God Put Me Through Beauty School

Proverbs 2: 1-6: My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and IF YOU LOOK FOR IT AS FOR SILVER AND SEARCH FOR IT AS FOR HIDDEN TREASURE, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and FIND THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

IF YOU SEARCH FOR WISDOM AS IF IT’S A HIDDEN TREASURE….YOU WILL FIND IT!

Ok, I’ve read this scripture 5 zillion times. It was my staple scripture for almost a decade. But I just recently saw it with new eyes!

Several years ago, I was telling a skeptical friend about something God had done in my life. It was probably something similar to the things I share here…like when I blogged about “Holy Inside Joke! God’s in on it!” My hilarious boyfriend agreed to watch a silly girl’s movie with me and we were joking about it being our “fancy pants” date. I was leaning on my Bible at the time and looked down at a scripture that talked about wearing “Garments of Splendor!” I’m sure there’s a translation out there that says Fancy Pants! haha. It might sound like a small thing but it was Huge for me! I’m on a path to discover True Beauty and I learned something new about it. Most people agree that a sense of humor tops the “things I find attractive about you” list. So it made sense that the God who invented Beauty would also have a sense of humor. God wanted to be “in on the joke”….the fun side of my life. Who knew he could be that real in our lives!:)

So, it was probably five years ago and even though I can’t remember what I was saying…I’m sure I was telling my friend something similar to this…some new amazing revelation. At that time, he asked me a question that I didn’t think twice about …until now. After discovering more about God’s sense of humor, I woke up with his question so LOUD in my head: “What makes you, Missy Midden, think you’re so special that God would do all this for You.”

I think I finally have the answer!

The intent of the question was probably to point out I’m not really that special. haha It’s funny because I didn’t detect the skepticism at the time so I’m sure I answered enthusiastically as if he really wanted to know. I thought it had something to do with how God related to me personally as a creative person.

Ultimately, it was fair question. One that deserved a good answer.

The last few weeks, I kept thinking about the “wisdom” scripture. It kept coming up and rolling around in my mind. I sorta wondered what God was trying to show me since I had already dissected this scripture for years….but then I saw it! I saw the answer to his question. If you search for Wisdom as if it’s a Hidden Treasure….you will find it!! This suggests LIFE IS MEANT TO BE AN ADVENTURE! “Finding hidden treasure????” that’s like something out of Indiana Jones. Wisdom is universal…we all need it. So, these creative revelations are not just for creative types. God said we could have wisdom if we searched for it like a hidden treasure! Getting to know God IS the adventure. Our life is designed to be an adventure! So the only difference between my friend and me was that I chose to look under a few more rocks. I dug a little deeper in search of something significant. Something Beautiful. Pearls of Wisdom! I searched fully convinced I would find some new treasure! I would find God and Divine Inspiration for that moment of my life. I think it’s important to walk in Divine inspiration rather than be a slave to what seems safe and practical to everyone else.

So recently, I checked my treasure map, dusted off a little sand and found that God had a sense of humor. I discovered that God is so much more than the One who listens to our desperate prayers or approves our earnest pursuits and good deeds….but he Delights in our FUN TIMES! He asks us to rejoice …but look …he rejoices over us too! Isn’t that such a cool picture!!!

Zephaniah 3:14-17 Sing O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy…..The Lord the King of Israel is with you; never again will you fear harm…do not fear o Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great DELIGHT in YOU. He will quiet you with his love, He will REJOICE OVER YOU with SINGING.

Sometimes the “small” thing …IS….the adventure! Today, for example, I discovered true beauty can be found at Marshalls! haha (I’ll write about this next…it’s funny and meaningful)

So to finally answer my friend’s question…. We’re ALL that special!!! Look for Him and see what You find! I think this is when life will get interesting for you! This is the way to turn a dull life into a (better than Indiana Jones) kind of adventure!

By the way, when my friend was suggesting I believed I was a little “too special” …I was at the very lowest point of my life. What a testimony to the power of God’s adventure! Even though I was crushed in every way imaginable and it would have made more sense for someone to feel sorry for me….instead ….someone actually believed I thought I was “too” special! You know why ….because I was SPECIAL. I was blessed to learn that unimaginable treasure, an exciting adventure, pearls of wisdom and True Beauty can be found even in the darkest phase of your life. This adventure isn’t reserved for the rich, the creative, the stable, the ‘no longer hurting’…God never let me be a victim of my circumstances!

We are all meant to be free….to live the adventure ….to wear the hat! Who Knows what we’ll find …there’s so much ground to cover!

I pray God gives you courage to search for him as if He’s a hidden treasure and the faith to BELIEVE you WILL find Him!

Love and Hugs…
Missy

Let’s Put On Our Fancy Pants and Ride……….

Believe it or not…..God Wants -In- on the Joke! Seriously! God appealed to my sense of humor today to get me out of a major funk!

I just finished two of three video projects and I’m ready to start the next one. This is my crunch time and it’s usually when I do my best work. However, while I’m finishing these projects I also have to follow up on new leads and put together new proposals and I’m already working until 11pm at night! You have to understand, I don’t have a Type A personality and work is never going to be an escape for me! I’m creative and I need a lot of space to ponder life, be still, laugh, have fun, and then discuss it all. But I’m also a hard worker and I would rather be run over than drop a ball when it involves other people. I am constantly pursuing the balance between the two! So yes, sometimes I will work a month straight without blinking and then other times, like yesterday, I pull the covers over my head and HIDE!!!!! Can anyone else relate to this????

I woke up feeling the burden of being a single woman trying to make it for one more month. It seemed like I hadn’t had a day off since high school. I was completely burned out and weak from the unrelenting responsibility!

OK ….BUT THE ACTUAL PICTURE OF MY LIFE IS MUCH DIFFERENT! I’m sorry God for giving in to these thoughts when YOU have provided for me, YOU have taken care of me, YOU have given me time off, YOU have brought me to safe pastures and the wildest adventures!

I wanted to write out the tormenting thoughts that caused me to shut down yesterday so I could share the amazing way God brought me out of an ugly pit.

It’s hilarious actually! God didn’t minimize my feelings but he strengthened me in a very unusual way! My friend gave me a DVD with four of the sweetest girl movies of all time. I Love it!!! Being the best boyfriend -of all time- Derek agreed to watch one of them with me. So last night he asked me out on a dinner and movie date. We settled on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for the movie. haha! Of course we are making jokes about it because otherwise it would potentially be the most painful two hours of his life.:) So we have named this is our ‘fancy pants’ date night. There is a point to telling you this…..

Today, I woke up still feeling the heavy burdens but I just couldn’t waste another day. I felt like I was buried six feet under trying to find the strength to come out of it. This was no joke! I turned to Isaiah 35 which is titled in my Bible: Joy of the Redeemed. It says, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom….it will burst into bloom, it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” It sort of set the tone for what God was about to do. Plus, as I’ve written before, this is the year of Joy! We 3 Queens made a toast to the Joy of the Lord is Our Strength!

Next, I turned to Isaiah 51:9: “Awake, awake! Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord;”I needed to Wake Up and quit hiding….so this immediately got my attention. Then I turned the page and saw this word repeated a few more times (Is 51: 17) “Awake, awake! Rise up O Jerusalem…” (Is 52:1) Awake, awake o Zion, clothe yourself with strength, put on your garments of splendor…” PUT ON YOUR GARMENTS OF SPLENDOR??? Right at that moment my boyfriend text me and said something about our “fancy pants” date (jokingly) and I was responding …with my Bible open to PUT ON YOUR GARMENTS OF SPLENDOR! LOL! Omgosh ….. GOD IS -IN- ON THE JOKE! Garments of Splendor…it might as well say Fancy Pants! Then the scripture goes on to say, “shake off your dust, rise up, sit enthroned, O Jerusalem, Free yourself from the chains on your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”

Even though I knew God was speaking to me through the “wake up” word, I didn’t seem to have the strength to step out of the pit. UNTIL, Until…. I realized God was part of our date night joke!! In that split second, I was AWAKE and Laughing and pretty Amazed!! Pit? What Pit? I mean, isn’t it hard to imagine God actually listening to a silly date night conversation?….much less RESPONDING to it!!! God is so real! He was saying, ‘Wake Up and put on your fancy pants! It’s your ‘fancy pants’ day! There’s reason to rejoice!’ haha!

If you ask most people what they find attractive about another person…..’a sense of humor’ is usually right up there with the most important qualities. So doesn’t it make sense that the God who created Beauty would also have a sense of humor! Amazing, right?

Just in case you’re still in a pit…I pray God would strengthen you in a powerfully, personable way. “Awake, awake…and clothe yourself with strength…put on your garments of splendor…”

So lets put on our Fancy Pants and Ride….this is an incredible adventure!

Love you,
Missy

I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t very enthusiastic about walking for an hour when I woke up this morning. haha!

I am carrying out the “marching orders” to stand in faith by walking for an hour every day for a straight week. I’m using this time to thank God for His love, beauty, freedom, breakthrough and the picture He gave me, “nets full of fish.” No matter the actual circumstances or what happens the rest of the day…I will have spent an hour thanking God and choosing to set my mind on truth: God Loves Me…He will take care of me! Faith isn’t a neutral or passive idea…it’s a call to action. To Believe! It’s a pretty vulnerable place. You’re hoping for what is not yet seen and when you’ve been kicked out of your comfort zone it’s so easy for defeating, fearful and insecure pictures to dominate your thoughts. So, this 7-day walking adventure is like a jump start to winning the battle going on in my thought life: Fear vs. Faith.

Today’s Walk:
As I said, it wasn’t easy to get started. I woke up with about 5% enthusiasm. But, on my way to my walking spot I stopped by the Sarasota Farmer’s Market. It’s a place I’m guaranteed to find Golden puppies to pet.:)) After getting my puppy lovin’ I started tearing up. Not entirely strange for me but a little unexpected. When I reached the marina it dawned on me… God was already putting intercession on my heart. There’s such a sweetness to His presence and this is what makes me tear up. While there wasn’t anything super special about today’s walk, I did notice a growing appetite for stillness. quiet. I believe God needs me to be a little quiet and he’s calling me into it.

My sister, Bonnie Kelly, emailed me such an insightful response to yesterday’s (day 2) post! It’s so good and she said I could share it with you! Thanks Sis! You are the big whoop! (haha)

Response:
Welcome to my world:) I will never forget when God answered a desperate prayer of mine-He answered me in such a miraculous, supernatural way that I almost missed what He actually said; “I will teach you to fight.” It wasn’t until the next trial came that I began to understand what He said – and when it came I was completely flabbergasted, literally a mouth dropped open-what-tha… moment, “but I thought You set me free from this!!!!!!!” And in that still small voice He whispered, “I’m not fighting against you, I’m for you- get up, fight! TAKE what I’ve given you!” And that began my first battle lesson. Like that song says, “Welcome to the War”:)

God thank you for loving us! Thank you for the revelation that you’re not fighting against us …You are on our side! You want us to be FREE! To Fly! Thank you for teaching us! I pray you would give us strength to win the battles this week. I also pray your sweet presence would come down and soothe our hearts and give us a safe place to rest today! We love you!

Love and Hugs
Missy

I was writing in my journal today and thinking about Good Friday. After a few minutes, I realized God was giving me the next blog post. It still surprises me when this happens.:)

I had one of my top three Defining Moments on a Good Friday a few years back. Just before Easter weekend, I finished up a journal with an incredibly special “ending.” I was dealing with a tremendously difficult break up at the time and as God promises He was, in fact, very “close to the brokenhearted.” During this excruciatingly painful time…God was practically touchable! After such a significant ending, I knew the next journal had to be extra special. But after a week of searching, I still couldn’t find one. I started stressing about it, actually. Then, I saw a picture in my mind of God Smiling (like He was amused)!! It was odd because “why is he smiling?” Then, I felt silly for stressing over a journal. This isn’t rocket science and God is working through my own creativity …so I can’t pick the “wrong” journal. But that Smile…really stuck out in my mind…It didn’t completely make sense…it was like there was laughter behind it Hmmm…. Then, I went back to my apartment and found a journal my mom had given me SEVEN YRS prior. It was stuck between a bunch of old books. Awh…it was perfect. I remembered thinking when she gave me it to me…it was for a special chapter in my life. There was a quote from Mother Theresa on the cover, “God is the friend of silence. Trees, flowers, grass grow in silence. See the stars, moon and sun, how they move in silence.” It was just a perfect fit for that time in my life as I was very alone, overcoming the seemingly impossible and discovering the love and beauty of God in the most amazing ways. BUT HERE’S THE CRAZY AMAZING POWEFUL UNBELIEVABLE UNEXPECTED THING…….

I went to my little coffee shop and opened the journal and THIS IS WHAT I SAW!
THE SMILE FROM GOD……..

OMGOSH! It felt like God jumped out of the bushes and surprised me! When I was stressing about finding the right journal….God had something special planned. A surprise! It was like he had something up his sleeve and it made him smile in anticipation. IT’S CRAZY THAT I SAW THIS BEFORE OPENING THE JOURNAL…it was so peculiar to me! And then my parents had written, GOD SHOUTS HIS LOVE FOR YOU!!!!!!! It was like I stepped into a surprise party! So I began intently thanking God with stunned reverence. Then, another strange twist… I began sensing God’s presence withdrawing….like I was doing something wrong….like maybe I was giving the wrong response. I was even more stunned and I stopped and I said with great carefulness… “okaay God” and then the thought came to mind, “if your friends jumped out and surprised you…or if you showed up to a surprise party …would you spend an hour intently thanking them with such a serious face?” WOOOW! I felt like God wasn’t letting me get away with it. I believed He was WAITING for the correct response!!!! I said very cautiously, “oookay God……um…….if someone jumped out and surprised me in fun…..I would probably say…..ummmm……you crazy nut………..(really God, can you say that to the King of kings?)……… I can’t believe you did that…….I’m gonna get you back?……” haha and then it dawned on me! God was having FUN with me!!!! In that moment, I realized my relationship with God was shallow. Another surprise…I thought it was anything but shallow but I could see that I mostly came to God with Intensity and Tears even though there’s so much more to me. I spent most of my life laughing and finding FUN in every situation except God time. I mean, I thanked God for fun times…but I never had a “fun time” with God…see what I mean? So, I took it as a challenge. I thought, I know I can’t really “get you back” God, what with you being almighty and all knowing …. but I’m going to TRY and surprise you too. The thought of it made me laugh….surprising God…impossible …but what the heck. Sounds FUN!

Fast Forward a week or so to GOOD FRIDAY! Change the tempo……I was about to experience a moment that would mark change in my life. I received a phone call from someone who handed me the kind of news that makes everything go into slow motion. It was the mother load…the enemy’s best shot….a death blow! It was my worst fear materializing and it was handled in the most painful way possible! My heart was being tortured. I hung up the phone and I had not even a second to realize I had a choice to make. I was either going to choose a path of bitterness, heartbreak and disillusionment or a path that would ultimately SET ME FREE…free from the cycles of dysfunction I kept attracting in my life. As for what happened next, absolutely nothing in -me- could have prepared me to choose well…. but I pointed my hands toward heaven and silently shouted ………….. “GOOOOOOD…..THIS IS IT….THIS IS THE TIME I’M GONNA GET YOU BACK ……haha ….I KNOW YOU THOUGHT I WOULD BE ON THE FLOOR DYING OF HEARTBREAK……BUT GOD ….I’M GOING TO THANK YOU INSTEAD….I’M GONNA PRAISE YOUR NAME …..SURPRIIIISE ……ARE YOU SURPRISED?…..YOU ARE GOOD….YOU ARE GOOOD….YOU ARE GOOD”

*teeeeeeeeeeears…………………*

You know when a child falls down and they don’t know whether they should laugh or cry? God had prepared me for this moment and he appealed to my FUN side to give me the nudge I needed to choose the path to freedom…to “laugh”! Isn’t that brilliant! He set me up to choose Life. Rather than giving in to the tormenting cycle…He WANTED TO SET ME FREE FROM IT! God Knew the seriousness of this moment! It was a dark moment of decision and if I had allowed myself to crumble…I wouldn’t have gotten back up! It took me a long while to get there but I was at the end of hope. Looking back I can see this wasn’t just about a boy…this was about breaking up with Me, my family, my dreams…everything!! In the natural, all I could see was devastation and all I could feel was unbelievable pain. But God had given me a different picture…His Smile! And then think about this….He allowed this day to happen on GOOD FRIDAY! The day he was betrayed too! The day he wept! God didn’t let me go through this alone…He shared His day of pain with me.

My resurrection day came a few months later when I got the job in Sarasota as a tourism producer….I walked out this freedom with dolphins jumping, beach side sunsets on every coast and thrilling adventures. Just as my mom had written…..GOD SHOUTS HIS LOVE FOR YOU!!!!!

God thank you for the sacrifice you made! Thank you for the pain you went through so that we might know your LOVE! God thank you that you understand our pain! Thank you for constantly looking for ways to set us FREE! Lord, thank you for also sharing your day of pain with us and just as special….YOUR SMILE! God let everyone reading this post see your smile this weekend! Let them know how much they’re loved! YOU ARE LOVED! SO VERY LOVED! GOD SHOUTS HIS LOVE FOR YOU!!!

HAPPY EASTER……HAVE FUN
Psalm 2:4: “The One enthroned in Heaven Laughs.”

Friday night, breakthrough came in the most tender way possible. This moment went deep and brought healing and hope on so many levels. It’s too close to my heart to share.

But I want to dedicate this song to God and the person who stood “right by my side” and held up my vision of abundance when I was too weak and scared to see it. God is amazing! He turns everything into an adventure…a bad day….a bad decision…a frightening revelation….loss. The panicked moment I experienced turned into something unexpected and beautiful. When God brought restoration…He did it in a way that was so tender and special. I cried my eyes out! God moved quickly in this situation and it’s an example of hope today for the breakthrough I still need. I think God gives us these amazing moments so we have something to hold on to when we’re waiting for prayers to be answered…when it’s hard to hear God say “Wait…Be Still” …I choose to hold on to the beautiful picture of tender breakthrough he gave me for the even bigger things I’m still facing! When it’s time …it’s going to be so special! Hold on …. just hold on ….
Hugs-

On the Rim of the Visible of the World – Jason Upton
The song is “Right by My Side” featuring Bryan Willard (I couldn’t figure out how to put the song on here but it’s on iTunes if you want to listen to it)

You hold the keys to my heart, you hold all the cards to my life ….
You catch every tear that I cry…and all of the things I try to hide …you catch them too
Standing right by my side
all of my life…..holding me close…holding me tight
and I never thought….you would be mine
you opened my heart, you opened my eyes….
standing right by my side
I hope you know that I care…I want you to know that I’ll always be there …
Standing right by your side … all of your life … holding you close …. holding you tight …
I never thought you would be mine … you opened my heart … you opened my eyes …right by my side….

Psalm 37:18-19
18The LORD knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will remain forever;
19they are not put to shame in evil times;
in the days of famine they have ABUNDANCE.