-"Robert Young Pelton's underground classic titled The World’s Most Dangerous Places is over one thousand pages thick.  It highlights the five-star danger zones like Colombia, Chechnya, and Liberia.  Pelton ironically writes not to discourage us from going but to help us get there and maybe even survive.  Nowhere, though, does he warn us about the world's most dangerous place, and he certainly gives us no guidance in how to survive when we're stuck there.  Makes me wonder if he's ever been in love." -Soul Cravings by Erwin Raphael McManus

Every morning for the past several days (and this will continue until I am finished) I’ve read an entry from Soul Cravings.  The writer takes the reader on a journey, his journey.   My favorite entry so far was about love and how it is painful and difficult to understand and not needed for survival.  He ranted that if evolution were true, we should have evolved beyond love.  Yet, we continue to look for it, crave it, die for it.  And based on this point alone, there must be something more. 

“I turned to God thinking he was a fool for wanting me.  Which, of course, is the nature of love, isn’t it?”  Truth.-

-1 Peter 3:3-4 "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."

I love these verses and I want to be this.  To be beautiful from the inside out, to have a spirit that is gentle and quiet and of great worth in God's sight. 

But I've always wondered: What does it mean to have a "gentle and quiet spirit?"  What does that look like?  I mean, I'm sure I have seen such women, but I never thought to myself "Now there is a woman with a gentle and quiet spirit." 

Until Sam came to visit me.

Samantha has been on a spiritual journey in preperation for her ministry in Las Vegas.  Through this journey, she has discovered a lot about herself and more about her God.  She has fallen deeply and maddly in love with God and it shines from within her.

What breaks the heart of God, breaks her heart.  She sees people as wounded and broken and desires to love them and for them to know God as she does.  She wants to apoligize to those she has hurt.  She wants to let those know who have hurt her that she has forgiven them.  God isn't far from her thoughts.  Her prayers are sincere.  Sam now has a gentle and quiet spirit. 

O she is still Sam.  Loud.  Frank.  Crude at times.  A general disreguard for how one "should" act.  Did I mention loud?  But she is different.  Her spirit is quiet and gentle.  She is beautiful from the inside out.  Her attitude and outlook and inner self is of great worth in God's sight.

I want to have a gentle and quiet spirit too.

 -"There is an emptiness in us that we continually try to feed."

I am currently reading Captivating.
Well, in one sense I am currently reading four books at once.
But literally, right this moment I am reading Captivating.
I am LOVING this book.  I recommend it to ALL women.
It awakens something inside of you that is...fierce and beatuiful.

I am sitting in a coffee shop reading and
"There is an emptiness in us that we continually try to feed."

Whoa.
I stop, close my book and
digest.

Without the 44 pages before this line, I know it does not impact you as it impacted me, but it was...
a moment of self-understanding.
a heart wrenching, gut churning, mind blowing realization.

I am a daughter of Eve and every desire, longing, short-coming, and need is a result of how I as a woman was created to be and how I as a woman have been cursed due to the fall.

In light of this, everything makes sense.-

-I have an amazing husband.

At RBC, two halls share a bathroom.  Thus, you have to take all your shower needs to the bathroom each morning.  I kept my arsenal of hair products, make-up, and other necessary items in a purple and green caddy.  Each morning I would pull the caddy out from under my sink, trudge to the bathroom, and continue with my habitual morning routine.

Shower.

Dress.

Prep Hair.

Make-up.

Dry hair.

Crimp Hair.

Style Hair.

Brush teeth.

Perfume.

Jewelry.

Once I was married and owned my own home, I figured I had seen the last of my purple, college caddy.  However, our bathroom had very little cabinet space and our products would remain strewed all over the floor.  We found the caddy kept things in their place.  And all the traveling from school, home, and church made the caddy a necessity.  No packing for us; our toiletries were always ready to go at a moments notice.

Now in our apartment, the caddy sits atop our toilet’s tank.  It doesn’t match the décor of the bathroom and it is not glamorous by any stretch of the imagination (I hide it when we have company over).  Its contents are rarely organized, but yet the caddy remains a vital part of our lives.

One of the items in our caddy is a travelling q-tip container.  Beneath the sink we keep the bulk box of q-tips which we use to refill the petite container in the caddy.  Typically in the mornings, I reach under the sink for q-tips and save the q-tips in the caddy for travel purposes.  My husband would not know this, because I only use the q-tips when doing my make-up and he is still fast asleep during this part of my morning custom. 

One particular morning, my husband and I were in the bathroom at the same time.  This rarely happens.  As I was styling my hair, I observed Corey remove a single q-tip from the caddy container and clean one ear.  He went to the caddy container once more only to find no more q-tips left.  From the corner of my eye, I saw him reach under the sink and remove another q-tip for his other ear.  We both continued about our morning.

At the time, I thought nothing of this.  Later on in the day, it dawned on me that maybe he didn’t just fetch one single q-tip for his own purposes.  But maybe, just maybe, he refilled the caddy container believing I would be looking there for q-tips the next morning.  I went to the bathroom and discovered the caddy container flowing with q-tips.

Every morning since, I have used q-tips from the caddy and am reminded of the love of my husband.-