femininity

"When Christ overtakes a woman's life and transforms her from the inside out, she becomes truly feminine - a picture of elegance, grace, and loveliness blended with sacrificial selfless devotion to her King"

-Lesley Ludy

Psalm 37:3-7

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires on your heart. 

Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and He will do this. 

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of you cause like the noonday sun. 

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. 

modesty

"I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God"

- 1 Timothy 2:9

"She is clothed in strength and dignity"

- Proverbs 31:25

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

- Matthew 5:27-28

I feel like God has been putting the subject of modesty on my heart recently, and I want to share with you some reminders that he had given me over the past few months, and some things that he has taught me from scratch. 

We live in a world where modesty has kind of gone out of the window. I read an article written by this guy on the subject of modesty and he titled it "The death of Pretty". He defined pretty as projecting beauty in innocence and virtue. But no longer to girls want to be pretty; they want to be 'hot'. Now, hot projects somethings TOTALLY different. He writes,. 'pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend.  Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity.  Its value is temporary and must be used.  It is a consumable'. 

I also stumbled across another guys blog, who was just so honest in his writing about this. (I'll directly quote him a few times here, but I'd encourage you to read the whole thing. It's pretty eye opening. I'll put a link at the end of this post.)

"Many women dress appropriately, and to those I say bravo.  But at the risk of being overly negative, I want to address the problem of immodesty.  Unfortunately, many women today don't know what modesty is..." 

"Immodesty can be put in perspective when women understand the stronghold that lust and pornography have on men today.  The pornography industry in the United States rakes in 12 billion dollars a year.  Surveys taken by Promise Keepers, Focus on the Family, Insight for Living, and other reputable Christian organizations show about half of the male respondents indicated they've viewed porn within the past few months.  Did you get that?  If this statistic is correct, five of 10 men you see in church have looked at porn recently..."

"Men who want to stay pure are finding impurity pursuing them."

I honesty don't think us girls realize the value in dressing modest. Do we even know what modest is anymore? We are surrounded  by worldly fashions which aren't really the shining example of how to be modest woman. The world tells us "if you've got it, flaunt it". Fashion gives us short shorts, short skirts, cropped tops, low rise jeans...I feel like we are slowly forgetting to even check if what we are wearing is appropriate because we are so blinded with the world and following its trends.

And when it come to the reason for modesty, do we even know why as Christian girls we should be careful what we wear? Honestly, I don't think we do.

If I'm honest, I've only really learnt in the past 8-9 months. I remember getting my acceptance letter from Bible School, and a few weeks later I received another letter which told me of the schools 'code of conduct'. It told me what the school expects from me, and what its values are. Like how they ask us not to drink or smoke during our time there etc etc...and it had a separate section on a dress code. I was like, 'Pffft, a dress code?! Are you serious?! I'm not allowed to wear shorts or a skirt that are above the knee? I'm not allowed to wear a strappy top? What the heck, this is ridicules!'. Looking back now I feel so ignorant. I had no clue really why they asked this of us. I mean, I knew they wanted us to me modest, but I didn't really know WHY.

During my time there, living with great christian guys I started to learn why. I truly appreciated they brutal honesty when they talked to us about what it was like being a Christian guy; the temptations and struggles that they go through every day. The quotes above from that guys blog put it really well too. I don't think us ladies appreciate how hard it can be for guys.

We are told to love and encourage one another in the bible right? If we are wearing an outfit which could distract guys, how are we encouraging them in Christ? We're not. Are we not instead encouraging them and tempting them into worldly lusts and temptations? If we love them, we should help them in this area. Think twice as we are deciding on our outfit for the day.

Please don't think that I'm all set on this area; that I have dressing well down to a T, because I don't. Sometimes I'm just as bad as the next girl when it comes to my wardrobe choice, it's something I'm trying to work on. I don't know about you, but I would much rather be described as a pretty girl than a hot one.

Sorry this post has gotten so long.I guess I just want to encourage you girls reading this to please think about how you dress.I'll just finish with a quote by John MacArthur who sums up quite nicely, and much more concisely, what I've just said.

"How does a woman discern the sometimes fine line between proper dress and dressing to be the center of attention? The answer starts in the intent of the heart. A woman should examine her motives and goals for the way she dresses. Is her intent to show the grace and beauty of womanhood? Is it to reveal a humble heart devoted to worshipping God? Or is it to call attention to herself and flaunt her beauty? Or worse, to attempt to lure men sexually? A woman who focuses on worshipping God will consider carefully how she is dressed, because her heart will dictate her wardrobe and appearance"

Some good reads:

For the link to the guys blog I quoted a few times click HERE

This one is a girl's blog who has a few posts on 'the heart of modesty'. 

yummy, chocolaty, goodness

You know that feeling when you just what to bake. Create something yummy and then enjoy eating it. Well the other day I had that exact feeling. 


A friend made these flipping gorgeous brownies for me and my housemates a few years back when we were at university, and I remember asking for the recipe. She'd emailed it to us, but until 2 days ago this recipe had been sitting in the documents of my laptop, not being anything more than a typed page. 


And so when I got this desire just to bake something, I decided to root out this brownie recipe and give it a go. And not to big myself up or anything, but my end product was pretty darn good! ...and that's even after I forgot to put in the extra chocolate drops and nuts (whoops!). The tin is pretty much empty now...or at least it will be as soon as I finish this post because I'm going to go and eat the last piece!

For those of you who love to bake I thought I'd pop the recipe on here for you...enjoy :)


Stuff you'll need:

90g (3oz) plain chocolate (I used normal milk chocolate)
150g (5oz) butter & extra for greasing
125g (4oz) plain flour
15g (1/2oz) coco powder
300g (10oz) soft light brown sugar (I just used granulated because we had no soft brown sugar in the house!)
1 pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 tea sp of vanilla extract/ essence
½ table sp baking powder
100g Chocolate chips (you could use nuts instead of choc chips if you prefer)


What you need to do:
1. Preheat oven to 180oc (350 F/ Gas mark 4). Grease & line baking tine with grease proof paper 
2. Break chocolate into a bowl & add the butter, Melt the butter & chocolate over a sauce pan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally.
3. Remove and allow chocolate to cool slightly. Sieve the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a separate bowl. 4. In a third bowl beat the eggs, then add sugar and vanilla extract. Stir the ingredients until just combined.
5. Fold the beaten chocolate into the beaten egg mixture. Then fold the flour mixture in, there should be no lumps. Fold in the extra chocolate chips or nuts at this point too.
6. Put the mixture into the tin, smooth top & bake for 25minutes. It sometimes takes longer so check using a knife and make sure it comes out clean.
7. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.
8. Make a brew. Grab some brownie. Sit down, relax, and enjoy.

simple fun

Yesterday was simply a great day. A day filled with some much needed laughter.

I met up with some of my friends and helped out looking after a little boy that one of my friends babysits for a day every two weeks. This little bot is the funniest 3 year old I have ever met. He just comes out with some classic lines that have us all in stitches.

So anyways, the day started playing 'total wipe out' in my friends front room on a course that they had designed (and I'd like to say at this point that I did in fact complete the course, the first adult to do so might I add!!). We then went swimming, took him out for some lunch, went to the park, played cards, ate ice cream...ahhh, simply a fun day.

In the evening we met up with some more cool people and went bowling. A few strikes (...and a few missed shots) we went for some food at McDonald's, and then headed into town for a drink and a game of pool.

I love these kind of days. Where you do nothing particular special, but where the people that you are with make it special.Yesterday I did nothing new. I mean, I've been bowling and swimming a ton of times. And Asda cafe and McDonald's aren't the classiest of places to eat. But who cares?! It's not the places that you go to, its the people who you are with.

I love how you don't have to spend a ton of money to have a good time. You don't need to do something out of the ordinary to enjoy your day. You can have good, honest, simple fun if you are with the right people. 

This post in a nutshell?...

I have GREAT friends. 

a spruce up

OK, I'm just going to give you a heads up that I'm going to be having a play around with my blog. I feel it needs a bit of sprucing up, like a (late) spring clean.

Please stand by while I do some experimenting on here.

:) 

Love is...