Five Minute Friday: Beautiful

She touched her hair and noted how frayed it had become through the years. The gray was coming out in ways she had never imagined. She looked in the mirror to see an 86-year-old woman who was nearing the end of her life and thrilled for what was to come. Her husband had died years earlier and she remembered when he called her beautiful and longed for another to say the same. She exuded a radiance that pleased her heavenly father.

Jesus calls us beautiful even when we are broken. He longs to show us our favor in His eyes and teach us that His beauty does not come from without but from within. "The unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit" is pleasing to the Lord. How can we attain this beauty? I am learning that it is not the time that we spend with the Lord that matters but the amount of days. This is how we learn what beauty means, by taking it to our father regularly. It is in this pattern of time with Him that character develops.

He convicted me yesterday by telling me that He doesn't want me to define myself as a Christian, but as a follower of Jesus. My anxiety springs up when I believe that my inside beauty is horribly incongruent with my outside. Women love to tell other women how cute they look on the outside, but God sees what's underneath and longs to transform us into the women He wants us to be.

Check it out! http://lisajobaker.com/five-minute-friday/  Every Friday, Lisa Jo puts a prompt on her page for women to write about for five minutes.