Throwback Post: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

*This is kind of long, but something I felt I wanted to share.*

I turned off my computer several minutes ago thinking I would go to bed, until I began thinking about something and I knew I had to turn my computer back on and type out this blog entry to post later, before I would be able to go to sleep this morning! I say this morning since it is almost 2am! Yes, I am a night owl!

I have a habit of talking at night time when I should be winding down getting ready for bed. My Mama likes to joke that “You always do this at bedtime don’t you?” Meaning, I always talk when it is time for bed. It is funny, she will be trying to relax to go to bed and I’ll be wanting to talk ninety to nothing! I do talk during the day, but there is something about nighttime I become wide awake with thoughts! Maybe it is because it is quieter at night and not so rushed like it is during the day, I am not sure. Don’t get me wrong I think all day long, I have a lot of ideas during the day and I will have my talkative moments during the day, but there is something about nighttime discussions I like!

Tonight I was telling Mama about watching “The Basement Live” with Evangelist/Preacher Matt Pitt. I told her that on a lot of his preaching I have watched he always has the ladies stand up and do this attitude thing saying they are fearfully and wonderfully made, next he has the guys do something similar. The video below shows you what I am talking about!




If you can’t understand what He says, the sound on this next video is a little clearer.




I love that! I am fearfully and wonderfully made! Now I have heard this verse probably hundreds if not thousands of times since I was a little girl. It comes from Psalm 139:14 which reads, “I will praise You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are Your works: and my soul knows right well!”

Hearing Matt Pitt say it when preaching several times, its catchy. The way he does it gets you thinking. I like how it’s a bold, I know who I am in Christ type attitude! Forget what the world says, forget the media that says I have to be model thin, have plastic parts, and look like I just came from a plastic factory, God’s Word says that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are His works, and my soul knows it well!

When I get up in the morning and glance in the mirror everything within me may groan “Eww” BUT I know that Greater is HE that is in me than he that is in the world. Greater is God in me, than any excuse I come up with about how ugly I may be. God’s Word says, I’m fearfully and wonderfully made.

What does that mean, well the dictionary breaks it down like this.

feeling reverence: feeling respect or awe for somebody or something
gazed in fearful wonder
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Get that…feeling a respect or awe for somebody or something. In other words, feeling a respect or awe for the creation that God made…US!

What about wonderfully…

1. outstanding: of a quality that excites admiration or amazement
2. exceedingly pleasing: suiting somebody perfectly

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

I love the thesaurus words for wonderfully, check this out..

magnificently, superbly, amazingly, astonishingly, fantastically, marvelously
delightfully, brilliantly, perfectly, ideally, pleasingly, gratifyingly
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


So according to God’s Word in Psalm 139:14...


Girls, we are outstanding, we have a quality about us that God designed that is amazing! Our design suits us perfectly. When God made us He created the blueprint, fashioned us in His image with His own unique design, custom made each one of us, put the finishing touches on our design and said….wow, what an amazing creation I have created. We are designed magnificently, we are superb, we are so fantastic it is astonishing! When God made us, He did not play any games. The same applies for guys too!

Isn’t it time we start acting like sons and daughters of God? Why should we go around pouting, being so hard on ourselves? We shouldn’t! I told my Mama tonight that this coming year I am going to make it my goal (among many others) to get along with myself. I am going to start liking myself, I am going to make it a priority to be friends with me. I mean after all I am stuck with me. Everywhere I go, there I am. I cannot run from me. Believe me I have tried, it doesn’t work. I’m stuck with me for life. Thank God I have Him in me to lead, guide and direct me. Because if it was up to just me and me, I would aggravate the stew out of myself, and have quite often.

I know there are some guys who read this blog, but I am going to talk to the girls for a few minutes. Not to exclude you guys, keep reading if you want too, but since I am a girl I can relate to girls, I know how we think.

Girls, isn’t it time we start liking ourselves? I know it is so easy to look in the mirror and criticize everything about us. Sometimes we have one of those days where nothing seems to look right, every outfit we try on just doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t fit right, our hair goes flat, our nose looks to big, we feel fat, or bloated, at certain times every month we are moody, more so than we usually are, and have a tendency to be ill as a hornets nest. We throw pity-parties, and than hate ourselves for doing so. We have moments where all we want to do is cry and than we feel guilty for letting our emotions get the best of us, at times we jump down our throats if we feel we have indulged on to much junk food, mainly chocolate! We feel we can’t miss a spot shaving, some girls freak out if they do. Our make-up has to be perfect, if our foundation is uneven we get ill at ourselves. Eyebrows must be plucked, our nail polish must be perfect, hair in place, pimples covered, etc.. the list goes on and on and on. We are our own worst enemies. I know I am my own worst enemy, excuse me, let me use that in past tense, I have been my own worst enemy, now and in the future I have chosen to become friends with myself. So with this blog post I gladly shake my hand, now begins the process of becoming acquainted with myself on a deeper level than just chewing myself out, criticizing myself, over judging and constantly putting me down. In the past I have been so hard on myself, so much so the devil used that to get me in a frenzy. That was his plan all along, to get me to dislike myself so much, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Because I was so critical of me, I thought everyone else was too. I would almost constantly worry if someone else was thinking the same things I thought about myself, and tried to figure out their thoughts about me, that maybe if I did this, it would be ok, or maybe if I hid my emotions. Maybe if I just stay strong it will work, I can’t let myself show I’m human because then people might think less of me. If I lose my temper everyone will hate me, if I cry for no reason someone will say I’m being stupid, so let’s keep it all in side. No one ever told me any of that. I have always been treated as a human being and told it was alright to show emotion, but I let the devil tell me otherwise. I let the devil try to convince me that I had to be perfect, which is a lie because the only perfect person that ever walked the face of the earth was Jesus Christ! But because I listened to the devils lies my self-esteem was low because I wasn’t really happy with me. I was tired of trying to be a perfectionist, I was happy with me, but I wasn’t happy with me, and only if you have been there will you be able to understand that. For the most part I have been a happy camper, unless I started feeling like I was worthless, not good enough, didn’t do something right, didn’t measure up to someone else’s expectations that they didn’t know they even had. Did you get that? A lot of the time we think someone is critical of us or thinks we did or did not do something they approved of or didn’t approve of when really they weren’t even thinking that at all.

I am tired of being my own worst enemy, so this year I have made up my mind I am going to start liking me. When I look in the mirror I am not going to go “Eww, how ugly.” Instead I am going to tell myself, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I may not feel like it, but God’s Word says that I am, so it must be true God is not a God that will lie, so it is true. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. When you start telling yourself that, it feels really great!

Yes, there are several things I don’t particularly like about myself, things I would like to change. I would love to lose about two more pants sizes! So far this year I have lost about six! That is taking a lot to admit that too!! Last year and the first part of this year I weighed more than I ever have, thanks to some medicine my Doctor prescribed to clear allergies, after that I had medicine prescribed by my dentist because of an abscessed tooth, after that I had more of the same medicine prescribed by an oral surgeon to start taking in preparation for my wisdom teeth being removed. After that I had more medicine prescribed for a pain I had on the left side of my lower abdomen. Thanks be to God I’m not on those medicines anymore! The medicines were the kind you have to eat something every time you take a dose, and the medicine would make me hungrier than I usually am, so I felt like a bottomless pit! Needless to say I gained weight. I went from a size 4-6 to a 12 really fast. Because medicine makes you sleepy and feeling bad drains you of energy, I didn’t do a lot of moving around so that added on pounds. I marvel that I am admitting this, but I don’t care anymore, it isn’t a big deal. I am learning that my worth does not come from what I look like on the outside, my worth comes from my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who created me in His image! Thankfully I am back to a size 6, and it is becoming a little big. I’m really happy about that! I still have a little ways to go, I am working at toning up more, but if I never reach my desired goal of getting in better shape, it doesn’t matter, my worth is still found in Jesus Christ.

I do not remember who said this, but I read a quote once that said, “God doesn’t put a tape measure around your waist He puts it’s around your heart.” That is so true. God doesn’t measure us according to our waistline. He looks at our heart. He looks at what is inside of us. The Bible says that “Favor is deceitful; and beauty is vain: but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” Proverbs 31:30 Does that mean you can’t be beautiful? No, absolutely not! It means our beauty doesn’t come from our outward appearance. You can dress in the finest clothes money can buy, be perfectly groomed and looking spiffy, but if the inside of you is black without the love of Jesus, you might as well be dressed in filthy rags. Our worth lies in Christ. Our value is found only in Him. As Christians we are daughters of the Most High God. We are called to be walking, talking, living, breathing witnesses of Jesus Christ our Lord. A billboard of His love. Who cares if you are an advertisement for the perfect materialistic model. I would rather be a model for Christ any day of the week than a model for the latest fashion. Don’t get me wrong, being a model for fashion isn’t wrong…unless you forget your worth is found in Christ. Not the clothing on your back, or the make-up on your face, or the jewelry on your wrist. True beauty shines from the inside out, not the outside in.

When I look in the mirror I don’t have to complain about every little flaw. I know my God designed me in His image and loves me for me. I use to think it was vain to say I am fearfully and wonderfully made. To say I am beautiful because God made me beautiful, it felt like I was being conceited and vain, it also felt like I am lying because I don’t feel beautiful. Thank God I don’t have to trust my feelings! I get to trust Him. I may not feel beautiful, But God tells me I am, so therefore I choose to believe Him and His Word! Admitting you are fearfully and wonderfully made is not vain, vain is when you are so impressed with yourself you cannot see past the end of your own nose and you expect everyone to worship the ground you walk upon because you think you are God’s gift to mankind, the perfect picture of  beauty you think every girl should follow and every guy should want. That is vain. Believing and admitting that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God and beautiful because He created you is not vain, it is simply acknowledging what God’s Word says about you!

Girls, we have so many insecurities, its time to just let them go. To leave them at the feet of Jesus and embrace who He created us to be. Don’t let Hollywood tell you how you should be. Don’t let MTV tell you who you are, don’t let the media shape your thinking. Don’t let the world tell you who you were created to be. The only way to know who you were created to be is to get in touch with the Creator Himself, God. It makes since that the Creator show His creation who He created him or her to be.

This year I am choosing to let go of my insecurities, I am choosing to become friends with myself. I am going to learn to like me. Not in a selfish way, but in a way God intended for us to like ourselves I am choosing to make peace with myself, including my body. No more putting myself down, instead I choose to look to God’s Word to tell me who I am. I choose to let the Holy Spirit lead, guide, and direct me. I choose to stop worrying about making mistakes, I choose to stop being so uptight worrying that I am doing something wrong, judging myself, overanalyzing, criticizing and putting myself down. Instead I choose to follow God and let His sweet Holy Spirit correct me when I need correcting and show me where to go, what to do, and how to serve my Jesus without fear of what others may say.

In other words, I choose to take a stand. A stand against the normal self-saturated culture that puts pressure on us to be a certain size, to dress a certain way, to look, talk, and act a certain way, who cares if my nails aren’t perfect, who cares if I have a blemish on my face, who cares if my teeth aren’t perfectly straight, or perfectly white, who cares if my clothes aren’t name brand, who cares if I go out the door without make-up on? There is nothing wrong with wanting to look nice and take care of yourself, please don’t misunderstand, but there is something wrong with making our appearance our god. Becoming so frustrated with our shortcomings that we beat ourselves up. Do you realize there are girls who turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, cutting, eating disorders, etc…just because they don’t feel pretty? They don’t feel like they measure up to the worlds standards. That breaks my heart to think about that, it makes me want to cry, and believe me I have. It makes me want to reach out to them, telling them You are loved, you are beautiful, you are loved by God! You were created in His image and He loves you! Honey let me tell you the worlds standards aren’t that high anyway, good for you if you don’t measure up to them! Good for you if you choose to step outside the box and say I am going to be my own person, I am going to be the daughter of God He created me to be. I am going to love myself even if the world says I am ugly. I am going to trust God because my God didn’t make any junk, I am a daughter of the King, I am blood bought and I am redeemed. I am beautiful and God says I am royalty! I am a princess of the King, my God is my Father and He owns everything. Forget what the world may say, my God is the one who made the day. I don’t need popularity, when my God is the King of kings and Lord of lords!

This coming year 2010 I choose to make peace with myself. I choose to view myself as a daughter of the King. I refuse to let satan wreak havoc in my life trying to get me to hate myself to keep me sidetracked and off track of God’s calling. No more, the devil loses, because he is a loser. God is the winner, and I choose to follow Christ!

So girls, next time you look in the mirror, in fact why don’t you go look in a mirror now, and tell yourself out loud that you are fearfully and wonderfully made because God said so! Write Psalm 139:14 on sticky notes and post them wherever you need to, to be able to see them often and remind yourself you are God’s beautiful creation! You are exactly how God created you to be. God doesn’t make any junk, He made everyone an original, one of a kind design, and said you are worth so much. You are worth so much that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus to die on a cross for your sins. John 3:16 says for God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Maybe you aren’t a Christian, maybe you have made mistakes and feel so guilty. Maybe you don’t see how you can be beautiful, but I want to tell you. God loves you. He says you are beautiful and He wants you to come to Him just as you are. You don’t have to clean yourself up before coming to Him, you can’t clean yourself up. See God knew we wouldn’t be able to clean up our mess, He knew that we were incapable of saving ourselves, that is why He sent His only begotten Son Jesus to do it for us. That is why Jesus willingly died on a cross for us. That is why He endured so much pain, and agony as He was beat and hung up on a cross before everyone who gathered to see. Three days after He died He rose again, representing life anew in Him. He is alive seated at the right hand of God, waiting with arms open wide for you. You might not believe that God exists, maybe you have told yourself for so long that God couldn’t possibly exist, but deep down inside you want to believe. Deep down inside there is a hunger, an restlessness, a longing that only God can feel. As the lyrics of a song sung by Plumb say, there is a God shaped hole in all of us. My good friend Mike has a blog, at the heading of the blog he quotes St. Augustine who said “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” The first time I read that on his blog it caught my attention, since than I have thought of it many times. Often times my heart becomes restless, searching everywhere for peace, but its never found until it rests at Jesus feet. Until I embrace Christ and just rest in His presence. Forgetting everything this world has to offer and just spend time with my Savior who gave His life for mine.

You see, Our soul was designed for fellowship with our Creator. You might deny God exists, but your denial doesn’t mean God isn’t real. I love a quote by C.S. Lewis it says, “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him, than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ’darkness’ on the walls of his cell.” You may say God doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t real. Don’t you think it’s time to let down the walls that harden your heart and hinder you from peace, joy, contentment and true happiness. Isn’t it time your soul stops searching and finds what it has been searching for, what it has been longing for all this time. You are worth so much in God’s eyes, if you could only see a glimpse of the love He has for you. You would know you are loved. You’ll never see that glimpse unless you open your eyes. Open your heart, let His love wash over you. If you don’t know God, what are you waiting for? Its simple really, just call out to Him. Your soul was made to know God, it isn’t complicated. I promise you if you reach out to God He will be right there. He is already waiting, maybe you even feel Him knocking at the door of your heart. Let Him in already! He only wants what is best for you. He has your best interest at heart. Let Him show you! Let Him prove Himself to you! I promise you won’t regret it and you will never be the same.

Some people say Christians are foolish to believe in a God they cannot see. But I can see God. I see Him all around me. You see Him everyday. You may not realize it, but look at the world around you, look at the beauty of a human being, the simplicity of a flower, the gentle breeze, the blue sky, fluffy white clouds, the rippling of waves, all signs of God’s unfailing love for you. A beautiful reminder of how much He loves you. Look in the mirror, God’s fingerprints are all over you. You are His creation. It’s time you get to know your Creator! Let me ask you this, you may say Christians are stupid for believing in God, that He doesn’t exist. Let’s say we go with your theory for a moment, let’s say God doesn’t exist, ok, fine, when we die we have nothing to lose. But, let’s say we as Christians are right and God does exist, heaven is real, and hell is real. When we die, we have heaven to gain, but when you die, what to do you lose? You lose everything and hell to gain, which is a lose, nothing to win. If your right, and I’m wrong, I haven’t lost anything. But if I am right and you are wrong, you have lost it all. It all goes back to we were created by God, our soul longs for the connection. ‘

When you harvest a garden, you know the vegetables and fruits you see came from a seed you planted, they didn’t happen to just take shape and come out of the ground without a seed. There had to be a seed. The same applies with us as humans, we didn’t just happen to be. We didn’t just happen to appear, we have a Creator, His name is God. He created You. You aren’t a mistake, you aren’t failure, you are a creation of God. Won’t you let Him shower you with His love?

If you don’t know Christ, like I said, what are you waiting for? I promise you if you reach out to Him, He is already there waiting to catch you, like a father who catches the child who runs to greet him, swinging him or her up in his arms, smiling, beaming with love. God is waiting to catch you. Are you ready to jump into His arms of love? You’ll never be the same, and He will never let you fall.

Maybe you know Christ already if so that is awesome!! How about this coming year join me in growing closer to God. Finding out who we are in Christ Jesus. We are daughters of the King. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Make peace with yourself and let God show you who He has created You to be!

We are fearfully and wonderfully made! Daughters of the most High God!! Lift your head up high, square your shoulders, smile because you know God loves you, let the joy of the Lord be your strength, and show the world Jesus in you!



If you don’t know Christ, and even if you do, please feel free to leave a comment, or if you would prefer email me at Mardi@MardiRobyn.com I would love to talk with you!