Femininity is in tatters. The family has been split apart. Churches worldwide are weakening. What must be done to regain the purity of a life that seeks to honour Jesus? How can we re-capture the depth of His love for us? How can femininity and true beauty be regained?

It starts with the Gospel. It starts with an almighty, sovereign God who “did not spare His own Son,” a Saviour who “for the joy set before Him endured the Cross,” a Holy Spirit “who is in you,” empowering you to do His will.

The Gospel is Jesus Christ

He came, He gave
He is mighty to save
To all who will repent and believe

This blog is dedicated to re-capturing femininity; femininity as God designed it. Femininity in our culture is desperately lost. Scripture testifies of this in Proverbs 31. “An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.” A wife of excellence is more rare that precious gems. In the 21st century, this is sadly apparent.

So let us raise the bar to a level of excellence that is rare and mysterious. Let us live our growing years with patience, our single years with dedication, our waiting years with service, our longing years with purity, our married years with faithfulness, and our entire lives under the blessings of our eternal covenant with the Prince of our souls, Jesus Christ.

May He have all the glory!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Truly Yours

Remember, ladies: We are His, with hearts and minds completely His. Women who love Him with a passion for His Name. We are His, truly His!

"Lord help us to stand firmly against the tide, not to be moved by the worlds raging waves.
Lord we want to shine throughout this darkened land, bearing the Light, the goodnews that our God saves!"


Saturday, January 15, 2011

Me, Lord, Single? Part 3

This excellent article by Carolyn McCulley speaks for itself! Please read and be encouraged!

The God Who Knows the End of Your Singleness

by Carolyn McCulley

The 12-year-old boy strode across the conference stage with complete assurance, oozing the precocious seriousness of youth that can strike adults as charmingly amusing. But any patronizing thoughts present were soon squashed as 3,000 adults heard the evangelistic heartbeat of God in the words of the young speaker. After giving his testimony of being adopted from a Romanian orphanage by his American parents and his subsequent adoption into the family of God when he trusted Jesus for his salvation, Gabriel Spiro outlined his hopes for his future.

“Since becoming a Christian, I’ve had the dream to attend the PDI Pastors College,” he said to spontaneous, thunderous applause. “I feel like God has called me to be trained and equipped so that I can go and help the poor people and the orphans that are still living in Romania. My desire is to start a PDI church there in Romania. I thank God that He has brought me to my family and to Covenant Life Church—my extended family. I pray that by His grace I’ll be able to be trained in character in order to fulfill the calling of God.”

Watching from the back row that steamy May evening, I gave silent thanks to God for the plans He has for singles and families alike. Eight years earlier, a single woman from my church had wrestled with God as He called her to overlook her own desires for marriage and children in order to serve a good friend during an international adoption process by traveling with her to Romania. “What would I gain?!” Charlotte Ennis recalls. “I’d have to spend my own money, put myself at personal risk, and watch someone else return with children. I would return with ... nothing.”

Then 36, Charlotte was not certain that God did have marriage and a family in her future. It certainly had been a long wait and her hope was waning. She had no idea that she was facilitating the adoption of a child whose presence would be a blessing to many more than his own family. She had no idea that this little boy would develop a strong passion for the local church before he even hit his teens, and that he would be a regular and fruitful part of his church’s evangelism ministry. She had no idea that one day this little boy would speak to a gathering of churches about their collective mission and be the highlight of the evening. Nor did Charlotte know that on the same evening Gabriel spoke, she would be married—a gift from God to her at age 39—and the mother of several children.

But the One who “makes known the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10) knew all of this, and it was His perfect plan that had been operating all along.

Moments like these are glimpses of the Lord’s sovereignty in action and treasures to be stored up in the hearts of single women especially. Only occasionally do we have the privilege of seeing so clearly how “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). We should cherish and retell those evidences of God's grace to encourage and strengthen each other. Our Lord is not a random God: His plan includes blessing us but also making us a blessing to others.

I didn’t know Charlotte when she was single, but I do remember reading her testimony in our ministry magazine, one that was written just weeks prior to her wedding. At the time, I was 32, a fairly new Christian, and to be unflatteringly honest, horrified at the prospect of having to wait until 39 to be married. Now I am 37, a little less arrogant (hopefully), and grateful for Charlotte’s example. Last year in my church, a woman got married for the first time at 43. That pushed Charlotte’s benchmark out of the way and gave me six more years to hope, so to speak.

In my extended season of singleness, I’ve had the time to ponder the risks and rewards of singleness from the perspective of both a rank unbeliever in my twenties and as a chaste Christian in my thirties. As I write this, I have been praying over the demise of two Christian marriages I thought were trophies of God’s grace—both of which were shipwrecked over sexual sin committed by the husbands.

Many years ago, one of the men had asked me out. I had declined the relationship, and he went on to marry someone else while I remained single, but now I grieve for his wife and daughters as they wrestle with the nuclear fallout of a perverse and unlawful form of sexual sin. Though I do not mean to imply that God wasn’t good for allowing this woman to marry my friend, I can certainly see where He spared me the “many troubles in this life” (1 Corinthians 7:28b) in marriage by keeping me single and unencumbered.

Three times so far I’ve been privileged to see why He said no to my prayers asking Him for specific men to be my husband. In each case, it wasn’t too many years later that I discovered I had been spared inheriting some serious sexual sin. That is one of the benefits of being an older single— I’ve lived long enough to see what unconfessed and unrepentant sin does to wreck the dream of living “happily ever after.” Those sad moments make me appreciate the pleasant places where my boundary lines have fallen (Psalm 16:6).

Why is knowing God and embracing His sovereignty so important when we’re single? We have to keep in mind that we’ve received this gift of singleness from the pierced hand of the One who bore all of our sins—from unbelief as singles to selfishness as marrieds. We can be like Peter who initially rebuked Jesus for His humiliating, yet glorious, plan of redemption, or we can be like Mary, who came to accept His plan and purposes and demonstrated it in the costly outpouring of perfume in anticipation of His burial. Confident of the Lord’s good plan for our lives, we can emulate Mary and spend our treasures (youth, dreams, desires) to further His purposes on this earth.

More importantly, when we are almost faint under the strain and worry of wondering if singleness is to be forever, we need to be reminded that there is an end to singleness: One day we will be at the wedding feast of the Lamb and we will be His bride. Even if we receive the gift of marriage on this side of heaven, that’s not our ultimate goal. It is a shadow and a type of what is planned for eternity and, like all things on this earth, it will have its conclusion in death.

Our Father knows the time when earthly gifts will be distributed and when they will be no more; He knows, as well, when the heavenly wedding feast will commence. We can blissfully rest in the knowledge that the future is better than anything we think we’ve missed now: Jesus is preparing us for the eternal rewards and eternal joys of a future He’s told us is too inexpressible for us to understand.

For His purposes, and within His covenant to always do us good (Jeremiah 33:40), He has declared for us that being single now and into the foreseeable future is His very best. He desires that we overflow with hope as we trust in Him (Romans 15:13) and His sovereignty in this season—redefining hope from hoping in a particular gift from God to trusting the God of hope unreservedly.

© Revive Our Hearts. Used with permission from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Me, Lord, Single? Part Two

Rose From Brier ~ By Amy Carmichael

Thou hast not that, My child, but thou hast Me,
And am not I alone enough for thee?
I know it all, know how thy heart was set
Upon this joy which is not given yet.

And well I know how through the wistful days
Thou walkest all the dear familiar ways,
As unregarded as a breath of air,
But there in love and longing, always there!

I know it all; but from thy brier shall blow
A rose for others. If it were not so
I would have told thee. Come then, say to Me:
My Lord, my Love, I am content with Thee.
My Lord, my Love, I am content with Thee.
Am I? Am I content with the Lord? Is He alone enough to satisfy me and the desires of my heart? Psalm 73:25-26 is such a beautiful picture of this: "Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Nothing on this earth can satisfy me like Christ does. I must say with Habakkuk, verses 17-19,
"Though the fig tree should not blossom
And there be no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And there be no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength,
And He has made my feet like hinds' feet,
And makes me walk on my high places."
I have a decision to make. I will either choose to be discontent and ungrateful for the season of life God has me in, OR I will choose to "rejoice in the God of my salvation" and "exult in the Lord." What will you choose?

6 O'Clock Club!

Here is a verse to encourage you if you are waking up early to meet with the Lord:

"In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there." - Mark 1:35

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Me, Lord, Single? Part One

"God has made us for Himself, and our hearts can never know rest and perfect satisfaction until they find it in Him." - Hannah Hurnard

It seems like the older I get, the more people around me are getting married. Actually, it's hard to go anywhere without seeing couples, old and young (and some way too young!) spending time together and enjoying one another. As Valentines day quickly approaches, I know I'll be seeing even more of them with the addition of roses, hearts, and candy! Everything seems to be lost in a sea of pink, red, and white...

Another holiday...

Another year with the status: single...


...But am I really single?

Let's take a look at what the word "single" means.

Merriam Webster's online dictionary defines the adjective "single" first as "unmarried." This is an obvious. I do fall under that category of "single." However, the second definition caught my eye: "unaccompanied by others, lone, sole." Hmmm. Doesn't sound like me.

Although I don't have the earthly love and attention of a man, I do have the undeniable, incomprehensible, unconditional love of God.

But will I allow that to be enough for me? Will it satisfy me?

One time, long ago, Jesus choose to leave Judea, the area in which He was ministering, and travel to Galilee. Now Judea was near the south of Israel and Galilee was near the north. You may be thinking that since Israel is not that big of a country, this trip wouldn't be too much trouble. However, we have to remember there were no means of transportation at this time except for traveling by donkey or most likely on foot. Also, there's something else we have to remember: the Jewish people hated Samaritans, and Samaria sat smack-dab in the middle of Judea and Galilee. This presented a problem for the Jews which they were determined to solve by taking a much longer, much more dangerous trip over mountains and deserts and rivers, risking their lives just so that they would not have to place one sandal on Samarian soil!

But do you think Jesus was going to make this trip?

Nope!

Let's look at John 4:4 and following, "And He (Jesus) had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar...and Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well."

Did you catch those words "had to pass through Samaria." No He didn't! He could have taken the long route! He could have saved Himself from the upturned noses and disdained glances of those who despised the Samaritans. But no! Jesus was on a mission. He was walking from Judea straight through Samaria to Galiee because He had a divine appointment with a thirsty Samaritan woman.

Let's see what happens:

"There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, 'Give Me a drink.' For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, 'How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?' (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
"Jesus said to her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, "Give Me a drink," you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.' She said to Him, 'Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?' Jesus answered and said to her, 'Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.'
"The woman said to Him, 'Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.' He said to her, 'Go call your husband and come here.' The woman answered Him and said, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You have correctly said, "I have no husband;" for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.'...The woman said to Him, 'I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.'

"Jesus said to her, 'I who speak to you am He.'"

I love this story! It is such a beautiful picture of Christ's heart for the lost! Jesus had to pass through Samaria because there was a woman whose life was so empty; a woman who was trying to quench all the thirsts in her life through relationship after relationship, but never finding satisfaction. Jesus offered her the Living Water: Himself, that she would drink and be forever satisfied.

Jesus offers us that same Living Water. He says in Matthew 11:28, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

If you are single and reading this, Jesus is asking you, He is commanding you because He desires to grant you salvation, to come to Him and find your satisfaction in Him alone.

If you are married, He requires the same, for no human spouse can fulfill you.

Only in Jesus is found "the fullness of Him who fills all in all." (Ephesians1:23)

Let Him satisfy you. Choose to obey Psalm 37:4 which says, "Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Remember the words of one young man, "There is One that is more in love with you than any man can ever be. Your are incredibly valuable to Him, and you never need question His commitment to you. He thinks you're beautiful in the morning without your makeup, and He'll think our just as beautiful when you're 80. He is Christ, and you should treat Him with the loyalty and respect of a Husband. There is no need to attract a man to you - Christ will lead the right man to you, and when someone that loves you as much as Christ arranges a marriage, you may rest assured it will be far better than anything you could have done. You are HIS - be content there."

"It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desire which He creates." - Amy Carmichael, missionary to India.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

girltalk | Resources

girltalk | Resources

CLICK on the link above!

Ladies! I am excited to share with you "The 5 O'Clock Club" from the Carolyn Mahaney and her daughters over at the girltalk! blog! They are challenging women, especially in this new year, to wake up early to meet with Jesus in His Word and in prayer. I just joined yesterday and hope you would consider it, too! With our lives so busy and so many activities going on, it is critical that we set aside time to cultivate our relationship with the Lover of our souls: Jesus! He deserves and must receive our utmost devotion!

So, please join me in this adventure! Whether you are single and busy with many activities, a young mother who struggles to find time for devotions between diaper changing and meal prep, or an older woman who needs to be preparing her heart to share the truths of the Gospel with the younger generation, this club is for you. You don't have to rise at 5:00am! It can be any early time that allows you a solitude with your Savior! I hope you join and are blessed!

Psalm 119:2, "How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, Who seek Him with all their heart."