To Fear the Lord (What Does it Look Like?)

 In my post on women who fear the Lord, I got an anonymous comment that I wanted to take a whole post answering because I know that my response comment would be just as long. :)

This is true. But what’s the opposite thing that we’re supposed to be doing?[Opposed to getting nail done, etc.] What are the big and small ways in which we stand out as Christian women?

 Well I think the best answer I have is to tell you what I admire about the women that I listed in my previous post. In my opinion, the biggest thing these women all have in common in a wholehearted passion to Jesus Christ. They love him like crazy and they are not just halfhearted about it. A heart that is passionately in love with it’s Savior is going to stand out. Love for Christ flows out into our actions. (1 John 2:28-29, 3:1-10, 2 John 1:4-6) These are the main things I look up to in these women.

• Self Sacrifice. These women are all characterized with being willing to give things up for Christ and what He has called them to do. They fear God rather than man and focus on Him. They are willing to go off to foreign countries, stay at home and raise their children in a way pleasing to God, are being counterculture in ways that make the world stop and stare.
•  Faithfulness through trials. These are real women who have gone through real things that have been tough. Almost half the women on my list have struggled, or still struggle, with health problems. Yet they have learned to praise God in the midst of it and they see that God has a plan with all things.
• Love for People. These women LOVE people like crazy!!!! I can’t even begin to talk about the amazing love I have witnessed in these women. They are willing to serve people in humility and take joy in helping others. They want to see the weak Christians become strengthened, they want to see the lost come to Christ, they want to see their families love and serve Christ. It’s all an out flowing of their passionate love for Christ.
• Love for the Bible.They know the importance of the word of God and of good doctrine. They seek to know God through His precious word and each day is a search for what God says about different issues. The Bible is their light and guide.
• Encouragement.I have been so blessed by the encouragement I have received from these women, even those I have never met. But specifically those I do know personally. They’re the type of women who say “keep going!” “You can do it!” “With Jesus you are going to go so far!” and it is amazing the power it has had on me.

These are the general things that I admire in these women and seek to do myself. I could get into why I admire each one of these women, but that would take far too long and a dozen blog posts. J I don’t think any of you want that. God bless you all and I pray that you girls and women reading this will seek to be like this and those guys that are reading my blog will remember that this is what they should look for in a wife.

Women Who Fear the Lord

“We don’t want life to pass us by, because this is the best time ever. Acting your age and being silly is fun!” 17-year-old Cammie explains.

 

This is the so called “message” of the pop trio The Rubyz that was featured in Brio’s magazine for teen girls a few months back (click here to see the full article). I was very unimpressed by this pop group. These are the girls that Brio are telling girls to look up to and to see as role models. Girls that love to go shopping, get their nails done, have sleepovers, and go to the movies. Are these really the girls that are worth emulating? I personally want to look up to girls and women that are giving their all for Christ and are living set-apart, poured out lives for Him. I want to look up to people who are constantly trying their best to die to this sinful world we live in.

I have found that in many women, some of the past, and some that I know today. People of the past like Amy Carmichael, Corrie Ten Boom, Elizabeth Elliot, Jonni Erickson Tada, just to list a few. Young women in our present day like Kaysie (from Alabaster Box), Lauren and Abigail (from Pearls and Diamonds), Columbine martyr Rachel Scott, former camp counselors of mine that I know see going off as missionaries and have such a passion for Christ, and there are many women that aren’t as young that I have been able to look up to. Like my mother, Mrs. Edwards, Mrs. Nunley (both moms of good friends of mine), Caroline Buer (one of the sweetest ladies I have ever known who also goes to my church), Leslie Ludy, and many others. God has blessed me with woman that don’t spend their days leisurely at the mall getting their nails done, but serving the Lord in both big and small ways. They have faced real trials and have still remained faithful to the Lord.

These are the kind of women that I look at and say, “that’s what I want to be like when I am older, and even now”, not girls like the Rubyz or many other girls that Christians tell us to look up to, that don’t really deserve it. We often times look up to women because they are in the spotlight instead of because their character and how they live their life. Proverbs 31: 30 says, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Those women who fear the Lord and those we should praise. If there are any teen girls reading this who have been looking for women to have as role models, the women that I have listed are ones that I highly recommend. J

My Heroes (Part 4 Leslie Ludy)

Leslie Ludy is a modern day woman of God. We easily say that all the amazing Christian women are dead or very old. Now Leslie is only in her thirties and I see her as one of the most influential women on my life (right after my mom and Amy Carmichael). She is the author of one of my favorite books, “Authentic Beauty” and co-author, along with her husband Eric, of “When God Writes Your Love Story”. She has made a great impact on my life.

 Last year at camp one of my counselors (we had two since they weren’t 18 yet) started reading Authentic Beauty to us girls one of the last nights. It sounded so interesting. The first chapter or two was about her life and when my counselor was reading this I wasn’t sure where it was going. So anyway, I borrowed the book and read it during the following month. It really showed me not to be content with being just a nominal, apathetic, “good” Christian girl but to be a set apart, radiant Christian girl. The book is about being set apart. Being one of the few women and girls in every generation that choose to live radical sold out lives for
Christ. It has been part of this last year being the year I grew the most (spiritually) than probably any other year EVER!!!! As camp is approaching it reminds me the amazing journey this last year has been. From Dan Hubbard at camp, to Leslie Ludy’s book, to other speakers and books, this year has been an amazing growing time.

 Now in May I listened to Leslie’s audio series on Sacred Femininity and was deeply impacted. It totally changed my view of beauty!!!! I thought that I had the “Biblical” view on beauty. I mean, it was the same as all the Christian books say “You are beautiful the way you are and you don’t need anything to make you beautiful! Your heart is radiant all by its self.”, but I realized how self centered that thinking is.

 We are NOT good. Nothing about us is good. We are rotten, dirty, bloodstained, sinners deserving of death. There is nothing beautiful about our nature. Only when Jesus comes and redeems us and purifies us from all unrighteousness, do we have any beauty. Leslie used Ezekiel 16. We are truly ugly and gross before Christ comes and makes us beautiful. Only through his death do we have any beauty.

 Leslie talks about the two options that we usually have: either, “You need to look like the anerexic, air brushed supermodels” or “You are fine just the way you are. All you need to do is love yourself!”. Neither of them is right. This should be our outlook on beauty: “I am not beautiful, but by the grace of God I am becoming beautiful. As I become more like Christ, the most beautiful human there ever was, I become more beautiful.” That is a Biblical view of beauty. 

 This audio series made me look at my heart and see that my opinion of beauty was wrong. I realized that 2 songs that I had written were not right “Your beautiful the way you are, he who made the way you are, so don’t worry he made you a star.” and I ended up writing a new song. It is probably one of my best songs yet! It is based off of Ezekiel 16, “In you I have beauty, though only through your mercy. You have redeemed me, made me lovely, without you I am nothing, broken and dirty, but in you. I am Beautiful”

So Leslie has made a huge impact on my life and on my thinking. She has been a great role model of a set apart woman and a Godly woman! She is one of those people that I wish I could be discipled by. She is also been impacted by “MY” Amy Carmichael, which I think is awesome!

 You can find out more about her books and audio series on my resources page. I hope you read some of her books. They are GREAT!!!! Soli Deo Gloria!

In Christ,    Nobody <><