Chapter 2 continued...

This chapter is really great and I'm so excited to share this one with you! But before we begin there are just a couple things I want to get straight. In the course of this blog I might say some things about how my parents raised me that I don't completely agree with. However, I love my parents to death and I do not hold anything against them. They were doing the best that they could and I'm sure if you were to ask either one of them they would tell you that knowing what they know now, they would do things alot differently. My mom has been an awesome mom and kept on going when most would've given up. My dad and I now have a great relationship that I wouldn't trade for anything. So, now that we have that out of the way lets dive straight in.
Last week we talked about how woman was God's finishing touch on this world. How all the beauty and splendor of the earth was not enough but God had to create woman. My favorite line in the whole book is this. "Beauty is an essence given to every woman at her creation." Beauty is not just on the surface. There are many women that I know that would not be considered beautiful by the world, but their spirit shines through and to me they are gorgeous. God has a beauty to unveil and He shows it through His creation. Beauty is essential to life. Read the parts of Revelation where John sees God and after reading that there is no way you can doubt that God is beautiful and that He creates beauty. It is not vain to long for beauty as long as you can be satisfied being beautiful the way that God made you. Again, focus on God, and your beauty will shine through.
 We're also going to talk about how God is relational to His core... just like women. Women are all about relationships. I've known alot of men that would tell me that they don't really have anyone that they would call a "best friend." But I don't know that I've ever met a woman who could say that. Relationships are SO important to women that they will do just about anything to keep them together. That's why there is all the drama! As much as we hate it we can't get away from it. We as women do not respond well when we feel like a relationship is being threatened. Guess what? Neither does God! More than anything God longs to have a relationship with us. What is the very first commanment? Mark 12:30 "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment." This goes back to what we were talking about last week... about how important the relationship with God is. The Bible is full of verses that speak of how God longs to have a relationship with us. Which is why I asked you to read Song of Solomon. I like to think of that book of the Bible as God's love letter to me. When I realize that God longs for me, not just blind obedience but an actual relationship with me, it changes my whole view of God. You see, it's not just that I should read my Bible because I'm commanded to, or that I should pray everyday because the Bible tells me to. I should do all those things because God wants time with me and when I give up time with God to spend it with other things like TV, internet, or all the other useless time consuming things I do, then God gets jealous. And just like a jealous woman, a jealous God is not to be messed with.
The last thing we're going to talk about is how every woman longs to be an irreplaceable part of an adventure. That's why I asked you to think about the movies you loved as a little girl. I'm sure you probably loved the princess stories, especially the ones where the "ugly duckling" discovered that she was actually a princess and suddenly realized that she could be beautiful (are you making the connection yet?). My favorite princess movies are The Princess Diaries and Pocahontas. I love how in The Princess Diaries Princess Mia transformed from a geek with no confidence to a beautiful princess training to one day rule a country. In Pocahontas I loved how she was a huge part of a big adventure. John Smith needed her! He would've died without her! No one else could've done what she did! God created us with this longing. When God created Eve He did not create her to be Adam's slave. When God gave the commandment to name and take charge over the garden and the animals, He did not just give it to Adam. Genesis 1:28 The commandment was given to Adam and Eve. Adam needed Eve. He couldn't have done it without her. The book goes into alot more detail about this than I have time to share and I encourage you to read it. All in all though this sense of adventure also speaks of God. Just like women love to feel irreplaceable so does God. He doesn't want to be simply an addition to your life. He wants to know and feel that He cannot be replaced. Do we make God feel this way? I'm afraid that often we don't. How do you think God feels when we go to our friends about a problem for comfort before we go to God? Or how does He feel when we try to fix a problem on our own instead of acknowledging first of all that we need Him to help us? As I'm typing this I'm being convicted. I just wonder how great my relationship with God could be if I let God know that He is not replaceable? Let's work on that this week shall we? I'll make an effort to be praying for all my readers and please in turn pray for me. I've been pretty open and honest about my personal struggles and things that God is teaching me through writing this and if God is working in you too then I would love to hear about it. Please feel free to leave comments on here or facebook or to message me personally. I love to hear the encouragement! Have a great weekend!
Cass