In the Raw

This morning, as I opened up my internet browser, on my homepage on MSN.com, there was an ad about beauty and the Dove campaign. I love the Dove campaign for real beauty. It's about time, something in the media puts modest, imperfect women on the screen. Well, there was a blog that I read about loving women and seeing them for who they really are in their Raw Beauty. It's a great blog, and I totally agree with everything she said in there. She commented that it's refreshing to see someone who is a mess. Who's hair isn't perfect that day and their clothes are a bit wrinkled. But she mostly comments on the raw beauty of being yourself. I'd like to add on to Ms. Nadeau's comments. Here it is again, I've quoted it many times, "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord she shall be praised." You can be the most beautiful woman God ever made, but if you don't have a character to match your beauty, then your beauty is worthless.

I thought of our state with God when I read this. God doesn't care about what we put on that day or how our hair looks or even if our teeth are brushed. He sees us for who we are. He sees us in the raw. He saw our sinfulness. But he still wanted to give us grace. He saw the state we were in before we repented and turned to him for forgiveness. But he still loved us enough to send Jesus Christ to pay our debt in full so we may be completley loved by God the Father. We are in the raw before him. Isaiah 6 comes to mind when I think of God seeing our raw state. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and as he nears him, he drops to his knees and says, "Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Isaiah recognizes that he is completely undone before a Holy God. Because of his humility and remorsefulness, God declares his guilt is taken away and sin is atoned for (vs. 7). This is a beautiful picture of how God loves us in the raw.

♥