Well, I'm not fully done blogging my thoughts on my "Looking Back 7 Years" series of Sonshine Festival, but hopefully I'll eventually come back to that series. For now I have another passion I feel like writing about. This one's for all my beautiful Sisters in Christ. I Love you all so much, and I hope that this post would be the golden sunset of your warm summer evening...
So right now I'm reading the book Capitvating by John & Stasi Eldredge...I could write a million thoughts on this book that I'm halfway through on, but if you're a girl in need of a new perspective to see yourself as absolutely Enthralling through the eyes of Christ, this read is for you...Anyways, as I sat down to read Chapter 8 this morning, I came across a passage that really spoke to my heart..."...the scariest thing for women is to offer our beauty into situaitons where we don't know if it will make any difference, or worse, that we will be rejected. For our Question is, Am I lovely? And to be rejected is to hear a resounding, No. A woman doesn't want to offer her beauty unless she is guaranteed that it will be well received. But life offers no such guarantees. We, too, must take risks...Just think about your life...why do you do the things you do. Have you asked yourself how much you are motivated by fear?...In fact if you feel a little scared then you're probably on the right path...He will give no guarantee that others will enjoy us and respond well...In fact we can be sure that there will be times when they do not...Jesus offered like no other and many rejected him. In those moments or seasons when that happens to us, God's invitation is to bring our sorrow to him. Not to shut down with, I'll never try that again. But to keep our hearts open and alive , and find refuge and healing in his love ( John & Stasi Eldredge, Captivating)
There is a situation in my own life, that I've been praying to God, asking why he let me go through it...it involved 4 factors: God. Music. Colorado. Musician Guys... To make a VERY long story short, I poured so much time and energy into the last of the 4 factors, being my true self in Christ, only in the painful end to be left hanging...the above passage was a true answer to my prayers...it hit me with a BANG this glorious morning...Let me explain...I realized for the first time in my life this morning, that there will be people I meet in this life who will ACCEPT my beautiful ideas....and most importantly REJECT my ideas, or never fully grasp why I think the way I do...I've set out a rule of thumb for myself to follow when I'm struggling to decide what to do with a situation God has blessed me or if you will "cursed" me with LOL in my life..."If I, Aiste were to die tomorrow would I go ahead and do that thing?" Fill in your name in place of mine, and ask yourself honestly, what would you do? Basically along the lines of the old but true saying "Live and Love like there is no tommorrow." and ever since I have adapted that rule of thumb into my everyday life...WOW...Let me tell you...that day I chose to leave my fear of life behind, and trust that God has blessed me with this oppurtunity for a reason, that I should whole heartedly go after it...let me tell you sister...God took this life and SHOOK IT UP...I was never the same person again...As a woman, you know what, I have decided to take those big risks in life in the name of Jesus...If God is calling me to do something, and I'm afraid or doubt myself, I leave it at God's holy feet, suck it up, and go do it! LOL If there is another important thing I've learned in this life it's that "The things that might end up being the most painful for Christ, are the things most worth doing."
This thought takes me back to the quote, " He will give no guarantee that others will enjoy us and respond well...In fact we can be sure that there will be times when they do not..." I also realized for the first time that morning, that as I live out who I am in Christ for the world to see, reality is there will be people out there who will sadly not appreciate the beauty Christ created me to be...AND it's guaranteed that at one point in another in my life that there ARE those people out there, if I haven't discovered them already...This passage brought SO much needed healing to my heart and life. I can't begin to describe to you how God touched my heart today. So regardless of what someone may think of me, going back to my situation in this case ( musician guys) I must have the courage and strength by God's grace to continue to be myself and offer my beauty that I have to give to this world...NO MATTER WHAT...this includes those incidences in life where we feel as though we have "failed God" (Technically if there is still blood rushing through your veins and you are breathing in the sweet aroma of life, you HAVE NOT failed Him) or situations where you have been rejected or felt like you were judged or misunderstood, you my beautiful daughter, MUST NOT let that so called "Failure" define YOU...After something like this happens, I've realized in my own life, we take this scarred situation to the cross, and in Jesus name, let the Lover of our souls, who is absolutely ENTHRALLED by us, heal us, so we can once again have a heart, that is "Open & Alive" (Captivating)....and to this day, I pray that one day these "musician guys' realize what an indescribable blessing they were to me and my best friend's life and that I have COMPLETELY forgiven them, because God worked in my heart and still is in such a way to do so. So even though my best friend and I may have been misunderstood by them, and they didn't fully appreciate our inner Beauty that Christ created us to be, we got back up, looked into the gleaming eyes of our Glorious saviour, he took us by the hand, and once again we walked into the eternal sunset of His heart....
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