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Common Threads Can Create Something Beautiful!



Do you decorate on a dime or decorate with a theme? Decorating is not something that I excel at. I love surrounding myself with pretty things, especially in the home and my personal taste is usually the standard used. Often the theme is simply finding things I like and making a place for them! 

But I have learned the value of a common thread or theme. It could be as simple as a pattern that is carried in a few different décor pieces. A common color, pattern or theme placed in various places 'ties the look together'. It allows the eye to travel through the home and make a connection of festive beauty. 

At our church, there is a main person who decorates the church for all seasons and activities. Creating beauty is something she does wonderfully, especially at Christmas. This year, due to illness, she was unable to decorate the church and called out for some help. Five ladies, myself included, came to evaluate and make a plan to decorate the church. The first night, I could tell I was out of my league! Ribbons, color themes, sparkles or not sparkles became important topics. Bow tying, just the right amount of color, placed strategically and so many small details when attended to, created a vision of Christmas beauty.  WHEW....by the time we finished, I felt like I had taken a crash course in Christmas decorating!

As I pondered some of the decorating thoughts they shared, not mixing textures or colors, but finding a common theme that carried the look throughout, I thought about my life. We all desire our lives to be beautiful. Not just an outward appearance, but an inward beauty that radiates to the outside. 

My earlier décor plan included buying things that grabbed my eye and finding a place for them. Do we do that in our lives? Find something that looks good, or feels good, maybe a habit, a phrase, something that we like and put it in our life. We can go through life grabbing at pleasures and piling them up. For the Christian woman, a hodgepodge of habits, mixture of words or attitudes that feel good to us may not project the beauty that Christ longs to fill us with.  To be a witness for Christ, our words and actions must match. There must be a common thread or theme - godliness. We must purposefully choose to 'decorate' our life with what matches Jesus - wholeness, kindness, honesty, compassion. We can't mix the attitude of the world in with the attributes of the Lord, it stops the flow of His beauty flowing in us and through us. 

Each of us are created in His image, we are loved and made to love others. God has a perfect plan for our lives. He longs to live in and through us.  Patterning our daily lives after Him consists of deliberate choices. Asking questions such as 'where does this fit in the theme of holiness', 'does this flow with the color of compassion', 'is this how Jesus would respond' help us pause and make the best choices. 













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