”

If you look with your imagination, you should be able to see clearly what this little drawing is all about. For those of you who cannot, try again once you have read these wonderful excerpts. Perhaps they will awaken the child in you, who would easily sort these things out.

Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him. (p. 16)

The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists. (p. 17)

One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance…The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her… I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her… (pp. 36-37)

If I ordered a general to change himself into a sea bird, and if the general did not obey me, that would not be the fault of the general. It would be my fault…One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform. (p. 42/45)

“Then you shall judge yourself,” the king answered. “That is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.” (p. 46)

But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise. (p. 48)

(of the Lamplighter) Nevertheless, he is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something else besides himself. (p. 61)

“Men?” she echoed. “I think there are six or seven of them in existence. I saw them, several years ago. But one never knows where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, and that makes their life very difficult.” (p. 74)

“To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world… You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” (p. 80/88)

“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore.” (p. 84)

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. (p. 87)

“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…” “Yes,” I said to the little prince. “The house, the stars, the desert – what gives them their beauty is something that is invisible!” (p. 93)

He never answered questions – but when one flushes does that not mean “Yes”? (p. 98)

“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night… You – only you – will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend.” (p. 104)

Let your words change your reflection

A few years ago, I was counseling with a lady who had a very poor self-image. I wrote out a little note for her to read to herself every day while looking in her mirror. It said something like, “I am a beautiful, talented, intelligent woman. I was handmade by God to fulfill His purpose here on Earth. I love myself. I believe in myself. I am thankful for the person God made me to be.” It was short, sweet and to the point, but it was amazingly difficult for her to read aloud. She was embarrassed by the words and, frankly, didn’t believe any of them. “Don’t worry about that part,” I encouraged her. “Just keep saying it.” Over time, she came to accept those words as true… at least as long as she kept saying them. Once she quit making that confession to herself, the old mindset of inferiority and self-loathing popped right back up… before you know it, she was back in a cycle of depression and abusive relationships.

I know it seems relatively simplistic to say you can talk yourself into or out of loving yourself the way you are… but it really is true. The Bible says, “life and death are in the power of the tongue” and “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” The words we speak about ourselves have everything to do with the way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we have about our imperfections. Other people say negative things to us or about us as we grow up, and we decide if we are going to accept those as truth about ourselves or not. If we agree with what is said, we’ll start saying it, too. The more we say it, the more it comes to pass…. good or bad.

Last week, I mentioned a friend who is struggling right now with his image of himself. He wants so badly to be “perfect” because, but knows it’ll never happen. My recommendation? Well, to start I hope he reads last week’s post about the difference in “perfect” from a worldly perspective and a biblical one. I also told him to look straight into his own eyes in the mirror and tell himself that he loves himself and to confess what the Bible says about him… he is accepted in the Beloved, he is made in the image of Christ, while he was yet a sinner Christ died for him, he is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus… and more. You know, sometimes you have to talk to yourself and say the things God has said about you. Give it a try and see what changes in your life.

~Linda

A World for Vincent

I’m off to the art museum this morning to enjoy some of mankind’s finest artistic interpretations of many things in God’s creation. Some paintings will be illuminated with precisely placed yellow spotlights. While others are set amongst a collage of similar colors, designs, or subjects. I anticipate anxious art lovers with craned necks surrounding the most honored artist’s works.

Early into the visit, a freckled-faced boy is a joy to watch, with his wide open eyes, and purple bubble gum bouncing about his mouth on the verge of escape to the carpet below if he drops his chin a mere fraction of an inch. He wonders if the sneaky crocodile on the canvas will snatch the sunbathing flamingo and send pink feathers flying into the air from the snap of its strong jaws. The boy finds respite and escape from a humdrum day in the oily figures that were smeared and blended a hundred years before by the painter. An old man stands alongside him gazing at the same picture, reminiscing about his naval port visit to New Zealand during World War II when he watched a crocodile do precisely that which the boy imagines.

Just around the corner, an ornately dressed social butterfly tries as conspicuously as she can to interpret the abstract puddles of blue, yellow, and red that were thrown upon a stark white canvas before her affluent and influential mother-in-law pounces upon her with the know-it-all inquisitiveness of an aristocratic art critic. The lady peeks and ponders and tastes the tiny beads of sweat pop out above her lip. She settles on the notion of a panoramic cityscape as seen from the artist’s own studio flat high above. Fanning the flush from her cheeks with a curved museum map, she eagerly waits to prove her sufficient breeding for Cybil Pettigrew’s only son.

The museum walls are filled with experiences: smudges of reality, strokes of fantasy, blotches, swatches, and the moist clay of imagination. The boundaries of creativity are outlined by the artist’s mental constraints and physical limitations of skill. The artist intends to illicit an emotional response from the art lover. A negative response might be as satisfying to him as a positive one, if it’s filled with the passion and the fire he had when he created it.

The patrons move the edges of understanding further from the artist’s own limitations. Interpretations of art add intangible value to the images and objects. What she sees there certainly differs from what he does. Whose viewpoint is correct? Just as God confounds the wise by blessing the fool, so does the truth in the brushstrokes elude the artist and his most ardent fans. They, too, are children of the most-high God, no less specifically loved by Him than Rembrandt, Da Vinci, or Picasso. God intends the patrons in the museum to realize their own ability to create. They may never pick up a paintbrush or grip the mallet and chisel of a sculptor, but He has provided a way for them to tap into their creativity and express what they were designed for.

Recognize the beauty in the song you sing or the chords you play. He delights when another worshipper connects to Him because your part, like no other, escorted them there by His side, into His presence. Stretch your ear to hear the voices outside the familiar. Musical and lyrical creativity is as potentially varied and limitless as the languages and letters of the natural and supernatural world. Just as God’s human creation is marvelously dissimilar in every respect, listen to other musical genres. Take some time to listen to Latin music. Have you ever heard music from India or Romania? Try instrumentally forward music from classical to jazz to electronic. The human voice is one vehicle for His anointing, but, as we know, instruments can say things we cannot. Maybe you could take a journey through music that starts from early recordings in the 1900’s?

Honor the Sculptor of the Grand Canyon in the Arizona redness. Esteem the Stoker of volcanic fires within the bowels of our crusty world. Worship the King that folds precious and sparkling diamonds in the African hills. Marvel at the birds of the air. They are His elaborate gifts with wind-lifted wings on an orange and violet sunset canvas.

You and I are curious wonderers. We are vessels to be poured out. We are expectant, anticipators chomping at the bit of change and restoration of Kingdom things. Bow before the Artist whose spectacular palette boggles our understanding and blows the tapestry of our minds. Find a small tributary of your own and travel downstream in this river that takes us all to the deepest discoveries and wonders, in God’s ocean of color, texture, and sound.