It's Fashion Friday!!!

Beginning next week, we will start having Fashion Friday!  Natalie is working on a fun, informative, fall fashion post for next Friday.  We weren't really prepared for a fashion post today, so I decided to talk about our hearts.  Cause if your heart ain't right, it don't matter what you have on.  At least that's what my mom used to say...beauty is as beauty does.

I grew up in a grace-filled home.  I've seen my parents forgive over and over and over again.  I watched my mom pour adoration on her gay brother - because while God may hate the sin, He always loves the sinner.  Don't even begin to make any racial slurs around my younger brother.  He'll be on you so fast you won't know what happened - because God doesn't see color.  I've watched my older brother take homeless people out to dinner so many times - because what you've done for the least of these, you've done unto Him.  Several years ago, my parents took in a young girl from our church.  She had endured a tough life to say the least.  I watched them love her just like they loved their flesh and blood children.  Today, I proudly call Natalie my sister.  We may not see each other very often, but she's one of the best friends I have ever had.  I'm not really sure how, while growing up in that environment, I still became a perfectionist.  I was the child who never failed class because if I got a B I would be so devastated I couldn't eat for days.  I can actually remember praying "Lord make me perfect by the time I'm 30."  The sad thing is that I meant it from the bottom of my heart.  I truely wanted to be His perfect saint.  My biggest problem was assuming that striving for perfection was somthing I had to do through my own power.  I only ended up making the outside look good, while on the inside, I was filled with an unhealthy self-obsession and self-worth.  My moods depended on whether I felt a huge sense of pride for how well I had done that day, or an overwhelming sense of failure for how awful I had done that day.  Did you know that back in Jesus' day, people would white-wash the outside of the tombs?  They did it so that no one would touch the tomb during the night which would have made them ceremoniously unclean and unable to worship.  The white-washing did nothing to change the contents of the tomb.  It was still filled with a stinking, decaying body.  It just looked better on the outside.  It took me years to realize that self-induced holiness is an exercise in futility.  I can't make myself perfect.  I can't work hard enough, be dedicated enough, disciplined enough, to MAKE myself Christlike.  I have to allow Him to work on me from the inside.  I do have power over my outward appearance and how I treat others, but I have to allow Him to control my heart or nothing else will ever matter.  I hope it doesn't take you as long as it did me to realize that Jesus doesn't want us to be white-washed tombs.  He has a far greater goal in mind.  He wants to raise us from the dead.

XOXO,
Amberly