Eve, and where Adam comes in.

I feel refreshed, but in an empty kinda way.. Kinda like when you eat a bunch of grapes. I feel like there is something missing. I feel alive, and even pretty sometimes. (It's been a long time since I've actually felt pretty.) My beauty is something I've always had a real problem with. I didn't have a daddy around to tell me I was pretty as a little girl. So like many girls, I would toss my beauty into any guys path to see if he could tell me something about it. And usually, it was just trampled on with out a second though, and eventually dissipated beneath my own pain and rejection. I could go on with that story, but it's too common and we all know how it ends. The bottom line is, I know there is something wonderful and captivating inside of me. I can feel it, I can even understand it, sometimes I can even believe in it. Seeing my own beauty isn't my problem. My problem starts when I try to show my beauty to other people. I literally don't know how to be beautiful and not feel dirty. Plain and simple. And I definatly don't know how to offer my beauty to a man without offering him a part of my soul that he shouldn't have. I'm not saying that I'm a slut, it's much more spiritual than that. Where do you draw the line? What's the difference between beautiful and sacred? I understand that I'm supposed to share those parts of my sould with my husband. But it doesn't make sense to only be truly beautiful to one person. And my other problem is I don't know how to not hide it. When I was with him, I never made eye contact with guys. I didn't smile too much around them. If a man walked into the room and I felt slightly uncomfortable I would walk away, It was just something I didn't want to deal with. It was too confusing because I wanted to be beautiful, but not in the dirty way, to everyone. I honestly wanted people to find life in me. I want gods love and glory and compassion to shine through. My confidence was shattered. I felt like I wasn't good enough to shine. So I told myself that I shouldn't worry what people think anyways. And I have my own problems to worry about. I didn't care about people anymore. And the truth is, in denying myself to bask in gods glory, I was hiding something from those people, who, if had experienced this beauty may have been forever changed.
See, I know all about Eve. We know her as this wicked first woman who made life a curse for all of us. But she's not. She's beautiful. She was created in Gods beauty, in his image. We woman have a jealous deep yearning to be loved and accepted and adored in. Guess what, so does God. We bear an image in him that many great people have spend centuries trying to depict and express, but can't. (Think about it, how many more statues are there of naked women, than naked men? It's just wrong..) There is something embracing about a woman. We are the crown of creation, the finishing touch, the bridge in a song. A womans essence is a hint of perfume in a mens locker room. It's something a man wants to capture, but if he holds her too tightly, it will die. (Like a butterfly). A womans sould and true beauty are captivating. Eve completed Adam. (No, I'm not saying one is better than the other.) She is what calls out his strength, not by nagging, but through inspiration. Like God calls us out through love, and not manipulation. A man shouldn't find his strength in his woman, but inspiration through her. All true strength comes from God.(And if we bear an image of God, then it's easy to see why so many men get it confused.)
But God, I want it so much. I want to be pretty, I want to sparkle. Sometimes God just sits back and soaks me in his love, and I can't even get over it. Just the other day, Jesus sang your guardian angel, by the red jumpsuit apparatus to me in my car. That song has never been so powerful until he put it in that perspective.
I can't understand how often people break Gods heart, and he keeps loving them anyways. Over and over again. I've been guilty of relentless murder against God. I took parts of him and threw them away, and then came back for more. When does he decide that it's all too much? When does he decide that it hurts him too much to love me and decides to protect himself from now on? The bible says never... It's a concept that I truely don't understand. It's not something I know how to do, or even if I should... In comparison to God, I have been crushed by few people in my life. but just those few people left me hopeless and depressed and shattered. But how can God be hopeless, when he is hope himself? Thats what Jesus said.. And he was the true image of God. So if God gave me this spirit that was created in his image too, then wouldn't that make me the image of God too? The bible says that too. So why can't I do it? I honestly don't even know if God wants me to. At least I'm pretty sure he doesn't want me to right now. Maybe in time and healing I will be more understanding of the situation. I want to be called to offer myself unconditionally to a man. Most women are afraid of that. Society has taught us that we should be, and with the way most men are now, it's a justified fear.
But my heart wants more than that. My soul wants to submit to a man. (Yea, I went there.) But not just any man. I want the man that God has for me. The one who's going to complete my fairy tale. My heart crys out for this beautiful, powerful, masculine, fearless, man of God. I want to fall and not live in fear of being dropped. Sometimes I just want to let go and know that someone is right behind me. God created marriage to portray how much he loves us.

Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor—since they're already "one" in marriage.
No one abuses his own body, does he? No, he feeds and pampers it. That's how Christ treats us, the church, since we are part of his body. And this is why a man leaves father and mother and cherishes his wife. No longer two, they become "one flesh." This is a huge mystery, and I don't pretend to understand it all. What is clearest to me is the way Christ treats the church. And this provides a good picture of how each husband is to treat his wife, loving himself in loving her, and how each wife is to honor her husband. -Eph 5: 22-33 The Message





I just want to be worth it...