On This Day in 2005

Beautiful things happen when you clean the basement.
I mean, besides getting rid of cobwebs and dried up bugs and a plethora of stuff you don't need (Am I making my house sound attractive yet???) sometimes you come across a treasure.
Which is exactly what happened recently when our basement got a bit soggy from all the rain, and I actually started looking around and realized I needed to spend time down there in clean-up mode. That is to say, I got rid of the cobwebs and bugs and lots of "stuff".
And I came across a treasure.
Six old, spiral-bound notebooks which served as my journals, note-taking spaces, and general idea-capsules. Dating all the way back to 2003.
I have not had the time to read through all of them yet.
But the glances I've had have been a delight.
Like this one, from fourteen years ago, today.
It wasn't delightful, necessarily, to remember how awful I felt when I was writing this - to recall painful emotions and the self-deprecation I was carrying around in my head and heart. However, to be on the other side of it and to know God has been faithful in answering the cries of His desperate daughter?
Ahhhhh, such deep, deep joy!
That is, I know I am not yet who He has created me to be.
I know this is a process and God is still refining me.
But as I read this entry and look back on where I was, HE reminds me: I am not who I used to be.
So, I'm opening up my journal and sharing this moment with you - in the hopes that you might be encouraged in some way for your own journey.

O, my Lord, You give me hope in such wonderful ways.
Over the last couple of days I have become discouraged in myself. I have been impatient with my children and in general have been lacking joy. I have the desire to be a holy, godly woman, but I'm not seeing her!
Then there is the body thing, weight gain, menstruation...blah.
So I was just feeling yucky today - fat, and not godly; ready to cry at anything.
Then what shoud I read but an excerpt from Kathy Troccoli in Forever in Love with Jesus, where she says she used to feel shame and self-contempt; where she says that she prayed (in faith because she didn't really think it could happen) that she would one day be comfortable in her skin, and that she would have her character transformed by the Spirit of God.
And I thought, What?! I see such a godly woman in her, and yet she once felt shame and self-contempt?! Does that mean there is hope for me? Yes, it sure does!
Dee Brestin writes, "This is how redemption works: as we press in close to the Redeemer, He will 're-create' us. How He longs to answer those prayers that plead for a redemption of our character."
Lord, Jesus, hear my prayer! I want to be transformed. I want to be beautiful for You. I want to attract others to You! Please work in me that which is pleasing to You!

And that remains my prayer today.
I want to be transformed. I want to be a beautiful reflection of Jesus to the world around me.
I want to attract others to HIM. Lord, please work in me that which is pleasing to YOU!