Day Three: The Eye of the Beholder

Hello Beauties!
First off, I would like to thank Hannah Hobbs for giving my blog a wonderful makeover. Don't ask me how she did it, because I have no idea. Second, I want to thank all of you for the love and support you have all shown me. I was a little bit nervous as to how all of this would be perceived, but I have had nothing but positive feedback so far and it has been a huge blessing. I cannot express how thankful I am for your prayers and words of encouragement.

If you read my last post, you will know that I am on a journey to change the negative way I view myself and see myself as God sees me: a masterpiece. To start my endeavor off, I began with the simple (yeah right!) task of not saying any negative comments about myself for three days. I thought that this would be a small step, but after only the first day I realized how truly difficult it was. I did not realize just how often I cut myself down until I made a conscious decision not to.

There is a verse that I have really liked for a long time, but I feel that up until now I didn't really get what it was saying. It is Ephesians 2:10 and it says, "For we are God's masterpiece, He has created us anew in Jesus Christ so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago." I always focused on the "masterpiece" part because hey, how cool is that? I didn't take into consideration that the first part is meaningless without the second part. It's great to be a "masterpiece", who doesn't want to be thought of as a work of art? But that's not why we were created. We weren't created to be marveled at and praised, we were created to do the "good things He planned for us long ago."  I stopped at masterpiece because that was the easy place to stop. But God didn't call us to do what was easy, he called us to do His perfect will. I cannot boast about being a masterpiece unless I am doing what I was created for.

For my next task, I will not only not say anything negative about my appearance, I will also not say anything negative about anyone else's appearance for three days. Why do we cut other people, who Jesus called us to love, down? It is all rooted in insecurity. Humans are sinful creatures, and it makes us feel good to think that we are better than someone else. On the outside, perhaps. On the inside, it makes us disgusting. This will not be an easy curse to break, but by God's grace I will try!
-Tara