Where to begin? (Part 1)

You are beautifully radiant.

You are beautifully radiant. Yes, you. Did you know that? And how could I know that when I very likely have never and will never meet you? Well to answer that question, we will have to go back to the beginning of a journey that God took me on about 3 years ago. And along the way you will get to learn a little more about me and quite a bit more about why this blog happened, all in an effort to help you possibly learn something new about yourself.

My journey begins...

So let's rewind a few years. We'll see a young woman who was very insecure and had been deeply hurt by some she had thought were closest to her, women whom she had called friends. These other women had betrayed and disowned her. Alone, she now felt rejected and disengaged from all women, not just the handful that had bruised her heart. She sought friendships with guys only. They seemed easier, less complicated, and certainly much less likely to stab you in the back. But along with this new trend came a complete lack of disrespect and disregard of all people and things feminine. Her general attitude towards other women became cold and harsh, and she did not even leave room for the slightest possibility of friendships to blossom. The underlying feelings about how she had been treated became associated with womanhood and femininity itself. It was as if deep down she believed that women were the problem, that the cruel words and actions by that group of so-called "friends" were tied to their woman-ness (spoiler alert:  this was a sin problem, not a woman problem). That it was the nature of all women. With no way to separate the two, it was just easier to avoid being friends with them. ALL of them.

She is beautiful!

Yep that was me a little more than 3 years ago. But then God did the strangest thing. While sitting in a meeting for a ministry I serve in, my attention was suddenly drawn away from our speaker and to a woman who I had known for a couple years. This woman wasn't someone I had spent much time with or even someone I considered either friend or foe. She was one of what I call acquaintance friends. (You know of them, they know of you, and you are mutually associated by either another individual or a shared activity.) Well we had this ministry in common, so we occasionally saw each other and were sometimes in group conversations together. She was no one special to me. It seemed weird at the time that she had caught my eye randomly, but even weirder was how I couldn't help but keep gazing at her. For some reason, she seemed different today, like I was looking at her through someone else's lenses. This ordinary middle-aged woman, who by our world's standards is no Miss America, was now strikingly beautiful to me.

Why hadn't I noticed???

Totally distracted by this, I lost all track of what was being discussed, as I tried to identify what was so captivating about her suddenly. And more importantly, how had I not noticed this before?!

More to come...