60 Days of Beauty - Day 16, Buttons

16.  Buttons

Yeah, I know I'm insane. 

Through my expeditions to Goodwill to feed my every-growing want for yarn, I have ended up with quite a collection of buttons.  Add to that buttons bought for pennies on clearance and the buttons my mom wanted, and I have a fully authorized button box.  Sometimes I take the buttons out and imagine what they would look like on a certain garment.  Plus, they're all smooth and cold and pretty.  :)  And each one is a little different. 

60 Days of Beauty - Day 15, Lists of Stuff

15.  Lists of Stuff

Does anyone else feel accomplished if they so much as write down the things they plan on doing?  It feels so good to make a to do list.  It helps me to have a paper reminder of the things I want/need to do in the coming day.  It's beautiful... I don't know how to explain it... it just is.  :)

60 Days of Beauty - Day 14, lazy days

14.  lazy days

You know those days when you don't have anything to do, or you have something to do but you enjoy it so much that it doesn't bother you to do it.  For me, a lazy day is beautiful with a small dog (or two), a warm blanket, a couple balls of wool or cotton, some pointy sticks, and one of my favorite movies (Right now I am in love with Elf).  Maybe throw some baking in there too.  Such good days...  Relaxing, watching movies, listening to some music... I love it. 

60 Days of Beauty - Day 13, Home

13.  Home

I haven't always loved my family.  I haven't always loved to come home.  I haven't always loved the way my mom clacks away at the keyboard or the way my dad sleep-watches tv.  I haven't always enjoyed the way the cupboards sound when they shut or the way the basement door has to be pressed to shut all the way.  But now those things remind me of home.  It wouldn't be the same without the keyboard or the quests to steal the remote.  I know what door is being shut by the sound it makes.  Home is beautiful because that is the place I feel like I belong.  It is safe for me.

(Yes, I decorated the above gingerbread house)

60 Days of Beauty - Day 12, Family

12.  Family

Today my aunt took me home from school because my brother was staying after and my parents were pimping body fluids.  I got in my aunt's car and was pleasantly surprised at the three voices that said as one "Linny!".  Even though I see my cousins almost every day (we go to the same school) it makes me feel loved how they wave, smile, and give me a hug every time I see them.  (Except Tori.  She's ten.  She's too cool for hugs.) 
My family has its problems just like every other family, but I am blessed to be given people who I can laugh and joke with.  And people who can just be empathetic. 

60 Days of Beauty - Day 11, relationships

11.  Relationships

The above picture is of me and my bestie, Becky, from finals week last week.  Yes, that is a paper mache duck.  It took me a long time to figure out friends.  God finally taught me that friendship is a two-way street, and I have to put as much time, effort, and godly love into the relationship as I expect to get back.  It involves me investing things in the relationship.
I heard someone ask why teens put so much time, money, and effort into a romantic relationship that was not guaranteed to last much longer than the next week or month, yet did not do the same things in their friendships.  Since then, I have been determined to change my relationships.  I've tried to change them from being "me me me" to "her her her".  I'm not being obsessed with my friends or anything, but I'm not expecting them to do everything in our relationship.  As someone who was once in a very dependent and controlling relationship, it feels a lot better to be dependent on each other in a healthy way (bearing each others burdens) but not to the point where the other person cannot live without the other.

60 Days of Beauty - What I have learned so far

I've been struck by a few things as I have been on this journey:

1.  People need to be told how beautiful they are every day.  Too many people go through the day avoiding mirrors and attempting to cover up all the things they think are ugly about themselves.

2.  Sometimes it is hard to find beauty.  It is a daily process to identify even one thing to blog about.  This is sad.  I'm working on making this different

3.  Way too often I am tempted to close my eyes to the things around me and just attempt to get through the day without any mishaps.  This is wrong.  I need to open my eyes and watch for opportunities to see beautiful things and to be in the lives of others.

4.  Beauty is found in flaws.

60 Days of Beauty - Day 10, Encouragement

10.  Encouragement

For the past week I have been staying up every night to create a surprise for two of my friends who left today for the Dominican.  The surprise was an card of encouragement for each day they were gone.  As I wrote, I tried to listen to God's guidance in what I said.  I wanted the cards to be a reminder of the prayer that was behind them, and of the people excited to hear the things they did when they came home. 

Since today's topic is encouragement, I tried my best today to give people around me encouragement.  I told a Chinese foreign exchange student that I thought she was beautiful, but she gave me an odd look and shook her head.  I smiled at a lot of people, and I had a conversation with my old art teacher whom I love.  I told another girl she had pretty eyes and I laughed at my dad's jokes.  ( :) )

Encouragement is beautiful because it gives hope.  Encouragement is beautiful because it helps me survive the bad days.  Encouragement is beautiful because it creates relationships. 

60 Days of Beauty - Day 9, Song

9.  Song

Specifically, today is about song.  I will cover music another day, but I thought song should have it's own category, especially because of the way it stood out to me today.

Today was our Christmas chapel at school.  While not my favorite chapel, I still love it, especially this year.  Today a girl sang a song she wrote for a Bible project that was assigned to the entire junior class earlier in the year.  She is in my Bible class, so I had already heard it, but it shocked me to see the song affect me a second time.  She prefaced the song by saying she had tried to convey the way God romances us.  I don't have the exact lyrics, which is sad because it is such a beautiful song.  (EDIT:  The lyrics are now posted in a comment thanks to Darby and Liesl Bell!)

She talks about how she has always longed for someone who will take her in their arms and waltz with her across the dance floor, talking and laughing with her.  She slips into a ball late (for an unknown reason) and stands in the shadows with her eyes closed, hoping, wishing, and waiting.  She feels a tap on her shoulder and opens her eyes to see a man bowing to her, asking her to dance.  She then says that he romances her and dances her across the room.

Darby's voice is so beautiful, and the longing that is portrayed through her words and the inflection of her voice are striking.  Her mother played the piano as she sang, and the piano accompanied her perfectly.  It never detracted from Darby's singing, it only made it prettier.

Chapel today was beautiful.  Darby's song was beautiful.  The cans we donated to Faith Mission were beautiful.  Several of my best friends are leaving for the DR in 10 hours, and that is beautiful.

My day was just plain beautiful... except for the history project that I must do now... I'm not much of a history person.  Haha.

Have a beautiful day.  ^_^

60 Days of Beauty - Day 8, Freedom

This was supposed to be yesterday's, but I didn't have time because I had to write a whole bunch of things for two friends who are leaving for the Dominican Republic tomorrow.  ((Blogging on that tomorrow... One of them reads this and most of it is supposed to be a surprise!!))  So here is yesterday's...

8.  Freedom.

I"m not talking about America freedom, I'm talking about personal freedom.  That freedom where it is no longer scary to get out of bed in the morning or step outside the house.  The freedom where it's okay to sit in a room with tons of people, but still be alone.  That freedom where it doesn't matter what other people say.  Where it's okay to be yourself.  The freedom that I try to live in every day of my life.  The freedom that Jesus gives us when we give up and let Him hold us.

60 Days of Beauty - Day 7, Christmas lights

7.  Christmas lights

I know Derry already did this one (we even used the same image!), but with 60 days and 14+ people joining in, there are bound to be overlaps.  But I have different reasons behind my love for them.

I suppose it could be my attraction to shiny things, or my love of things that catch my attention in general, but I love tiny lights.  If I had my way, we would keep a tree up all year long (the little one with colored lights that sits in the dining room.).  I just love them.  Every time I drive down the road and there are Christmas lights on a house, my breath stops.  I find them amazing.  They make me smile.  :D

60 Days of Beauty - Day 6 - Written Words

6.  Written Words

Whether written or spoken, the power that words have on our lives is hard to miss.  For me, the beauty comes when I place my pen on a piece of lined paper and my heart begins to pour out.  When I talk to God through my written words rather than my spoken words I am more focused and I also have a written recording of our conversation.  Another thing that is beautiful that has to do with written words are my old journals.  (Has to do with day 3/4) I love to be able to look back and see (in my own writing!) what God has done and what He is still doing.  Plus, I get chills when I use gel pens and it takes nothing to push the pen across the page.

:)

60 Days of Beauty - Day 5

Last night I was wondering what I would blog about tonight.  I was kind of exhausted after writing about four things last night... and doing a lot of writing last night.  I also spent a lot of time having a conversation with God.  Lately I have been learning that talking to God doesn't always mean sitting down, closing my eyes, and thinking words to God.  Lately I have been doing other things to connect with God.  That means a lot of encouragement notes written and a whole lot of writing and a whole lot of attempting to glorify God with every step I take.  That leads me to day 5.

5.  God

This is hard to explain.  Maybe through a song?

You are beautiful

Watch it.  Now.

Did you watch it?

Go back and do it!

NOW!




I love this song.  :)

Did you listen?

Alright, good.

If you haven't heard this song before, go ahead and go back and listen to it a second time, or a third time.  It never gets old...  Haha.

Let's look at the lyrics now...


I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You're beautiful



I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It's all proclaiming who You are
You're beautiful, You're beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You're beautiful, you're beautiful

When we arrive at eternity's shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We'll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we'll sing
You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful

I see Your face, You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful
I see Your face, You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful
I see Your face, I see Your face
I see Your face, You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful

The fourth verse is my favorite.  It reminds me a lot of Ted Dekker's Circle series.  (here)  The books revolve a lot around a character named "Elyon" (who represents God) and the way He romances His beloved.  To think about God that way blows my mind.  It overwhelms me to think that God wants me to be in a reciprocating  relationship with me.  He doesn't just want to be over me and be in charge of me... He wants to be in a relationship where we are equal, both loving, both placing time into our relationship.  He doesn't want me to talk to Him every once in awhile... He wants to be my best friend.  He wants to be with me every day.  I get chills just thinking about this!


He wants the praise and worship I give Him, but He doesn't just take that and leave me to do everything I can to appease a malevolent god.  He stays in my life and touches it every day.


God is beautiful.  He made everything.  Because He is beautiful, wouldn't that make everything beautiful?  Yup.  Even earthquakes and mosquitoes and things that hurt you.  He wasn't wrong to make those things.  He decides what is right and wrong.  He is beautiful.



Go back and listen to the song again.  :)  Have a wonderful day/week/year/rest of your life.

60 Days of Beauty- A late start

WARNING! LONG POST!

I'm getting a bit of a late start, I suppose, but I might as well start now. My youth pastor, Derry Prenkert (here), started something called 60 Days of Beauty on December 1st. I meant to join the bandwagon yesterday, but it turns out that I cannot blog from my iPod touch. ( :( )

Now, the only problem I have is figuring out what I want to talk about. The past few days have been so full of beauty for me. Last night God and I had a nice long chat. That was beauty in and of itself. I could talk about life in general, I could talk about today's run, I could talk about the simplicity I love to keep in my life... I guess I could do four things since today is really day four. Here we go...

1. Yarn.


I know. I'm crazy. But it's a knitter/crocheter/crafter thing. But seeing a piece of string turn into fabric is awesome for me. I love it. I love seeing the stitches formed and changed and moved. People usually think I'm weird, but I have the ability to make beautiful things. Ha.  Plus, yarn is soft, colorful, squishy and I get chills just thinking about it!

2. Snow.

I live in Indiana. We have snow. I pretend to like it. Except in December. In December, snow is my favorite thing. Have you ever noticed how it lazily makes its way from sky to ground? Rain has a plan in mind, snow doesn't. Snow interrupts your everyday life and makes things difficult, but it is pretty. I woke up to snow this morning and I was rather sad as it melted during my run.
The majority of Hoosiers I talk to on a daily basis hate snow... but I'm not sure why. We were given something so beautiful. I'm so grateful for my ability to see and feel it, even though the wind is biting and my fingers are constantly cold.


3 and 4 are pretty similar. So I will do them together.

3. Letting down walls.
4. The past.



Do you disagree with the fourth? Let me show you what I mean...

Some people who know me know about the struggles God has placed me in. Some have no idea, some barely grasp it. Like any other person, I had struggles with confidence and understanding. I was on a downward spiral and I felt like I was drowning. I grew angry at God. How could He? Where was He? I became a shell of who I was supposed to be. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know who the people around me were... but I slowly started to understand. The walls around me fell when I allowed God into my life. It hurt. It hurt for Him to destroy the walls inside me that kept me captive, but now I am not the same person. I am who God wants me to be.
It took me a long time to realize the beauty in my past. It has taken me a long time to realize a lot of things. But I wouldn't change that. The beauty in my past is the way I now react to God's grace and love. It is the way I now react to other people. I can now help others heal.


I apologize for the length, but it was four days' worth!