You want to be stronger, braver, and more integrated.
You want to be more whole right?
I have good news. As you learn and apply Transformation Prayer Ministry to your life, you will become a stronger, braver, more integrated, and whole person.
“Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”Hebrews 12:14 NIV
Transformation Prayer Ministry (TPM) is, by far, one of the best tools I’ve seen that can nurture growth in this way.
The intent of the TPM process is to provide a systematic and reliable means to intentionally and purposefully participate with God in refining one’s faith, which results in renewing one’s mind, and naturally transforming one’s belief and behavior.
“ . . . be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2 NIV
To understand this more clearly, today I’m sharing with you a personal account of a Transformation Prayer Ministry session. In this, you will see how Molly (fictitious name) was able to move through her negative belief about herself.
To read another personal application of Transformation Prayer Ministry (TPM) click here.
We begin here.
When Molly was talking with her husband about the slow pace of work in her current job, he suggested she should look for another job.
Feeling irritated and defensive, and realizing they were getting nowhere in their conversation, she decided not to engage in any arguments.
In fact, she decided to essentially dismiss herself from the discussion and just let him talk.
Bothered by her own unclear thoughts and feelings, which arose in their interaction, she asked me to mentor her in Transformation Prayer Ministry regarding these unsettled feelings.
EMOTION (The ‘box’ or place we begin a session)
I asked her: “How did the conversation make you feel?”
Molly: “It made me feel defensive and irritated.”
MEMORIES
I asked her: “What comes to mind as you focus on what you are feeling?”
Molly: “Hmm . . . Why did I feel defensive? What was I defending? . . . THAT I’M NOT SPOILED OR LAZY. “
I asked: Why do you feel that way?
Molly: “ Because I was the baby of the family, the youngest with a large age gap. I remained close in proximity to my parents and they were a great help to me with babysitting, helping with finances and rides when I didn’t have a car. My other siblings moved out of town and were more independent. Later, I was able to be a stay at home mom.
BELIEF
I asked her: “Not that it is true, but does it feel true that you are spoiled or lazy?”
Molly: “No. Actually when I think about it, I do not believe I am spoiled.”
TRUTH
We entered this TPM process spontaneously and were in an informal setting. Others began to enter the room before we were quite done. This interfered with the process. I believe Molly began to speed things up, and her intellect took over for her emotions in the BELIEF box.
Once she heard herself say she’s “spoiled and lazy” and thought about it, she realized that was not true. If her response was yes, (which would have been the typical response if not rushed to conclude things) I would have asked her if we could present that belief to the Lord.
TRANSFORMATION
I asked her: “So, what do you feel is true?”
Molly: “I am not a spoiled child. I work hard. I am very productive. I am resourceful. I contribute a lot to my family. I have made sacrifices and do not ask for much in return. I do not always get my way or what I want.
If you become familiar with Transformation Prayer Ministry you will be a stronger, more positive, united, and whole person.
Wholeness leads to holiness.
“Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”Hebrews 12:14 NIV
To read another personal application of Transformation Prayer Ministry (TPM) click here.
Because of You!
From Joy …
Dear Heart Working Women,
It was delightful to meet so many of you at our premiere Heart Working Women Event.
The conference decorations joyfully arranged at the Harrison House for November 5th have been taken down, the delicious food we shared together has disappeared, and each of us have gone back to our individual routines.
However, our conversation has truly just begun.
We warmly welcome YOU to listen in on, or join, our ongoing conversations even if you were not able to attend the conference.
You can join the continuing conversation for Heart Working Women on Facebook; simply search for “Heart Working Women” and jump right in with us!
In the short time since we gathered we are thrilled to know that some of you have started to form your own CORE groups. And we are elated to hear others of you are stretching into Bloom activities.
Thanks to you, the conference was a success.
Please let us know how things are progressing for you and how we can be of assistance in getting you to the next place you want to go. We are here for you.
For those who were unable to attend, we missed your presence . . . yet joyfully anticipate connecting with you at our upcoming April 29, 2017 conference.
Joy to you & yours!
Timeless Wonder
by Julie Leppert
I watch my friend’s back now turned toward me as she boards the Amtrak passenger train in downtown Cumberland, MD.
In the heart of the Allegheny mountains, she steps up into its entrance as I call out her name.
“Leslee!!!”
She can’t hear me.
Again. “Leslee!!”
The word “timeless” hangs lost in the sound of the idling locomotive as I mouth it into the open, vibrating space between us.
As she boards I notice her long, colorful skirt accentuate the colors of the floral-purple pack hugging firmly her back.
Step. Up. She goes.
Her curls peppered through and through with wisps of gray fall against her neck and shoulders, and she tugs her cocoa-brown suitcase decorated with stickers from Ireland, England, Wales, Australia, South Africa, France, and Germany onto the carriage floor.
I remember when she bought the suitcase two years ago.
At 55 she has traveled the world. And now I see her anew, like a timeless wondering soul.
Today she is off to Alabama.
Gathered around a familiar and comforting table just two days earlier, she shared snippets of her experience traveling and living abroad, and, suddenly, I saw her as if she were a soul externalized — suspended in a moment and space as she sat beside me, as she exclaimed over delights and tales and people she met.
And I know her for the first time. In. That. Moment.
The friend who within time has learned to transcend her own impulse — to be scheduled and planned and detail-oriented, to be slowly growing old, wanting to control her world, yet rising above the cadence of time, her body’s own story — and to be forever young.
She has touched eternity.
And my next realization was this: Awe and wonder is how she lives life forward.
How in moments spun together like a whirligig toy, like a loom weaving colorful strands, she stops and wonders.
“Wow!! Look at that!” She says. And in doing so, she touches eternity in the present space, around the shire-table with kindred sisters and a meal of love and blueberries; along a South African beach upon a train as her cottage; inside a Parisian hotel seeking accommodation on a whim for a weary band of travelers; or sitting down to an elegant, Parisian meal with thankfulness; or upon a country porch making a meal of cheese and crackers.
“Nobody I know has done what I have done,” she says, with simple amazement, as if suddenly self-aware. We sip coffees and eat a breakfast of creamy chocolates from the local country market owned by those simple, plain people, who once were Mennonite, yet have found their own steady way.
I nod. She’s right.
Among the moms who have raised or near-raised their children in our small corner of the world growing more ominous, nearer to violence, every day
she is the first to launch into the wide world as a life-plan, a hope-plan, to be whirled into the great unknown of trans-cultural breakfasts, navigating markets, finding toilets abroad that you do not have to pay anyone to use (making a game of the hunt— really!), of seeing sunsets upon the Indian Ocean, of serving homeless humans in Berlin at a surprisingly quaint but elegant bakery, of reaching to cherish displaced Muslims in a foreign land, of teaching English to Koreans, Brazilians, Japanese, and others who had found themselves in a small community an hour or so from Cape Town, South Africa.
And so it is true. She has found it. A way of life. Made to wonder — at the beauty.
It takes courage to snip the strings of deep and dear attachments and to launch, to explore the world.
Yes, it takes courage to wonder — to see beauty.
It takes courage to sell your stuff, to pack what’s left, to cart it to storage for an indeterminate time, to wonder, to travel, to explore — and, sometimes, it takes courage to stay rooted. To learn to see and then to see anew the space and place in which we dwell. 
We talked about the contrast between her chosen path and the hill upon which my life sets, deep roots, as deep as the slate-rock beneath my feet, as deep as the generations of my husband’s family (and my family) run in this little hamlet of rolling vales in southern Pennsylvania. (We are German stock, and she is my SoCal groovy friend. We make quite the contrast, generally.)
And so in her timeless style, she has helped me to realize it is with the eyes we behold.
It is with the seeing that we touch eternity. It’s with the expression of awe and wonder that we, as women, transcend the attachments of time.
Time to do laundry. Time to cook supper. Time to bathe the children. Time to make the beds. Time to drop them off at school. Time to rush to the board meeting. Time to mop the floors. Time to pluck up weeds. Time to wipe a runny nose. Time to mow the lawn.
Time to plant a moment of hope.
Of grace.
Of love.
Or a rose garden.
We are timeless — as women, when we wonder.
And when we touch wonder and turn around and pass it to our children on their lunch plates — with smiling PBJs — or our spouses whose shoulders grow rounded with labor and care, we help them touch eternity.
To remember a bit of who we really are; offspring of the everlasting Father who is whole and complete with simplicity though we are not.
When was the last time you gazed at a blazoned sky at eventide?
And sat under its spell?
Or tasted the rain in spring as it ran down your face?
Or smelled the pungent odor of sweet-hay laying heavy and damp upon a mowed field?
The world of complex and varied life depends on your courage to wonder. For in wonder and beauty we find God is near.
Let’s join each other; join me and my timeless friend; join your Best Love or your Son or Daughter, or a neighbor losing hope-sight, and begin anew to see, to wonder, and to cry holy to the God who brings us goodness and righteousness.
Yes, at moonrise and morning’s dew.
(amen)
Julie Leppert — Loves to listen to the narrative of people’s lives, and she loves seeing and honoring the image of God reflected in those she encounters. She is committed to encouraging others to live brave and sing well the song of grace sung over us each day through the good news of Jesus Christ. She loves meeting her readers at Heart Working Women events.
Presence
by Lydia Bugosh
You know my whole “Bloom where you’re planted” motto that I say so often I sound like a broken record (how could you not)?. Well, that little mantra of sorts gets me through a lot and is a simplistic reminder that each minute, each second is woven with divine purpose and is a gift from God. Just the simple stating of those 4 words already changes my mindset for the day. Read more
Lydia Bugosh lives a Bug’s Wife life. She teaches dance at the Johnstown Concert Ballet School and recently graduated from Eastern University and majored in dance. She says, “Dancing has to be a heart thing. The most full and whole version of me is me dancing. I’ve realized that I have important things to say, and I’m not hiding anymore.”
Falling in Love Again
by Kristina Peterson
My husband was driving us home. The tires rolling down the icy road, so quiet you could hear a pin drop. My thoughts were gnawing at me when I finally said, “I don’t think I love you anymore”
According to The Huffington Post the divorce rate in Christian America today is about 50%.
Those words had visited me for years. Knocking and waiting for me to answer. I didn’t pay attention because behind the closed door our lives were filled with home school, moving, babies and the usual difficulties any marriage experiences.
1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Those words were spoken without a resolution and life continued without change. Until the light in the room had brightened the words from 1 Corinthians 13:4 and it became clear. Love . . . IT IS NOT SELF-SEEKING.
“I”, “me”, “mine” these words are the ones that had been dancing around in my world. For my husband, there was an empty dance floor. Love sat patiently in the corner.
Colossians 3:13
Be gentle and ready to forgive: never hold grudges, remember the Lord forgave you, you must forgive others.
Stop and read 1 Corinthians 13:4 and you may find that you can see yourself doing the opposite of what Love is but how can “love” stay patiently when it is not being given a welcoming hand to hold?
How did I fall in love again? I embraced LOVE with everything God gave me. It was not long until we were together, dancing on the dance floor. That moment that I thought of him, my husband, LOVE surrounded us and we were happy. When I say “I thought of him” what I mean is that I took action. If he had to work late I appreciated how hard he works for his family and take time to make sure when he gets home dinner is made, the house is picked up, I am off the phone and I am mindful of him.
What Can You Do
Don’t be self-seeking and trust in God. Whenever your mind starts churning with “Why didn’t he . . .”, “He should have . . .” STOP! Those are not the words of love, and God is LOVE. Pray every day and read God’s answers.
- Make a list of all the good things your husband does. You might need to start with obvious things like “he works hard to take care of our family,” “he told me when he hears the birds he thinks of me.” It could be as great as “he put the toilet seat down when I asked.”
- Every once in a while let him know you love him with love emails or texts.
- Praise him. When he doubts himself, remind him of how wonderful you believe he is. And if he tells you how wonderful he is, agree and give him a loving kiss.
I cannot promise years of romantic dances but God has given me this masterful blessing of loving my husband to depths that I did not know existed. And this story is how it happened.
A Prayer for You 
Heavenly Father,
Thank you Lord for all the blessings You have given me. Help me Lord to do Your will in our marriage so that it may be healed. Forgive me Lord for not sharing Your love with my spouse. I want to love my spouse the way You love me. Help me to be a vessel of Your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in _____’s life.
In His name we pray,
Amen
Kristina Peterson is a homeschooling mom born in Southern California and has raised her family from Alaska to Florida and states in between. She currently lives in Pennsylvania. She is passionate about vintage children’s books and her beautiful family — three sons and her husband whom she adores.
Noticing Beauty
“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.” (Jesus, Sermon on the Mount)
“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” (King David)
Noticing Beauty — Part 3
by Julie Leppert
A whisper and a listening are the modalities of Beauty.
A seascape and a rose, a bride and her groom, these, too, are the ways in which Beauty speaks and dwells.
A beholding — it is how we notice Beauty, how we are gathered up by it.
How it is taken in,
like holy sacrament,
as if a miracle were occurring,
a rosebud unfolding.
Beauty calls us to life.
It sends out her song with each sunrise.
Every single day.
Have you ever noticed her melody, how it moves and how it sounds? 
The notes of a song that anchor and move us forward in time
amid rising and shifting harmonies, the waves cresting and falling,
caressing and dancing upon lyrical sands — this, a melody — and
in the pausing, in the listening we touch things intangible.
Indeed, we are made new.
Beauty is experienced in various forms. We interact with it sometimes even when we are least noticing what is occurring.
I wonder, for us, when it comes to Beauty, is there something we end up ignoring but at which our heart quickens when it considers the sun lighting upon the fields each morning?
I ask the question. Hold onto it. Consider it.
You see, in these our lives, if there’s something we women really do well day to day, it is that we touch time. And space. And baby’s toes.
And when we do, we are drawn into a sacred moment — again and again. And, if we linger just long enough, beholding, observing, dwelling there with our senses engaged — smelling, feeling, listening, tasting, seeing — we may just hear lifting above all the thousands of busy and untidy things in our days the words to a song which says:
You are invited.
The pewter goblets are set and the windmill cookies are simple, but the whole elegance says, “You are invited, won’t you join me?”
Do you hear it? Yes.
Beauty. Invites. You.
It speaks the language of Love, and it answers to longing. It exists in its own place, its own way, with no other purpose than to be and to invite — and in responding with delight, we are made well, yet not entirely well; for Beauty makes us increasingly aware of something more.
One meal at a time. 
One task at a time.
One smile at a time.
One intimacy at a time.
And so we discover, in time, that, yes …
We are the hungering ones.
We hunger for Beauty.
And it’s okay.
You see, with right hunger properly met comes particular fulfillment.
Jesus tells about it in his mountainside talk. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
What does this have to do with Beauty?
Beauty is a kind of rightness. We know this. We name a thing ugly when its anticipated form is altered or disfigured so irregularly that we react to it with shock or dismay. Like a burned victim of war. Or the stripping of the earth by mining.
You see, Beauty’s essence flows from the person of God — God who is holy; yet, this, our world, is broken in as many ways as Beauty exists. We know this intuitively and react when something is amiss. A vase falls and smashes into pieces, and we rush to gather it up and mend it — if it were possible.
If you will, the holiness of God is akin to Beauty.
Yet, Beauty becomes a consumable commodity. We buy it, sell it, package it, and do it all over again tomorrow, because we’re never quite satisfied.
So we control it and do things with it that bring us promise to our longing. We also fear Beauty. For in our possession, it could be marred, yet without it, we feel inexplicably undone.
So, with fear and trembling, we may grasp hold of it, as it IS a kind of rightness for which our soul desperately hungers — a kind of holiness, a completeness, which we know deep in our bones we have lost or misplaced.
If we follow Beauty — if we stop doing things with it as if it were a thing to be greedily gathered up like manna in a barren dessert — but, instead, as one who is lost follows a stream to its source, we will find the Creator — the One in whom all things consist. Who holds us together.
Beauty will draw us to Him and to each other.
I think of the psalm where God is described as Lord and Shepherd. And I think of a talk spoken by the director of Circe Institute, Andrew Kern:
“You become what you behold.”
Maybe he borrowed the phrase. I don’t know, but I do know something essential about this business of beholding and Beauty:
When life presses in around us, sometimes the thing we least notice — but most need — is a deep awareness of God’s eternal Beauty and how his nearness is made tangible to our senses through the Beauty he prepares for us.
“Like a table in the presence of our enemies,” where the Lord-Shepherd is found.
Does it sound too theatrical, theoretical, or like an abstraction?
Consider …
Beauty is the sunset splashing deep golden colors across the lake’s surface. It is the towhee singing its love note from the Creator and the friend who notices and can interpret the song.
It’s the literal green grass beneath our feet. It’s the puppy’s pink tongue licking your fingers. It is a meadow filled with wildflowers on which to lie down.
I want a meadow. Don’t you?
You know, I think we’ve been given at least one or two meadows — it’s just seeing it is the trouble. It’s making time, looking, beholding. It’s locating where the Shepherd is and seeing what he’s doing or has done already.
It means stopping. Laying aside our busyness. And really seeing the people and landscape of our lives with fresh eyes. And resisting the urge to treat one another and things lovely and good as if they were meant to be devoured when they (and we) were not ever meant for such handling.
Really, it’s that simple.
Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matt. 6:22-23)
Beholding Beauty cleanses our eyes. And in noticing Beauty, we recognize it speaks to our desires. I am not talking about the sort of lustful looking that intends to consume or corrupt a thing most precious to fill a ravenous hungering of the soul wrongly. I mean the sort of beholding that occurs within the heart and draws us near to God.
You may recognize the deep theological tremors that shake miles of strata beneath calloused soles. Because for one brief while, we may just hear the voice that says to us, like to the stuttering prince of Egypt, “Take off your sandals.” This is holy ground. You see …
Beauty. Invites. Our participation.
If you’ve come this far — reading all 3 parts of Beauty — I want to leave us with something simple and practical. And, yes, it’s the theology rumbling beneath our feet.
It’s the dew upon the morning grass. It’s the noticing and the beholding. It’s the change from glory to glory when we look into God’s mirror. (Oh, how we women love-hate our mirrors). It’s the delicate lips gently placed on mother’s cheek by her growing baby who stands strong upon her knees. It’s the brush of a calloused but tender hand on tired feet, working out the sore. It’s the song simply sung or the cherries plucked gently with mercy and peace.
Beauty emanates from God’s own being. Beauty is Immanuel, God with us, calling to us by His Spirit — as he once did salted, sweaty fishermen, only then, He used his voice, air and vibrations mingling, moving as liquid across his own vocal chords. A voice of many waters, the prophet says. If you hear his voice through Beauty, though, it is enough. We need not despair. Beauty brings to us His invitation. 
And the song is called Redemption.
We who hear her get to respond.
Yet, how do we, as women, respond to Beauty? How do we stay open to Beauty’s invitation when the world breaks apart around us? When it seems more dead-end or down-right dangerous than life-giving?
When the Beauty gets piled under the dust and dying.
It’s that small talk. That self talk. It’s pausing to hear your heart beat or the wings of the red-winged black bird as it alights from the power line by the field of sweet corn.
So, let’s do this, let’s begin with simply one thing:
Beholding Beauty amidst our fragile, busy, hectic days.
Yes, this requires us to pause.
And like we respond to our Love’s voice at the end of a long day, we speak a particular language just for Beauty, in reply. I believe our responsive language to Beauty is thanksgiving and praise. It naturally fills our breasts and rumbles out of our beings, like air from a baby’s lungs at birth. And so we, too, come alive in response to the Creator who gives all good gifts. Every. One.
We are not worshiping a false god, but we are crying holy, holy, holy with the seraphs to the One lifted most high, and Beauty invites us to do so.
What are some practical ways you may spend with Beauty?
In a relationship. With yourself. With your child. With your husband. A friend. God. Go ahead, this is for you — an invitation. Just pick one — and go gently. Plan a place and a time to notice Beauty in that person, in your surroundings, in yourself or another someone.
Don’t rush off.
Don’t check it off your list.
Be still.
And where ugliness shows up, pause. Let your heart beat and notice the discord. Don’t ignore it. Don’t try to cover it up. Or get busy with other things. But choose something else in its place, intentionally.
Perhaps simply a prayer for help is all you must do. And wait there in the presence of redemption. For our Redeemer somehow morphs our brokenness into Beauty.
The pausing, the noticing, the praying — these are so simple it may feel disappointing.
But our response is never small. For when we respond to Beauty, we draw near to God, and something in ourselves comes alive in His presence. And when you are ready, behold Jesus, for you have already been looking His direction. In fullness of Beauty he dwells amidst us. The Beautiful One. You will fall apart at the awareness of being undone, but it’s okay, He will put you back together, again.
Now one more invitation awaits you — you are invited to check out Heart Working Women’s 2016 Fall Conference here. We would be thrilled for you to join us.
Beauty Part 2
Tears gathered in my eyes, and my friends wondered.
“The details of this world, no matter how harsh they may be, can be assembled into poetry and art.” (Robert Klein Engler)
Beauty Part 2
by Julie Leppert
(Read/listen to Beauty Pt. 1 here.)
You returned! Welcome home to Heart Working Women!
The way I see it, everyone likes a little mystery now and again. And Beauty invites us into mystery always.
However, some things in life we cannot possibly write or think about unless metaphor is invited to the telling.
Or a story begins it.
I need both, story and metaphor, to help me think of Beauty — to tell of its mystery in my own life. (See Part 1 here, friend.)
You see, our struggle with Beauty is about loss.
Deep loss.
A thing all women know sooner or later.
About 10 years ago, I found a book entitled Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul. I read the first chapter. Sat it on my desk. And literally did not lay a finger on it for about two years.
It was my Vesuvius. I dusted around it. I feared that if I got too near, if I looked inside, it would incinerate me. Or, at least, spew hot ash all across my person, and I would not recover. I would become Pompeii.
You see, the Eldredge’s book was beautiful in ways that my soul could not endure.
So grace-work had much-work to do in me. (Some things remain the same, but, still, here we are, and I smile at grace-work’s play, after all.)
The book, cowritten by John and Stasi Eldridge – two beautiful souls, two sensitive voices – eventually felt ok in my hands to hold, to open, to read.
A friend who mentored me was right. It became a source of delight and encouragement — although not one that I would openly discuss with other women. But recently, while sitting with two capable and supportive writerly friends, one of them innocently noticed that a young female author – beautiful in every respect – had landed herself a major publishing contract and had earned her first big venue in a national book chain. I sighed.
Tears gathered in my eyes, and my friends wondered. I sort of got this much out:
You see, girls, we are middle-aged women. We have flaws. We are mothers. We’ve each birthed three children. We don’t look like the gleaming, polished young woman mentioned in passing.
Is there even a place for us?
But, yet, there’s something awe-inspired, something deeply comforting about your presence, your beings, your beauty.
Loss of Beauty pierces our world, our souls.
The story of Beauty lost is an ancient story, and the tale, if told, goes far beyond any memory of our grandmothers’ wedding bands that slipped over arthritic knuckles or their bridal gowns that yellowed over time.
Yes, the story, the tale, is an allusion to Eve and her splendid, exquisite beauty, her home, her world, her own loss.
Have you ever wondered how Eve “post-beautiful garden” got on with her life, her losses, afterward? (She lived a very long time.)
It brings up a very messy, complicated point – that relationship which exists, the present-day dichotomy between building a platform for ourselves in our image-driven culture and the longing for an enduring, authentic beauty.
In other words, the messes of life call us to think poignantly about Beauty and its nature, its very essence. Even its origin. It’s an important thing for modern women to contemplate.
If we are to be whole-hearted gals, women who creatively inspire life-giving relationships, what can we do?
We must sift through the messages of our culture and its gritty residue collecting within our own selves.
We can discern where the trouble comes in and sort out the truth from the rubble.
But where do we start? How does it matter and why?
I see only in part, so please help me out at the end of this by adding your perspective.
But the way I see it, the trouble we, as women, have with Beauty begins with disorder smashing into our lives. I mean real, soul disorder.
When Beauty, especially if it’s the beauty that resides in her person, gets ill-handled by other broken beings — of whom we must count ourselves among if we count ourselves part of the world at all — things get messy.
Even the mortar of our communities that binds us ALL either breaks apart or …
We lose something life-giving when Beauty is misunderstood or consumed greedily.
Does anyone notice? Have you felt it?
The misunderstanding or the exploitation of beautiful things, precious things (for they are one and the same) is a different matter than simply our diminishing bodies, as if that’s not bad enough.
It seems our world is bent on consuming beauty, in doing things to it which dehumanizes us all — in the end. (Yes, we also ironically and simultaneously have an obsession with retaining Beauty, especially of the body.)
I am still working this out, and every time
I get close to it, I am undone.
Then I glance up and see
a pink sky at twilight, or yellow roses
surprise me midday, and
I am put back together again.
This is more than cosmetics. In an instant, I take into myself a natural wonder, and it feels like a miracle.
It goes far deeper than a temporary sense of self-esteem.
It’s about a natural world
filled with natural Beauty 
that calls out the name of One
who calls deep unto deep and draws us there —
to an ocean alive with mercy and filled with grace.
The images of Beauty, though powerful, are fragile.
The fragility of Beauty is how it matters. Fragile things are costly to replace. They require special care, special attention. One moment they entrance us, and in the next instant they may dissolve from neglect or outright violence.
And the reason why it matters is the very thing which Beauty does:
Beauty ministers mysteriously and deeply to our souls.
AND — here’s the thing — as women, we long for our own special role with things beautiful. (Yes, Stasi Eldredge, I hear you.) But for some of us, the Beauty that was woven inside our souls when we were stitched together in our Mommas’ bellies was broken early. It was mishandled. Yet, as grown women …
We are drawn to gently tend to the Beauty around us …
… and by engaging things tangible — or avoiding them out of fear or over-consuming them from a deeper hunger — we play a part central to our beings, whether ordered or disordered in the expression.
The peonies or lavender growing along the walkway, 
the tidy hanging of clean shirts,
the folding of white napkins beside porcelain bowls,
the bathing of sorrowing wounds with gentleness
can make even a broken thing heal.
Yes, Beauty holds deep mystery.
When we touch Beauty, when we do beautiful acts and care for broken or fragile, beautiful things,
we are made the keepers of this mystery,
and we gain a peculiar love —
something far larger than our piles of dirty laundry.
For this love compels us to care in the first place about that pile.
So we dare to breathe-brave within our very own part of a story that takes, some days, much courage. Courage to transcend, to heal. To contend with the mess.
I for one like the idea of transcending dirty laundry and brokenness. Don’t you? We do it for ourselves, we do it for our families. And then one day we realize something.
The world, like us, travails.
And because it does, and because we are women — midwives by nature, those who nurture and bring a quality of life to our families and neighbors that would otherwise not exist — the essential question, the real question, is this:
How do we simultaneously offer life-giving grace to such a world AND heal from our own losses?
And this, dear sisters, is why I could not read Captivating for two years. It was too much. I had to go slow.
Here’s my appeal to us all — as a place to begin — no matter where you find yourself when it comes to assessing your losses with regard to Beauty,
let’s take one
small
brave
step
together.
Here it is:
Let’s not numb our soul when it comes to Beauty. Stay open. (For me, taking my bio photo for Heart Working Women was a way to stay open. Writing this, definitely, yes. Wide open.)
MUCH is at stake.
We could just pause here for a longing while.
I’ve said enough. It’s earth shattering. It’s enough to realize. Beauty exists. It plays a role. It’s necessary. No, it’s vital. It calls to our longing — that volcano we dust around.
Indeed, let’s pause for real.
Take a beautiful, brave breath, go for a meandering walk, and feel a late summer sun fall warmly across your skin.
Maybe think upon one of your most beautiful moments in the past few days? Would you share it here or tell a friend? We would love to hear from you.
I hope you will join me in a few days — for our 3rd harmony with Beauty. In it we will talk about how to engage Beauty in simple ways. (Read/listen to Beauty Pt. 1 here.)
(Hey! Why not join HWW’s email list so you won’t miss it! Go to www.heartworkingwomen.com)
One of the blessings of learning to do transformation prayer is that you become so much more aware of how God is always waiting, ready to help us work through anything and everything that troubles us. Truly He is our ever-present help in time of trouble.
That’s so true Melanie. Becoming aware of God’s character and how He’s always waiting, willing, and ready to work through what troubles us.