Virtuous Woman

Living up to the expectations of the women in today’s world seems impossible to most since those who many girls look up to are celebrities or someone who is famous through social media. What we see is the good in their life which is exotic trips to paradise, the newest and most stylish clothing, and those girls having great times hanging out with their friends. Though it may seem that they live the perfect life, is that the life that we should want to follow?

Growing up as a teenager in this era of technology and social media I can say that it is truly hard not to fall into the temptation of wanting to live like the ones we see constantly on our TV, Computer, and Phone screens. This is what I believe most struggle with when it comes to temptation. They do not start wanting to fall into the wicked until they see someone else performing that act and portraying a “fun time”. We all make mistakes but it becomes a problem when we allow those mistakes to define our testimony. What is a testimony anyway? A testimony is almost the same as your reputation… You know that thing that everyone cares about their middle-high school years instead of the important things that will affect our future? Well that is the thing that makes your testimony and reputation different. Your testimony has a lot to do with your future. If you have a Godly testimony, then you will not make bad decisions that affect your life in a bad way. Also, others see your Christian testimony and know not to persuade you to do something that you do not want to do.

If we want to keep a good testimony, we should have someone to look up to that has a Godly testimony for us to follow. Want to know the best place to find someone? The Bible of course! I love Proverbs and I believe that it should be a daily read for your growth in your walk with the Lord and to guide us through this crazy world. So lucky for us the Bible provides us an expectation of what a woman of God should be like. This line of jewelry is inspired by Proverbs 31:10 “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.” The rest of this chapter in Proverbs describes what a virtuous woman’s characteristics are, but the verse that describes the valuableness of a woman who follows God’s path and lives her life with a testimony for God is the one who most remember. A virtuous woman is valuable and a rarity. Everyone wants to be ordinary in this world and aside from the status quo. The best way to separate yourself from what everyone else is like is to do the opposite of what the world expects and live your life for God. Be the woman who has morals, who is modest, and who has a meek and humble spirit about them. All the world shows us is women who are dishonorable, who are flamboyant, and have a proud character about them. When it comes to our last day it will not matter what impression we have made for the world, it will matter what impression we have made for God on the world. So when temptation comes and when the wonderful idea of this world starts to take hold let this necklace be a reminder to be a woman who follows our Lord, a virtuous woman.

Sparrow’s Nest: Peas in a Pod

Peas in a Pod was inspired by reading Isaiah 61:11- “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” This is a necklace that represents the family that a mother grows in her own garden. The mother prepares and nourishes her children just like a farmer does to his crops. They both have the responsibility of producing the crop that they prepare for. How much work they put into their children/ crop will affect the outcome of their family/ produce. One thing that is extra special about this necklace is that it not only applies to mothers but to all women of all ages whether they have children or not. To the ones who do not have children this can represent any woman who has sown the seed in her praise to God! It is our job to sew the seed to spread God’s word to those who are in need of our merciful Savior. Whether one is raising a family or sewing the seed of God’s word, we are all raising a garden of our own for Christ.

Anyone who has grown a garden or knows anything about a garden knows that it takes hard work, patience, and trust. Because I was raised in a rural town and on a farm I know more about gardening than I want to. So many early mornings were spent in our garden where I was either helping clear off the land where my dad was going to plow, sewing the seeds of the vegetables we were to grow, or picking and gathering our harvest. It is easy for me to say that gardening is not very fun. It seems so much fun in my mind but when it comes down to it gardening is a lot of work. It takes hours a day to ready the soil and watch over the crops to produce the vegetables we have planted. Not only does this consist of early mornings but those early mornings consist of 90-degree humid weather. At the time I thought it was pure torture that my dad was forcing me to take part in. Now, I appreciate the hard work that he put us through because with hard work comes life lessons. I now know what good work ethic is and that good things come to those who work hard. After spending many days preparing the grounds and sewing the seeds, the only thing we had to do then was wait. This part of the process always frustrated me because I never thought it was fair that we had to work so hard for something that takes so long to grow. I have learned many life lessons from this, too. However, just like the hard work, I knew something good was going to happen from waiting and having patience. I knew that we were going to produce vegetables from our hard work and patience through trust. There was nothing I could do to change the process except to trust that what we did would produce. I had faith in our garden and every time my trust and faith never failed me because we had a full harvest every year.

Like so many other things in our life, this applies and signifies our journey in walking with Christ. When we accept His gift of eternal life we have to put in hard work, have patience, and have trust in Him. From being a Christian for 11 years now I have learned that being a follower of Christ takes a lot of effort. Daily, Christians are being put on the pedestal or under a microscope to see if we falter in our testimony. This is why keeping our testimony pure and holy is so imperative. Non believers are watching our every move waiting to see if we will falter under the pressure that this corrupt world presses on us. Honestly at times it is hard to not fall and give into the world’s temptation, but I have to exercise my heart and spirit in God’s word so I can have a shield that protects me against those invitations. This world is full of evil so us Christians have to work harder everyday to reach out to those who follow the corruption the world produces, keep our testimony in check, and to not make provision for the flesh. When we do these things but see no results it presents a show of impatience that we display to our God. There are so many times that we may think something should be happening at a certain time when it is not in God’s plan for that event to take place yet. This requires patience from us to wait for God to deliver His plan. For us to have the right kind of patience we must have full trust in God. Let this necklace be a reminder that trusting in His plan and promises is just like trusting that there will be produce to harvest from our garden… He will deliver and provide.