Introduction to Operation Beauty

This is something that has been in the works for a little while now, a few months I suppose, but I felt God inspiring me to embark on a journey called "operation beauty" in all honesty I struggled with that name a little... really God? that sounds so cheesy, and every time I shared it with someone I would give the disclaimer, "I know this sounds cheesy.... but..." So here I am and I have come to love this journey and the name isn't so bad after all, here is what it is and here is what I believe God is teaching me.... Beauty, to learn beauty, to learn to behold beauty, to learn to emulate his beauty, true beauty, it is a treasure that is worth seeking, seeking until the heart is not satisfied unless it be graced with such. As a wife of a man that once viewed pornography and lusted in his heart after other women habitually, beauty, to be beautiful was like a thorn in my side, it hurt, the reality of what I thought was beautiful... hurt, and though it would be easy for me to blame this pain on my husband and his wrong actions, I have come to realize that we as a culture have so missed the mark on what true beauty is, and how to be beautiful. This is something that all of us have been mislead on and we all have bought in to the lie from one degree to another of what it means to be beautiful, God has brought much healing both to my husband on his journey to purity, and to me on my journey to wholeness, and he continues to bring light, truth, and beauty into this mixture of healing and redemption we walk on daily, because these are the overarching truths of what we keep our eyes fixed upon, even when days are hard, or pain remains, we know that in this process of being redeemed God is bringing forth something of true beauty... in the next few posts I would like to share a few things that I have discovered, places God has taken me and hope he has shared with me, most of them come straight out of my journal, but my hope is that God will draw us in to his beauty, his truth, and help us to embrace his hope.... Thanks for tagging along on this journey with me! the following is a very raw and real journal entry dated from the beginning of December, I see it now as  part of the process unfolding, the petals blooming open. 

"operation Beauty"   

12/8/2011

I did some Christmas shopping today, I went to JC Penneys in Redlands, I left there really struggling with the lies that were thrown at me, after all I was in Redlands, where people have money-

I felt so inadequate, I see all these slender attractive women spending and shopping, driving off in their fancy cars without a care of how much they just spent and where they will go for lunch that day, and the hardest part of it all is that I fear that these woman would have turned my husbands head in the past, unfortunately this is still a flaming arrow that the evil one shoots right at my heart. I prayed, I told God I felt so totally inadequate, like I have failed miserably at just being a woman, ugh! the tears are flowing now... I told God I wished I was beautiful, I confessed to him I had jealousy in my heart, I asked him to forgive me of being covetous... and now here I am. Wondering. Wondering how a mess like me can turn this ugliness into something beautiful and how I can get this from my Lord without having to run to my husband to make sure he is not still choosing these other women over me? even though he says it was never about this anyway, how do I do this Lord?

This sadness in me, this longing I have to know that I am beautiful, to know that I am captivating,

to know that I am worth it.... 

it has to come from you Lord, I have to know who I am to you and how you see me, and more, I need to be secure in this and then I can truly come into my beauty, Beauty is: graceful, faithful, forgiving, secure, confident, kind, others centered, God focused.

Beauty is living in freedom. 

Help me Jesus, change my heart, transform this daughter of yours.