What is Beauty?

Soon after Michael and I first met, in the fall of 2007, he asked me what my definition of "Beauty" was, as a casual conversation starter. It took me a little while, but a few day later I was able to put my thoughts into words. The following note is what I composed at that time.... 

What does a mighty, rugged, snow-covered mountain and a delicate, soft, rain-misted flower have in common?... Beauty. 

In its purest form - unaffected by this corrupt world - beauty is something that brings hope. Specifically, everything the Lord gives us that reflect the unshakable hope we have in Christ, for as it says in Scripture, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father…” (James 1:17).  

A bright sunrise brings hope for a blessed day, just as a burning sunset causes hope for a peaceful night. A rushing river and towering mountains fill us with hope for the One greater and more powerful than ourselves. An attractive person makes other people hope for personal beauty, or at least the companionship of beauty. A shining smile makes others hope for friendship and acceptance. And, a person living out a close, passion-filled relationship with Christ make us hope for a relationship with Him that equals, or exceeds, that which we see.  

It’s like the sound of an orchestra warming up when they are already on stage, right before the conductor walks out. It is the beautiful, thrilling sound of hope! Hope in the amazing, God-reflecting music that will be pouring out of their instruments in mere moments. That emotion, to some extent, is mimicked whenever we come face to face with beauty; an excitement and thrill for something great. 

This is why we can look at a moment filled with pain, such as a fire-fighter standing amidst the rubble of the NY World Trade Centers, and yet still see beauty. We see the hope that the Lord is powerful, sovereign, and providing even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances. 

Beauty described in scripture is many things, including wisdom, knowledge, worship, sacrifice, the Church, our Lord, and even the feet of those who bring good news. However, when I attempt to put into words the very definition of what I see as beauty, I see something beyond what is being called “beautiful.” When I label something as beautiful, I see in it a reflection of the Lord God Almighty, the Ever Eternal Beautiful One.

Scriptural References: Wisdom (Ezekiel 28:7), Inward (1 Peter 3:4-5), Knowledge (Proverbs 24:4), Sacrifice/worship (Matthew 26:10), The Church (Revelations 21:2), The Lord (Psalm 27:4 & Isaiah 28:5), Feet (Romans 10:15 & Isaiah 52:7)

Valentine’s Day… With a Guy!!

It’s coming up on Valentine’s Day, the day in which countless single women bemoan their lack of relationships, countless single guys ignore the holiday all together and bemoan the lack of football, and countless couples try desperately to profess their love to each other in the midst of a culture that is telling them the best way to show someone that you love them is by spending money.

As I think about this holiday, I think about what it has meant to me in years past. I determined ages ago that no matter what happened, I refused to get down on Valentine’s Day. God loves me, and that should be enough to scare away the blues. In order to not be thinking about myself all day (the fastest way to get depressed) I made it a tradition to give out cards and chocolate to all my brothers. They not only seemed thrilled with this, they started returning the favor, until finally it got to the point that I was getting more goodies, flowers, and stuffed bears on Valentine’s Day than most of my coupled-up friends.

Now I find myself coming up on the first Valentine’s Day of my life where I actually have the thing that so many women want so desperately, a guy. And not just any guy, the best guy in the whole world (I know, I’m bias)

How am I to truly show this man that I love him? The best example of displayed love that I know of is when my Lord and Savior died on a cross in order to save my soul…. not exactly something that I can use as inspiration for a Valentine gift… or is it?

Jesus Christ told me to love my neighbor as my self, and you can’t get more neighborly with someone then picking up their dirty socks. So for my first Valentine’s Day as a married-person, I am going to be shopping for a little more than just chocolate or a good steak. I am going to be praying for opportunities to die to myself and be the helper God called me to be to the man He gave me. I’m looking forward to the challenge :-) 

One more thing...

Oh, and just to clarify, my wonderful husband's last name is Poythress, so that is now mine too *grin*.

For now, the URL of my blog is not changing, so you will still be entering http://evieschmitt.blogspot.com/ to get here. I'll let you know if that ever changes.

And Five Months Later…..

       It has now been about 5 months since I last wrote. You know that precious relationship I was talking about in my last post? Well, the Lord had some pretty big plans for it. On June 14^th, 2009, I married the most wonderful man I have ever known.

       When I was about 20 years old, I looked at my health and realized that I might never get married. This wasn’t some conclusion made in a depressing moment of gloom. I had been learning the hard lesson of contentment, and God called my heart to be fully and completely content with only Him for the rest of my life. If the Lord chose that I would get married at some point in the future, I would prayerfully walk that road when the time came, but I was not going to spend my life pining for something that might not be the best for me anyway. 

        This meant that I spent my single adult life without any of the distractions that come from relationship. It also meant that when Michael and I first met, I really had no interested in anything “serious” happening. It took a lot of prayer and work to get my heart on the same page as God’s. It was a pretty scary thing to look at how weak I was physically and trust that the Lord would sustain me through even more trials and demands. But I was foolish to fear. As a wise man once said, the safest place to be is in God’s will.

In the posts that follow, you will see that I am still a young woman who is learning to fully lean on the Lord, to be content in all circumstances, and to take the physical pain that I have and use it to glorify God. On one hand, not much will be changing. And yet, things have changed. I am now learning all of this in the midst of the most complex relationship that anyone can find themselves in. Marriage. Becoming one with another person. Being an example of Christ and the Church to the world. Dying to myself on a daily bases for my best friend and second half. 

Oh Lord give me mercy and strength!!

Guarding Our Hearts

Wow, It has been a long time since I have posted anything. Just a few months shy of a year in fact. Time flies when God is moving you!

I have been going through some pretty big changes in life, and when that happens, I have notices that people tend to be more open with their advice and wisdom. That said, once in a while I am presented with thoughts and opinions that really make me sit back and think. That is generally always a good thing, but it does not always mean that I will end up agreeing with the ideas. Recently I have been thinking over a question that has been asked of me throughout my teen and adult years. "Why do you practically avoid serious relationships with guys". The question is often presented by people who don't know me very well, and is fueled by a lot of disapproval and even resentment.

Why do people think that it is rash and unwise for single women to lock up their hearts and minds against frequent casual pursuers, and only open the gates of their hearts when it is undoubtedly clear that the Lord is leading them to do so? Some people think that waiting for the Lord’s leading toward a relationship, and even the rarity of marrying the first man that you fall in love with, is “just settling” because you has not chased after enough guys to know for certain that the one you love is the best and is truly God’s will for you.

Years ago, an older family friend told me she wanted to share some relationship wisdom with me. To my surprise, she said that I needed to be sure not to follow after the new idea of avoiding casual dating. She shared with me the story of her daughter, who ran off and married the first young man who showed any interest in her, and later suffered a great amount of pain because of her rash decisions. Because her daughter hastily married the first person who professed to love her, our friend’s response was to think that it is foolish to avoid numerous romantic relationships and naive for young ladies to think that guarding their heart will bring blessing.

We are accustomed to our morally-void world criticizing Christian woman for guarding their hearts and not playing the relationship games, but even a lot of other Christians think a young woman who guards against frequent, purposeless relationships is immature and only asking for pain, trouble, and loneliness.

Could it really be dangerous to avoid a lot of first-hand experience in the area of relationship? Are people right in saying that conservative young women are naive to protect our hearts in order to gain blessing? No, I do not think they are. In reality, these Godly women who receive such criticism often spend great amounts of time and energy seeking after the Lord’s will and His direction in the area of relationships. They earnestly seek to glorify God through their decisions regarding relationships, and have made it their goal to be rich with wisdom if the Lord should call them to marriage.

I like to think of a woman as a castle, with her moral foundation being the foundation of her fortress, and her wisdom being the battlements and defenses of that fortress. If Christ is her foundation, then the foundation of her life will be stronger than the deepest bedrock. If her wisdom is gleaned from Scripture and from Godly councilors, then her defenses against harm and foolishness will be nearly impenetrable.

In the center of this castle is kept one of her great treasures, a woman’s heart. This is one of the greatest possessions God has given her, and she should protect her treasure with the strongest walls and the toughest resolve that God gives her the strength to posses. She would be foolish to offer entrance into the gates of her heart to any man who has not proven worthy to accept it, and who does not have the same strong foundation and equal, if not more, wisdom than she does.

The trouble that happened to our friend’s daughter was not that she did not have more experience in giving her heart away, but that she did not guard her heart enough. Our world does not approve of protecting against meaningless relationships because they do not want to do the hard work of acting in wisdom and walking in righteousness in order to receive rich blessings.

As the Lord has lead me through the precious relationship I find myself in now, I have become more and more in awe of who the Lord has created this man to be. Only God could have built into this person the tools needed to unlock the walls around my hearts. There is no way this gentleman could have trained in advance, with his own strength, for the task of reaching my unique complex heart. Only God could have given him the keys he needed.

In the midst of a pain-filled world, where the shadows of ended relationships darken the vast majority of people’s hearts, unwise decisions in the area of relationships cause many people to be hopeless and discouraged. The message I am sharing might be painful and harsh to hear. It is encouraging, however, to remember that God works in mysterious ways, and I know from experience that He uses everything in our lives, even failed relationships, to turn us into the sons and daughters of Christ that we are meant to be. It is never too late to seek after more wisdom, to walk in more discernment, and to strengthen our relationship with the Lord. Even when past decisions cause lasting consequences, God’s plan is never thwarted and His sovereign will shall be worked out in our lives as we follow hard after Him.

Exodus Moments

I have grown to love moments in life when my back is up against a wall; when the clock is ticking, the resources are running out, and the Enemy is clearly trying to bring me down on every side.


These are my Exodus Moments. The times I look back on as the most impossible to solve, and the most glorifying to God, are the times in life that are the richest.

The Lord frequently calls His children to trials like these. He declares things will be difficult, that people will be hardened, and that the outcome with be both for His glory and my growth.

During the times I have no way to solve the situations the Lord brings me through, I can trust without a doubt that He will solve them for me, in His way, through His sovereignty.

When the Lord brings me to the edge of a massive sea on one side, and a wall of peril on another, I can have great peace.

What should be said at moments when our only hope is found in the faith that our Omnipotent God will reach down His hand and cause an ocean to split in two? I suggest repeating what Moses told the people of Israel at a time just like this one:

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still"
Exodus 14:14

The Struggle Of Contentment

While a friend and I were both getting delightfully messy with ceramics and paint the other day, the two of us were talking about the different projects the Lord had given us to do, and the strange contradiction the concept of contentment can appear to be - being that we were having some much needed girl-time, this came up in-between our discussions of cute clothes, and the superiority of the color pink.

The entire concept of contentment tends to aggravate my brain cells. I fully accept and embrace the command in Scripture to be content, yet I have struggled with the logistics of exactly how I am to be content in all things, and yet still be seeking out the Lord’s will and preparing for new assignments from Him. We are called to be at peace in all circumstances, yet we are also told to be prepared and ready to serve God in any way He directs, which in turn means that we are not to simply spend our lives sitting on our hands, wasting the gifts the Lord has given us. I find this quite the puzzle sometimes.

How do we split our focus between seeking out ways of service, and seeking peaceful contentment? The answer, I am learning, is by realizing that true contentment – that which we are called to in scripture – is not a fleeting fancy or occasional achievement, but rather it is a purposeful attitude, a fixed mindset, an actual lifestyle.

Contentment is not some lofty standard that we think we might reach if we were only just a little more comfortable, unlike what we are told by our culture’s marketing and media - some of the most discontented people I know are those who have great worldly treasure and ease. Neither is it something that we are allowed to embrace in one area of life, but can then reject in other areas. How do we remain content in sickness and health, in riches or rags, in success or failure? What is the key to living a life of true contentment?

Philippians 4:7 & 12-13 says,
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again:
Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all.
The Lord is near. Do not be anxious
about anything,but in everything, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus…
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have
plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and
every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty
or in want. I can do everything through
Him who gives me strength."

In this commonly quoted passage we are given a rich view into the actual requirements of contentment. Philippians does not say that we can settle for turning off our joy with a switch, or chose to be content only when we are at our best. It tells us that we must seek the Lord’s provision and strength to be at peace in ALL our circumstances – to be in contentment regardless of how we “feel”. We are to look at every event in life with thanksgiving, because every experience we have is in the loving hands of our Sovereign God. It calls us to action in fervently seeking the Lord in prayer during times when we are anxious, and does not give us the option to hold on to that anxiety. Rather, we are to lay our worry at the feet of Christ.

The beauty of this truth is that contentment is not just some agonizing assignment that we are called to endure all the days of our life – it is a precious gift! A life of contentment is full of great treasure.

As it says in 1 Timothy 6:6-8,
“But godliness with contentment is great gain.
For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take
nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing,
we will be content with that."

Everything we have in our lives; our home, family, safety, health, freedom and our very breath, is all an undeserved gift from God, and as such He has full power and dominion to take any of it away at any time.

Having peace in this knowledge is what contentment is. Knowing that no matter where we are, what we are doing, or who we are with – even in the simple moments of sharing some paint with a friend – we can rest in our loving Savior, who is orchestrating all of heaven, and all of earth.