BEAUTIFUL THINGS-Painting the Door

My thoughts painting the door were that it is like Jesus clothing us with His righteousness. It is not a covering up of who we are which is what we try to do when we paint ourselves. We choose colors that others approve of and layer it on so thickly that no one can see who we are or who God is through us. 

My plan in stripping it down to the bare wood is so that when I painted right on top of it not only would it be smoother but the grains would show up especially through the tree area.

When God clothes us it is perfect, it is who we are meant to be and He never makes a mistake. We are who we are and God loves that. It is a lesson I find Him showing me over and over. I am not the best student. I let myself be myself but then, after, I worry that people think I am unqualified, nerdy, etc. because of something I said or did. That is the part that God has to work on with me. Emily, "Luke 12:25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his  span of life?" 

And when we are clothed in his righteousness we are ready for display. The display of God and His glory to those who most need it.



Psalm 132:9
Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy.

^{Revelation 1:5,6}

⁵ And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

⁶ And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Isaiah 61:10
I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

BEAUTIFUL THINGS- Door Outline

"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

The outline of the painting I am going to do on the door is nothing like the end result will be. I think that we often cannot see exactly what God is going for and it scares us. But He is an artist that makes beautiful work and so should be trusted.

Just a thought

I'm kind of quirky. But I hope it is more on the side of eccentric and unconventional and not freaky or weird. Because sometimes I wonder if people get me.

BEAUTIFUL THINGS-Filling the Holes

Once the door was scraped and sanded smooth the holes that were left in it needed to be filled. One by one I filled them with wood putty so that the entire door would be solid. It prompted me to consider how the only thing that can fill us is God and that we desire so greatly to be filled and so often look elsewhere.

Matthew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.

Luke 1:53
He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.

Romans 15:13
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 3:14-19
¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,^[c] 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Philippians 1:9-11
⁹ And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, ¹¹ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

My Son Loves the Color Pink

My son loves the color pink. It isn't necessarily his favorite color but he doesn't have one right now. He moves from color to color. But there was a short period of time where if the choice was between a "boy" color or pink he chose pink. The thing is, I don't really remember God assigning gender to colors. He made a beautiful creation with beautiful colors and pink is one of them. If my son loves it then I am glad to oblige his taste. 

Some people worry about boys liking pink or wearing their mom's heels. They worry about the interest in their mom's makeup or playing dress up. Some even go so far as worrying when a boy plays with a plastic kitchen set. I used to work at a daycare where a worker would tell the boys to stop playing at the kitchen, it was a girl's toy. Since when is fire only for girls? I guess it needs to be a really big fire to qualify as boy's play. 

When my son was going through his pink stage and had a pink cup someone asked my husband if I "made him like pink." It isn't a secret that I have some feminist leanings, although I don't enjoy the connotations that come with that word. I would rather just say I am pro-intelligence and anti-stupidity. 

What really gets me is we get it from both sides. 

Men tag women as "illogical, weak, gossips." And even if they don't label us like that, it is still clear that they think themselves superior...and women do too. Not only that but it is okay to imitate boys as girls, it is cute because we are trying to better ourselves, I suppose. But if a boy even declares he likes pink, some men are ready to whip it out of them right then and there.

In a news article in the New York Times there was this quote: "...girls gain status by moving into “boy” space, while boys are tainted by the slightest whiff of femininity. “There’s a lot more privilege to being a man in our society,” says Diane Ehrensaft, a psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco...“When a boy wants to act like a girl, it subconsciously shakes our foundation, because why would someone want to be the lesser gender?”

I've said this same thing before. So, it was nice to hear it from someone else. Why would someone want to be the lesser gender? Who the hell made the criteria for each gender? I'm sorry, God didn't lay it out so I don't see where the validity is. Most girls act this or that way? I never did. Most boys act this or that way? You have to choose, get beat up or act a certain way. My two-year old understands the way a lot of things work already, it doesn't take that long to realize what is expected of you. Why can't we focus on more important things and the world would have so much more beauty and less ugliness if weren't all so insecure.

An observation

There was some Disney movie on the other night when I was working out and as I started to listen to the lyrics to the song the girl was singing I was sort of bothered by them. I could understand if she meant to say that you shouldn't rely on what others think of you. It was more the usage of "bless, justify, and save" that bothered me. Also the fact that you should look to yourself. If yourself is messed up, how is that going to save you?

 "You can bless yourself
There's no need for someone else
There's no one to blame
There's no one to save you but yourself
I can bless myself
There's no need for someone's help
There's no one to blame
There's no one to save you but yourself
I can justify all the mistakes in my life
It's taught me to be, it's givin' me me
And I'll survive
'Cause I have blessed myself.
I will survive
'Cause I have blessed myself." (Lucy Hale)

BEAUTIFUL THINGS, Scraping The Paint

My son Elijah has a book he likes us to read called "If Only I Had a Green Nose." The story is about a woodworker named Eli and the Wemmicks. Wemmicks are the wooden people that Eli has created and given life.

There is a particular Wemmick named Puchinello who has recently met Eli and started to talk with him daily. Eli has told him how specially he was created and that he created each Wemmick "different on purpose." Puchinello has observed that a large number of Wemmicks are painting their noses green and soon learns that green noses are all the rage. Puchinello is curious as to why people would want to paint their noses green. He never intends to be a part of the trend, but others start making fun of him and a couple of his friends have already colored their noses green. Soon Puchinello gives it a try and he realizes that it makes him feel very special to be "with it." That is, until he isn't. The color soon changes from green to red, then blue, then pink, then yellow, then orange. He realizes he cannot keep up with the trends and he is tired of trying. However, he is still stuck with six layers of paint on his nose.

In the end, he goes to Eli and asks for forgiveness. He has layers of paint on his nose that he cannot get off by himself.

Eli tells him that he will always help Puchinello "be who I made you to be." He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a piece of sandpaper and tells him "but it is going to take some time." And the following words are the last in the story: "And so Puchinello and his friends followed their maker into his workshop where he spent the rest of the day removing the paint. It hurt to be sanded, but it was worth it to be normal again."

This is the story I thought about as I scraped at the layers of paint both this morning and yesterday afternoon. The top layer was red and underneath was green, then yellow, and then a greyish blue. The door has so many layers of paint it took preparatory sanding, paint stripper, and scraping to even view a tiny bit of the door's original beauty. It took two more coats of stripper and scraping to get to the grey-blue layer. The next step is to begin sanding.  A long process, but one necessary to bring the door back to a state where it can be regenerated. And note this, because of all those layers, there will be scratches and scrapes that occur in the process of removing. Those scrapes will need to be healed.

By His stripes we are healed. Sin is a mess and we make a hard shell for ourselves because more than anything else we are afraid of exposure, vulnerability, and that being the person God created us to be might not be enough. We are afraid of the laughter of others who don't care for us and we scorn the beautiful image of God who loves us and who literally was "stripped" for us.

Restoration is rough and it is a process, it is not instantaneous. That is lot to chew on for me, what about you?

Some verses I thought about as I restored and as I wrote:

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." -Isaiah 53:3-5

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost... " -Titus 3:5

"Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."

 -Matthew 23:26-28

"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.” -Philippians 2:12-16a

BEAUTIFUL THINGS- Before I Begin the Process

These are my first thoughts before I begin the process of making an old thing into something new.

I am not God, what will this teach me about Him?

God restores us.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Knock and the door shall be open to you.

Love and peace,

Emily