SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
by Kathy Pegram

 

"Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” Proverbs 31:30

Some of you may have heard the story of the little boy who asked his mother why she was putting on cold cream. She replied that she was making herself beautiful. When she went to take the cold cream off the little boy asked "What’s the matter are you giving up?"

Sometimes we spend so much time working on our outward appearance that we overlook the inside and the way we project ourselves. There is nothing wrong with doing all we can to look our best. But, we need to realize that our spiritual inside needs work also. And if our spiritual life is taken care of, it will show on the outside.

Many of us haven’t reached our full potential in Christ because we have been so beaten down over the years we don’t feel capable of doing what He has called us to do. The Gaithers used to sing the song, "Something Beautiful." It had the words:

‘Something beautiful, something good;
All my confusion He understood.
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife,
But He made something beautiful of my life.’

God knows us better than anyone, He knows our doubts, our fears, and our failures. God is constantly weaving the pattern of our lives. We have to trust Him with our future. He sees us and our potential when we turn our lives over to Him He just pulls out all those past sins and failures and weaves into our lives a brand new row of potential.

Have you ever wanted to work for God, and then just when you get the nerve up to step out by faith, there’s that little voice reminding you of all your past failures? You know what it says; it could be the reminder of a failure when you were a teen. Maybe you had been into drugs, or alcohol, maybe you had an abortion or a child out of wedlock. Maybe you had been through more divorces than a soap opera character. The key word here is "HAD!" I think we forget sometimes that when we confess our sins to God and ask for his forgiveness He wipes our slates clean. He doesn’t hold our past up to us. He doesn’t hold it against us. He sees our potential. He wants to make something beautiful of our lives. If we just hand Him our brokenness and strife He will weave the pattern of our life into a beautiful tapestry.

Everything we have gone through in our lives can teach us something. When we go through things in life it helps us to be able to empathize with others. I’m sure as parents when you see your child starting to make the same mistakes that you did as a young person you try to intervene and steer them in the right direction. I know personally as a teen I had a really bad temper, I would open my mouth and let it fly not caring who I hurt. Thank God with age came wisdom and my temper has calmed down, but not before it damaged relationships in my life that will never be the same. But, now I see my youngest son with those same tendencies. I have had to sit him down and talk to him about his temper several times. I’ve walked the path where he has walked and I’m trying my best to steer him to a different path. I couldn’t do that if I hadn’t experienced it.

It’s kind of like this; if you went to hairdresser who gave you a bad cut, color or perm you are going to warn your friends about them. You wouldn’t want others to wind up with an orange frizzy Mohawk. You would warn them "stay away from there, you’ll just regret it if you walk through that door." But, on the spiritual side we act like it is terrible to sit down and explain the effects of sin on a life. And I’m not just talking about the drugs, sex, and alcohol types of sin either. I’m talking about the gossiping, backbiting, criticizing, word effecting sins. We lose more people in our churches from the over use of that little member called the tongue than any other thing. If we could just keep our spiritual man fed and exercised we could have more control over our tongues. Our lives outwardly would be more beautiful because the love of God would shine out of us.

When you have sent your life being criticized it does and will effect you. That's why we need to be careful what we say to others. We can use our tongue to make people feel good or bad about themselves. It’s time we started trying to speak positive words into people's lives. Why make someone feel unworthy, unloved and ugly. When we can reach out and say the words that are uplifting and encouraging. If a person stumbles or falls lets reach down and lift them up and not leave them lying by the side of the road. That’s when our true beauty shines out of us. It’s the inward beauty that makes you truly beautiful. That’s the something beautiful God wants to make of your life.

He wants you to be beautiful in him. He can take all your pain, all your confusion, and all your disappointments and turn them into something beautiful for Him. You could be the person who makes a difference in the life of the person who is facing similar things that you have. You could have the words that steer them in the right direction. You have traveled their path you know the route well and you might be the only one they will listen to who yells to them "danger ahead you need to detour." But, before you can help them you have to except that you are beautiful in Christ. It doesn’t matter if you are tall or short, thin or heavy, young or old, rich or poor. As long as you have asked God to forgive you of your sins you have a new beginning, forget the past. Go forward with God and let your beauty shine through. All we had to offer Him was brokenness and strife but he will make something beautiful of our lives.

 

Love & Prayers,
Kathy