until He says to stop.

It’s a new year and I like to hit refresh on my purposes for everything. We all have too much on our hands sisters to do anything without purpose. So I might take the first few weeks of this year to share with ya’ll what I’m finding when I look for purpose.

1 Peter 3:4 says – But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

Adorning is to make beautiful or attractive. But for us,  it’s not about the beauty. The braiding of the hair or the house. Or the home tours. Or the cleaning schedules. Or the fashion Fridays. And surely those can’t be all wrong – but it can be wrong if we’re seeing them as the best part.

So what is to make us attractive or beautiful is… Well, wait. Back up again. It has to be all about Him. So why would we want anything to be beautiful? To bring Him glory. So that others see beauty in us and are pointed to Him.

So let the beauty be the hidden person of the heart. And how is it seen if it’s hidden. And is everything that is hidden worthy or worthwhile or beneficial or beautiful? My guess is no. Cause Oh Lord I’ve got some hidden things that are ugly. U gee el why.

So, here comes the WITH.

Let it be that with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

One thing I know about gentle and quiet spirits is they aren’t born. Well, maybe they are in you. One was not born in this sinful flesh. But slowly. With restraint. With sweat. With tears. With biting my tongue and swallowing pride and crucifying flesh and putting on of the good things. There is one deep in there.

And it feels like my job, well – Christ in me, His job, to slough off and exfoliate this rough and bumpy, loud and entitled spirit.

And use what is left. The hidden pieces. In the quietest and gentlest way.

So here is what’s left:

To keep writing till He says stop.

To be hidden FIRST in my husband. To let my voice always be in submission to him and to Him. To be quiet long enough, that the Lord would loosen his tongue and when he’s said his peace and nodded gently to me – to speak. I have to say, this is freeing and made utterly joyful by the fact that He is good and while he is sinful, I can trust them both. He died for me and I know he daily is trying to.

To be hidden next in my family and my Family. To be inaccessible when a diaper needs changing, a book needs reading, a child needs disciple, a meal needs making, a sister needs prayer, a friend needs help, or a community needs the gospel.

And then to hide in Him. To have no fear of self or failure or confusion or double chins. Because I’m hidden in Him.

And then those pieces that He chooses for me to share, to wrap them in the fallible and fresh (and not yet complete) gentle & quiet skin and to share them. This should be the true story. The genuine story.

And maybe sometimes the story is light and about thrift shopping and maybe sometimes it’s dark and it’s about death, but it stays genuine. It isn’t “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, it is a true story – filtered through the layers of redemptive hiding and told by gentle & quiet. But when it’s all said & done – I want to ask one question – Is it REALLY true? And by that I mean, does it really tell the gospel even it never uses the words, even though it will quite often.

And to mess up and start all over again, in grace and growing in wisdom.

Until He says to stop.