Joseph had an awesome appearance courtesy of the artwork of God. Watching art can be enjoyable. God wants us to enjoy a wide variety of things knowing that everything has to be managed. No one and no thing is to be more important to us than God. 1 John 5:21 Amplified Bible says, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols (false gods)—[from anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due to God, from any sort of substitute for Him that would take first place in your life]. Amen (so let it be)."
Potiphar and his wife were at one time Joseph's employers (Genesis 39.) Potiphar's wife liked God's artwork expressed in Joseph but not God's authority. Instead of following God's plan for pursuing partner sexual fulfillment in marriage, she pestered Joseph for sex outside of marriage.
A Yoruba of Nigeria proverb says, "May my outer head not spoil my inner head." Joseph didn't idolize his beauty. He repeatedly loved and respected God and God's rules. God the Son Jesus Christ says in John 14:15 New Living Translation Bible, "If you love me, obey my commandments."
The Chinese invented the rudder. God does not give us rules without the power to steer our lives according to them. When we have a relationship with God, God comes to live inside creyentes (believers) giving us the power to do what He says.
Having God's power doesn't mean we will not struggle to use it. The struggle is easiest when we stay close to the Greatest Lover, God.
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Monday, July 22, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Sex is Good, Very Good
God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and said all of creation is good, very good. So I know that sleep is good, and science is saying that adults need six to eight hours of sleep nightly.
But I have to confess I wish someone would invent a pill that would replace the need for sleep. I can relate to Virginia Woolf when she says, "Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life."
I don't like to miss anything; I want to maximize everything. My mother says I was always like this from birth. I had to see everything; to avoid crying don't lay Michele down; prop her up in a way that she's able to access a panoramic view.
Side story here -- don't just let your baby cry on and on; she's trying to tell you to fix a problem
As a child my mom says she had the worst time getting me to go to sleep.
Ugly isn't Holy
Now as an adult I'm currently trying to lose some body fat from my 5 feet 6 inch small-boned 8 frame. I'm smaller than Marilyn Monroe who was a size 12 or 16 depending on the source. I can imagine some of you now thinking something like, "Seek inner beauty." That I possess and am becoming more inwardly beautiful daily because God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost live on the inside and is showing up on the outside in increasing measure. I live by Ephesians 5:10 New Living Translation Bible which says, "Carefully determine what pleases the Lord."
Did you also know cultivating outer beauty is a Christian virtue? Ugly isn't holy! A man says to his woman in Song of Songs 7:1-7 New Living Translation Bible, "How beautiful are your sandaled feet, o queenly maiden. Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a skilled craftsman. Your navel is perfectly formed like a goblet filled with mixed wine. Between your thighs lies a mound of wheat bordered with lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle. Your neck is as beautiful as an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the sparkling pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is as fine as the tower of Lebanon overlooking Damascus. Your head is as majestic as Mount Carmel, and the sheen of your hair radiates royalty. The king is held captive by its tresses. Oh, how beautiful you are! How pleasing, my love, how full of delights! You are slender like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit."
Sleep has many benefits one of which is it can help me to be "slender like a palm tree." In June 2011 the New England Journal of Medicine published an article which reported that researchers at Harvard University completed a 20-year study conducted in four-year intervals of measuring the weight of 120,877 men and women who were not obese and did not have chronic diseases. These researchers discovered that adults who slept nightly in the six-to-eight-hours-of-nightly-sleep range gained fewer pounds than those whose sleep patterns varied outside the six-to-eight hours of nightly sleep.
Sexual Frustration
"It's always too early to quit." -- Norman Vincent Peale
My mom says as a child I asked a lot of questions. I wasn't always satisfied with the answers adults gave especially on subjects that made them uncomfortable. As a three-year-old I was frustrated that my maternal grandmother wouldn't answer my questions about "butts." Yes, three years old is not too young to talk to our children about sex. We are created by God as sexual beings. Jenny Walsh of La Trobe University and author of a sex guide published through the Australian Research Center on Sex, Health and Society, encourages parents to talk to our children ages two through 17 often about sex; it doesn't encourage them to engage in sex, but ensures a good education. A good sexual education includes and is not limited to labeling body parts with accurate, respectful terminology, such as "penis" and "vagina" when engaging in every-day-life activities, such as, toilet training. Also always celebrate the physical body created by God as opposed to creating a sense of sin and shame about the physical body.
Later on as a third or fourth grader I still had questions about sex. I talked with my mom. She would only tell me about female menstrual cycles and reproduction. What I really wanted know was how to have sex, but mom wouldn't go there saying I was too young for this information and needed to wait until marriage time.
Tina, who is my younger sister, I and other girlfriends enjoyed playing with the dolls Ken and Barbie. I had thoughts like, "Surely Ken and Barbie are suppose to do more than just kiss?" So I came up with a solution.
Conspiring with Tina, one night we hid under our parents' bed. Fortunately, for my parents, they caught my sister and I before any action transpired!
In the police-like interrogation of the two "criminals" my mother didn't even grill my sister for hatching this plan, she zeroed in on the visionary.
If I didn't know then that sleep was good, very good, at least I knew sex was.
But I have to confess I wish someone would invent a pill that would replace the need for sleep. I can relate to Virginia Woolf when she says, "Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life."
I don't like to miss anything; I want to maximize everything. My mother says I was always like this from birth. I had to see everything; to avoid crying don't lay Michele down; prop her up in a way that she's able to access a panoramic view.
Side story here -- don't just let your baby cry on and on; she's trying to tell you to fix a problem
As a child my mom says she had the worst time getting me to go to sleep.
Ugly isn't Holy
Now as an adult I'm currently trying to lose some body fat from my 5 feet 6 inch small-boned 8 frame. I'm smaller than Marilyn Monroe who was a size 12 or 16 depending on the source. I can imagine some of you now thinking something like, "Seek inner beauty." That I possess and am becoming more inwardly beautiful daily because God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost live on the inside and is showing up on the outside in increasing measure. I live by Ephesians 5:10 New Living Translation Bible which says, "Carefully determine what pleases the Lord."
Did you also know cultivating outer beauty is a Christian virtue? Ugly isn't holy! A man says to his woman in Song of Songs 7:1-7 New Living Translation Bible, "How beautiful are your sandaled feet, o queenly maiden. Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a skilled craftsman. Your navel is perfectly formed like a goblet filled with mixed wine. Between your thighs lies a mound of wheat bordered with lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle. Your neck is as beautiful as an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the sparkling pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is as fine as the tower of Lebanon overlooking Damascus. Your head is as majestic as Mount Carmel, and the sheen of your hair radiates royalty. The king is held captive by its tresses. Oh, how beautiful you are! How pleasing, my love, how full of delights! You are slender like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit."
Sleep has many benefits one of which is it can help me to be "slender like a palm tree." In June 2011 the New England Journal of Medicine published an article which reported that researchers at Harvard University completed a 20-year study conducted in four-year intervals of measuring the weight of 120,877 men and women who were not obese and did not have chronic diseases. These researchers discovered that adults who slept nightly in the six-to-eight-hours-of-nightly-sleep range gained fewer pounds than those whose sleep patterns varied outside the six-to-eight hours of nightly sleep.
Sexual Frustration
"It's always too early to quit." -- Norman Vincent Peale
My mom says as a child I asked a lot of questions. I wasn't always satisfied with the answers adults gave especially on subjects that made them uncomfortable. As a three-year-old I was frustrated that my maternal grandmother wouldn't answer my questions about "butts." Yes, three years old is not too young to talk to our children about sex. We are created by God as sexual beings. Jenny Walsh of La Trobe University and author of a sex guide published through the Australian Research Center on Sex, Health and Society, encourages parents to talk to our children ages two through 17 often about sex; it doesn't encourage them to engage in sex, but ensures a good education. A good sexual education includes and is not limited to labeling body parts with accurate, respectful terminology, such as "penis" and "vagina" when engaging in every-day-life activities, such as, toilet training. Also always celebrate the physical body created by God as opposed to creating a sense of sin and shame about the physical body.
Later on as a third or fourth grader I still had questions about sex. I talked with my mom. She would only tell me about female menstrual cycles and reproduction. What I really wanted know was how to have sex, but mom wouldn't go there saying I was too young for this information and needed to wait until marriage time.
Tina, who is my younger sister, I and other girlfriends enjoyed playing with the dolls Ken and Barbie. I had thoughts like, "Surely Ken and Barbie are suppose to do more than just kiss?" So I came up with a solution.
Conspiring with Tina, one night we hid under our parents' bed. Fortunately, for my parents, they caught my sister and I before any action transpired!
In the police-like interrogation of the two "criminals" my mother didn't even grill my sister for hatching this plan, she zeroed in on the visionary.
If I didn't know then that sleep was good, very good, at least I knew sex was.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
4 Ways to Enduring Love
God inserts inspiration everywhere. When weariness strikes talk to God to work it out. Living in continual weariness is a wish from Satan. Love endures.
1 Corinthians 13:7 Amplified Bible says, "Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]." 1 Corinthians 13:7 shares with us four qualities of enduring love.
Some dismiss the dreams of children as being temporary and ever-changing. Leila Lopes, a Christian, the currently reigning Miss Universe, from the African nation Angola, which is the Portuguese name for the ruling ngola they encountered in the 1480s, tells New African Woman magazine, "Pursue your dreams, stay true to yourself and never look back. If you try hard enough you can achieve anything." Lopes says that ever since she was a little girl she dreamed of competing in the Miss Universe Pageant.
Some say that 90 percent of what we hear daily is negative. Tune out the naysayers by tapping into the never-ending power of God the Holy Ghost who lives on the inside of Christians.
Dreams are not dust to be swept away by the duties of reality. Lopes never gave up on her childhood dream that was realized as an adult. Lopes enduring love for God and herself overflows to others. God is using Lopes to share with people globally the message of love and beauty in Jesus Christ, in the continent of Africa and in Africans from the motherland and the diaspora.
Life doesn't always go according to our mental script. I wanted my 19-year-old son, Rafael, to enjoy a salad while soaking in the bathtub. He received it with so much joy, that he knocked the salad off the ledge of the tub spilling Spring mix leaves, tomatoes, olives and the other contents on the floor and in the bath water. I held in upset. Rafael didn't spill the salad on purpose. It was a mistake. I gave him time to himself to process the event. He said, "I'm sorry." Then, "I do good." I gave him a rag without any critical comments. We cleaned up together. My calm efficiency promoted his calm joy. After clean up, he continued to enjoy soaking and eating.
The healthiest, happiest, hardiest relationships share far more positivity than negativity. Psychologist John Gottman, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington and executive director of Relationship Research Institute, says to practice the five to one ratio. For every one negative interaction (a complaint, a disagreement, an argument, etc.) engage in five positive interactions (a compliment, a smile, a kiss, a hug, cuddling, a shared laugh or happy memory, etc.)
Kenneth Ulmer was a successful radio broadcast professional, went through two divorces, conceived two children by two different women and was suicidal.
Today's circumstances may be disastrous, but in many tomorrows they may be delightful. Keep on hoping for the best.
Ulmer not only married again he has been married for more than 30 years, adopted a son, adopted a teenage daughter from Africa who had AIDS and is now Bishop Kenneth Ulmer of Faith Central Bible Church in California.
Some relationships God designed for a lifetime. Just because God designed marriage as two people becoming one does not mean that two people will not struggle to keep sin from shredding the marriage. Cindy Beall is married to pastor, Chris Beall, who came home one day and confessed to numerous affairs with numerous people from numerous places. One woman was carrying his child.
Divorce is an option with repeated adulteries, but so is heart surgery to save the marriage. Endurance means slicing out selfishness.
We cannot give 50 percent of self to a relationship. When two people give people 50 percent, 1/2 X 1/2 equals 1/4. We end up with less of a relationship! But in dying to selfishness and giving 100 percent of self to each other, not only was Cindy's and Chris' marriage saved, but also both the mom of the child conceived out of wedlock and the child are active parts of Cindy's and Chris' life so much so that their conquering adultery and commitment to love is their ministry. No matter what we are facing, love (God's love in us) can overcome it, multiply and edify.
God is so good that He can make our relationships better after major conflicts than they were before them. Today will you choose love over everything else? Please leave an on-line comment, and choose love with me on Twitter.com at "Michelelove30" and Google's G+.
1 Corinthians 13:7 Amplified Bible says, "Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]." 1 Corinthians 13:7 shares with us four qualities of enduring love.
1. Never Give Up.
Some dismiss the dreams of children as being temporary and ever-changing. Leila Lopes, a Christian, the currently reigning Miss Universe, from the African nation Angola, which is the Portuguese name for the ruling ngola they encountered in the 1480s, tells New African Woman magazine, "Pursue your dreams, stay true to yourself and never look back. If you try hard enough you can achieve anything." Lopes says that ever since she was a little girl she dreamed of competing in the Miss Universe Pageant.
Some say that 90 percent of what we hear daily is negative. Tune out the naysayers by tapping into the never-ending power of God the Holy Ghost who lives on the inside of Christians.
Dreams are not dust to be swept away by the duties of reality. Lopes never gave up on her childhood dream that was realized as an adult. Lopes enduring love for God and herself overflows to others. God is using Lopes to share with people globally the message of love and beauty in Jesus Christ, in the continent of Africa and in Africans from the motherland and the diaspora.
2. Believe the Best of Every Person.
Life doesn't always go according to our mental script. I wanted my 19-year-old son, Rafael, to enjoy a salad while soaking in the bathtub. He received it with so much joy, that he knocked the salad off the ledge of the tub spilling Spring mix leaves, tomatoes, olives and the other contents on the floor and in the bath water. I held in upset. Rafael didn't spill the salad on purpose. It was a mistake. I gave him time to himself to process the event. He said, "I'm sorry." Then, "I do good." I gave him a rag without any critical comments. We cleaned up together. My calm efficiency promoted his calm joy. After clean up, he continued to enjoy soaking and eating.
The healthiest, happiest, hardiest relationships share far more positivity than negativity. Psychologist John Gottman, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington and executive director of Relationship Research Institute, says to practice the five to one ratio. For every one negative interaction (a complaint, a disagreement, an argument, etc.) engage in five positive interactions (a compliment, a smile, a kiss, a hug, cuddling, a shared laugh or happy memory, etc.)
3. Be Ever Hopeful.
Kenneth Ulmer was a successful radio broadcast professional, went through two divorces, conceived two children by two different women and was suicidal.
Today's circumstances may be disastrous, but in many tomorrows they may be delightful. Keep on hoping for the best.
Ulmer not only married again he has been married for more than 30 years, adopted a son, adopted a teenage daughter from Africa who had AIDS and is now Bishop Kenneth Ulmer of Faith Central Bible Church in California.
4. Endure.
Some relationships God designed for a lifetime. Just because God designed marriage as two people becoming one does not mean that two people will not struggle to keep sin from shredding the marriage. Cindy Beall is married to pastor, Chris Beall, who came home one day and confessed to numerous affairs with numerous people from numerous places. One woman was carrying his child.
Divorce is an option with repeated adulteries, but so is heart surgery to save the marriage. Endurance means slicing out selfishness.
We cannot give 50 percent of self to a relationship. When two people give people 50 percent, 1/2 X 1/2 equals 1/4. We end up with less of a relationship! But in dying to selfishness and giving 100 percent of self to each other, not only was Cindy's and Chris' marriage saved, but also both the mom of the child conceived out of wedlock and the child are active parts of Cindy's and Chris' life so much so that their conquering adultery and commitment to love is their ministry. No matter what we are facing, love (God's love in us) can overcome it, multiply and edify.
God is so good that He can make our relationships better after major conflicts than they were before them. Today will you choose love over everything else? Please leave an on-line comment, and choose love with me on Twitter.com at "Michelelove30" and Google's G+.
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