A Graceful Walk

Ladies,

We did it!  Today, on this lovely fall morning, we open our hearts once again and welcome you to TheInspiredWoman.org as a blog. We’re back with an updated look, new contributors and fresh inspirations for your day!  As before, I’ve filled this site with wisdom from women that I most respect and am confident have a message just for you.

Speaking of you, my purpose as we kick off our blog is all about YOU. Recently I spoke at a women’s brunch where I realized just how much we women nurture everyone and everything in our lives, except often we fail to do the same for ourselves.  We have such “full plates” and  “all our balls in the air”; however, we neglect to care for the one that needs to be strong to hold it all in place.  So today this blog, truly this entire site, is a time just for you. 

Galatians 5:25 says, “If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”  We have a choice how we go through this life.  We can go through it gracefully or truly it can be ugly to look upon.   Galatians 5 talks about both of these so well! Our responses in life can vary from selfishness, envy and jealousy to self-control, peace and joy.  So, my question to you today is simple.  How do you want to go through this life?  Let’s choose a graceful walk together.

I imagine that you, like me, don’t want to choose ugly.  Yet, we’ve all seen ugly!  Obviously I’m not talking about how one looks, but rather how one acts. Have you ever seen an adult throw what seems to be a fit?  They may as well be that kid in the check out line at the grocery that doesn’t get her candy.  Why is that?  Could another choice have been made?  Absolutely!

Why doesn’t someone choose to act the way they truly would like to act?  It’s simple! Matthew 26:41 says, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”  The only way we will make the ultimate choice we desire is when we are strong in spirit.  Like an athlete, the only way to have this kind of strength is to do what’s required to get it.  In this case, the answer is time in His presence. 

2 Corinthians 4:18 talks about this higher way of living.  It says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.”  We all need some eternal time, those moments spent looking at God.  Those times when we receive strength that only comes from His Word and His presence.  In this place, He is magnified to us and our problems are minimized.  Now, we respond differently when the problem looks so small, because our God looks so big.

Proverbs 18:14 depicts what I’m saying so well since “The spirit of a man sustains him, but a broken spirit who can bear.”  In other words, when one's spirit is strong she will stand in troubled times, but if one's spirit it broken down how will she remain on her feet.   So, ladies, I know we are busy and that everyone else seems to need our care; yet, if we don’t care for ourselves we really can’t give those who we love our best. 

You know, there really is no choice at all.   It’s a mandate from Heaven that we must heed, called time in His presence.  The results will have you walking graceful in no time at all.  “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” Isaiah 40:30, now that is a picture of graceful!

Walking graceful together,

 Judi Jo