beautiful.

"Beauty will save the world."
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In spending some alone time with God this morning, I came across these passages in the current book I am reading, Captivating.
Take them as you will.

"A woman in her glory, a woman of beauty, is a woman who is not striving to become beautiful or worthy or enough. She knows in her quiet center where God dwells that He finds her beautiful, has deemed her worthy, and in Him, she is enough."

"A woman who is unveiling her beauty is inviting others to life. She risks being vulnerable: exposing her true heart and inviting others to share theirs. She is not demanding, but she is hopeful...You see, ultimately a woman invites us to know God. To experience through her that God is merciful. That He is tender and kind. That God longs for us- to be known by us and to know us. She invites us to experience that God is good, deep, lovely, alluring. Captivating."

"To possess true beauty, we must be willing to suffer...Yet, if Christ Himself was perfected through His sufferings, why would I believe God would not do the same with me? Women who are stunningly beautiful are women who have had their hearts enlarged by suffering. By saying, "Yes" when the world says, "No." By paying the high price of loving truly and honestly without demanding that they be loved in return. And by refusing to numb their pain in the myriad of ways available. They have come to know that when everyone and everything has left them, God is there. They have learned, along with David, that those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs (Ps. 84:6)."

"God does not always rescue us out of a painful season. You know that He does not always give to us what we so desperately want when we want it. He is after something much more valuable than our happiness. Much more substantive that our health. He is restoring and growing in us an eternal weight of glory. And sometimes...it hurts."

"Abiding in Christ means paying attention to the voice of God within, nourishing our own hearts and nourishing our relationship with Him. Over time."

My prayer today was simply that God would make me a settled woman, a woman of peace. I don't want to strive anymore. I'd rather be calmly walking in the middle of chaos. I want to invite people to know God simply through my character, and not through my many, many words. Youth is fleeting, but true beauty never fades.