Mother Love

motherhood + home + family

THE THING I CRAVE

I sit here this morning with a hot cup of coffee (decaf, since this little one doesn’t need any more energy than it already has) and watch the snow flitting around over the meadow and lake, and I think about the thing I crave. I’m not talking about pickles and ice cream or chocolate or the other things we so often want to fill ourselves with….

…because have you ever come across a phrase or quote or verse or lyric that just seems to strike you so deep in places you didn’t even know about that it almost seems to make the world stop for a few moments while you let it sink in?

Yeah, me too.

This one did it to me a few days ago: “They looked to Him and were radiant.” (Ps. 34:5)

I’ve read this verse before, because I tend to camp out in Psalms a lot when I’m reading Scripture. I love the Psalms more than any other book of the Bible because it’s a lot like reading a bunch of song lyrics, and music is my top love-language with God (if there is such a thing as love languages with God…). But somehow this little phrase hit me so hard when I read it again, and I’ve been mulling and mulling over it ever since.

This is the thing…I crave beauty. I want to be a beautiful, stunning, and radiant woman that reflects the true feminine heart of God. I don’t want attention for beauty, but rather just the peaceful confidence within myself that I am what I was made to be.

Beautiful.

And this is the other thing (of which i’ve talked about many times before)…I rarely feel beautiful. I hardly ever feel that peaceful confidence that I am a beautiful and radiant woman. Sometimes I do…but in all perfect honesty, it’s usually only when I’m all dressed up for a night out and my hair turned out like I want it to and I’m not feeling like I look fat and my face isn’t puffy and my outfit actually looks similar to the Pinterest picture I was copying from and my mascara didn’t clump up on me. But all of these things are external factors that change with each day, and if I rely on them to give me my confidence, then my feelings of beautiful will be one grand roller coaster. Because goodness knows my hair hardly ever looks like I want it to and my mascara clumps up every other day and my face gets puffy for no reason these days…

So if I can’t rely on any of these things that we women use to make ourselves feel pretty and beautiful, then where is it at?

That’s where the above verse hit me and gave me some much needed perspective. Nothing in this world can give me the beauty that I crave.

Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.

Nothing in this world can make me feel beautiful, stunning, and radiant.

They looked to Him and were radiant.

The only way – THE ONLY WAY – that I can ever really find that peaceful confidence in being beautiful is by looking to the Only One that makes beautiful. No celebrity makeup artist or top salon hair stylist or professional clothing designer can make any of us any beautiful-er. Because the only true radiance that all of us long to have each and every day comes from Jesus. And it’s only by looking to Him will I find the beauty I’ve been craving all along.

What about you: do you find it easier to rely on the external things to make you feel beautiful? 

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

GIFTIES FOR THE HOLIDAY

I love gifts.

Gifts are actually one of my top love languages, and I love to both get and give them. The thing with gifts is that they don’t have to be extravagant or grand or expensive to be a worthy gift in my mind…it’s merely the gift itself that I appreciate. Ben can bring me home a simple bar of my favorite chocolate and it feels as special to me as something that would have cost ten times the amount. It was just the idea that he thought of me and got me this little present to let me know that.

Birthdays and Christmas are especially a big deal to me in the gifty side of things. I don’t need big or expensive gifts from the ones closest to me, but any little gift just means the world to my heart. This was actually something we talked about a lot during our pre-marital counseling, and Ben was highly advised to make sure to never forget the gift part of my birthday or the Christmas holiday, hehe.

I also love to give gifts, and finding the perfect gift is such a fun thing. Once again, I don’t spend a lot of money on purchasing gifts for others, but it’s amazing what even twenty dollars can get you if you think and plan and hunt. In a super fun world, it would be a blast to have a huge amount of money to spend on others at birthdays and Christmas, and just really spoil everyone to the maximum. But for now, twenty or thirty or forty dollars will do just fine.

Here are some gift ideas for the ones you are hunting for this holiday season:

Ladies:

// cozy knit hat
// new cd from Stephanie Gretzinger (one of my faves!)
// pretty journal
// inspirational jewelry (i have this necklace and wear it all the time!)
// custom chalk prints
// magazine subscription (this is one of my all-time favorite gift items to give)
// handmade scarf (one can never have too many!)
// hand lettered coffee mug

Gents:

// for the business guy
// monogrammed Swiss army knife
// fun + fuzzy trapper hat
// camo insulated thermos (keep that man warm when he’s in the outdoors!)
// Biltong beef jerky (it’s the new big thing in man food world, apparently)
// bacon making kit 
// skinny tie (every guy needs one of these)
// cozy slippers

Happy gifting + shopping!

What about you: do you enjoy getting and giving gifts, or is it just one more thing to do during the holiday season?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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