So up until a few days ago I felt like I just couldn't stay focused on God. I wasn't very motivated to spend time with Him and kept using my busy schedule as an excuse as to why I was neglecting my quiet time. Every time this happens and when I finally break the routine, I remember how precious and important that time spent in prayer and in the word is! I also realized something that always happens whenever my eyes are not fixed on Him.
When we give our hearts and our lives over to God, our entire purpose in life changes. Before, we are focused on what will make us happy and how we can make life better for us but once the truth of the Gospel is clear to us and we accept it, life is about something totally different. It isn't about us at all anymore. We know that our home is in Heaven and one day we will get to start our eternity there, so not much on earth really matters anymore. Our mission is simple...serve God and serve people. "Me, myself, and I" are nowhere in this equation. Life is about bringing glory to God in all we do and devoting ourselves to whatever He calls us to do. This is awesome to me and I love being reminded of it, because living life this way is so much better. It's actually kind of ironic, when we spend all of our time trying to please ourselves and make things better for us, we end up feeling empty. There is no greater way to live life than to live for something bigger than ourselves and to get to play a part in this incredible, intricate, mysterious, beautiful plan God has for the world.
What sucks are the times when I forget this and start to live for myself. A lot of the time, however, I'm not even really doing what will make me happy...I'm doing what I think will make the people around me happy because in turn, I think that'll make me happy. I am a HUGE people pleaser which is more of a curse than a blessing a lot of the time. When my eyes drift away from my sweet savior and my best friend, I get obsessively preoccupied with my image and the way that I appear to other people.
Sometimes, this means I am very critical about the way I look. When somebody around me calls somebody else pretty, I get upset that I don't look that way. When other girls talk about how "eyebrows can make or break you" I get obsessed with my eyebrows and get upset that they don't look the way ideal eyebrows look. I could go on and on, but the point is I get upset over something as silly and unimportant as eyebrows.
Other times, the image I work so hard to build for myself has to do with my personality and beliefs. Sometimes I get so caught up in looking like a Godly woman from the outside that I don't even think about what that really means and how I should really be acting. Sometimes I think people see me as ditzy and naïve but I just get comfortable with that image and don't want to break character. There are times when people are shocked to hear me voice my opinion because I'm a "shy girl" so I get scared to speak up. Again, I could go on and on.
Images are important to this world, and when I get caught up in things of this world, my image becomes important to me. I think part of it is because I care so much about what the people around me think of me and if they're pleased with me; it'll get to the point where I create several different images for myself and only portray the one that I think the people I'm currently with will want to see. It's easy to be comfortable in an image, even if it isn't necessarily that good. Just feeling like I know who I am and where I belong makes me feel secure and safe.
But I am not called to be secure and safe...I am not called to be gorgeous or to appear to be a Godly woman or a shy girl. Because of what Jesus did for me, I can call myself God's Daughter and I don't have to pretend! That is exactly who I am...God's broken, flawed, beautiful creation and THAT is something to celebrate. It still isn't my mission to feel great about who I am...obviously, that just comes from embracing God's love for me but His love for me isn't just supposed to make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It should drive me to live everyday in pursuit of Him and His calling for me. His love for me should inspire me to love others that way and to sacrifice my time to serve them. It should push me to try new things and enjoy life on earth because I won't be here long. My mission is not to have the perfect image, it's to serve my perfect God!!
My prayer for myself and all of you is that we will lay down our desire to have the right image and the right appearance. In addition, that we lay down our views of everyone else's image around us. I don't want to be scared to show love to "the Christian-loathing atheist" and I don't wanna feel like I can't have a conversation with the "judgmental hipster." People might not be the way the appear on the surface, which is something we will never learn if we keep putting so much value in our image.
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31
Hope everyone has a great weekend! Love, Mary Catherine
Hope everyone has a great weekend! Love, Mary Catherine
Painting I did for someone that was fitting with this post :)
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