beautiful you

Where does beauty come from? What makes a person really beautiful?

2009-01-22T04:48:00.000-08:00

To be a truly beautiful person, we must care and maintain both spirit (the “who” we are) and body (the “what” we are).

Throughout life we are bombarded by voices everywhere, each one telling us about our worth, or what we have to do to be beautiful, to be accepted and to be loved. This brings up the question--to whose voice should we listen?

We can listen to the voice of our friends, Hollywood celebrities, and glamour magazines. These are the voices of man. The other option is to listen to God’s voice. We have a powerful choice; one that will greatly affect the person we are - and become.

The best choice is to listen to God’s voice, because He is the Creator. Mankind is the masterpiece of God’s creation -- He sure was creative! Each person is unique and precious in His sight! We were made for worshipping our creator and enjoying a relationship with Christ. He, more than anyone or anything, desires a relationship with each one of us, and desires our individual life of worship.

True beauty comes from the inside out.
Let’s discover some truths about true beauty. Beginning with Our spirit…the core of who we are…what is in there?
What is your purpose for being?
Is God in your core being? Or are you separated from him?
This is the most important aspect of life, so take a serious moment and really ponder these questions.

Whose words are guiding you?
Who are you following?
Who are you serving and trying to please?
Who or what is at your core being?
When God is your core and His glory is your purpose in life, you are on the right path. If not, you have the power to change that, and He can be there, in the core of your life, in an instant!

To be a truly beautiful person, from the inside out, put Christ at the center and then work outwards.

Serve the Lord…Why Him? Well, for starters, He created you. The Bible says that God’s plans for us are too many to count (Psalm 40:5). He even knows how many days you will live (Psalm 90) and the number of hairs on your head. My desire is that you will extend your hand to the One who loves you enough to know the most intimate details about you.

There is no better guide for our life than the one who created each one of us and the beautiful world around us. The choice is up to you.

The Butterfly

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The Butterfly ~ begins as an egg, delicately placed on a leaf. The egg then turns into the caterpillar that eats that green leaf. The caterpillar moves on to find more green leaves. This chubby little caterpillar then gets weary and begins to curl up and build a cocoon. After taking a long rest, which must’ve been exhausting, because, it emerges as a seemingly totally different creature…a butterfly.

As I ponder the wonder of the caterpillar/butterfly phenomena I am once again in awe of God and his dynamic creation. If we, mankind, are the masterpiece of His creation, and the butterfly is a simple part of creation, WOW – we are an amazing creation!!!

The butterfly phenomena can also demonstrate the stages we go through in life. We start out life with one focus, to grow. But then life gets a bit challenging…we pause, ponder, research, explore, and realize there is more to life than eating “green leaves”. When we dig into the Bible, and accept the Holy Spirit into our lives, we become a new creation. We sprout wings and are given a whole new perspective on life…a heavenly perspective. Before Christ, the Holy Spirit, enters our life, we consume ourselves with things of this world. Then, as we enter into a relationship with our Heavenly Father, we see that we are not of this world, but are passing through to another, eternal kingdom. The butterfly, and caterpillar, bring us hope and a beautiful picture of the creativity of the Creator - God.

The Butterfly season of Beautiful You, is the time we focus most on beauty that begins inside, with Christ at the core of our life, and spilling out into our physical aspects of life. Throughout the material we use various clip art of butterflies, to remind us of the unique creation and growing relationship we have with God. The goal is to focus on developing balance between maintaining our inner spiritual beauty with our physical beauty. True beauty begins from within, and is reflected in physical beauty. If either area of our being, spiritual or physical, is out of balance it will be evident in our lives, through the choices we make.

My desire is to post thoughts, over the next couple months, in regards to the balancing of spiritual and physical beauty. Building on true beauty, from the inside out! I invite you to "come along" and share your thoughts and feedback...

History - 2008

2008-11-14T07:04:00.000-08:00

Almost up to date :)

This spring we had our second ever teen girl conference, at Monadnock Bible Conference! What another amazing event, with over 250 teen girls!!!

The Jaffrey Bible Church began their fourth year of club meetings, directed by Sheryl Duncan. Sheryl has taken this opportunity to stretch herself in teaching the devotional thoughts as well as direct the club. The Beautiful You group is enjoying this year’s theme of "Beauty from the inside-out". The wellness highlights will focus on various aspects of physical beauty (skin care, hair care, nutrition, etc...) It has been a real blessing to be able to connect teen girls with women who can share in these various aspects of beauty!

My hope is to take the next step, and present the manuals and Beautiful You concept to publishers. Therefore, making this ministry available to anyone interested. Many, many people have expressed interest in starting the Beautiful You Ministry within their church family. Please continue to pray with me that the Lord’s will be done with this ministry.

History - 2007

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This was another eventful year!

The Jaffrey Bible Church began their third year of meetings, directed by Sheryl Duncan. I again, had the blessing of teaching the devotional thoughts. This time the theme was "Beauty in Action". For a visual theme we used jewels, bringing the truth alive about how we are a valuable treasure being cleaned, faceted, and set in a particular way to glorify our creator within the church body. The wellness highlights developed to focus on various careers and how the Lord brought the various women sharing, to the place they were at, and how the teens could get involved in ministry. These careers included teaching, clerical, homeless ministry, and many more.

Two other very exciting things happened this year as well:

In the Spring we saw the first ever teen girl conference, at Monadnock Bible Conference. What an exciting event with over 150 teen girls!
The other was the first ever guys club ministry – Man Of God. Please continue to pray for Man of God as they design, create and develop a ministry to connect teen guys with caring men.

History - 2006

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This is the year that Judith Flemming decided it was time to step aside and Groton Heights Baptist Church decided to put the Beautiful You ministry on hold.

The Jaffrey Bible Church began their second year of meetings, directed by Karla Charles. I was blessed with the opportunity to teach the devotional thoughts. This provided some necessary accountability for writing the year two curriculum.

The theme was "Beauty in Relationships". We used flower arranging as a visual representation for the roles of various relationships throughout life. We had a great year with wellness highlights focusing on relational things like: caring for your space, planning a great meal, card making, and much, much more.

History - 2005

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This year brought various women into my life, that were incredibly encouraging:

Judith Flemming – running and carrying on the Groton Heights Baptist Church ministry, through great transitions;
Gina Dyson – read my ideas and gave honest feedback;
Terri Thereault – read and edited the first drafts of the manual and meeting lesson plans;
Bethany Needham – approached her church and shared the idea of starting the BY ministry there;
Karla Charles – took the proposed idea and “ran with it” directing the first BY ministry year at Jaffrey Bible Church;
Sheryl Duncan – embraced the ideas and committed to BY in various ways, through thick and thin.

My goal throughout the year was to equip the churches with a well designed program and curriculum, so they could minister to their teen girls.

History - 2004

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This was the year the Lord moved the Carver family to New Hampshire.

As I (Holly Carver) adjusted and transitioned my family to a new ministry at Monadnock Bible Conference, I wondered what the Lord would do with the Beautiful You ministry. That year the Lord gave me a vision for a three year curriculum, which would rotate every three years. The first year of studies would be “Beauty from the inside-out, paralleling spiritual and physical beauty”, the second year of studies would be “Beauty in relationships, highlighting a biblical woman character”, and the third year of studies would be “Beauty in action, highlighting the various roles within the church body”. This way, when a teen enters sixth grade, goes to meeting(s) and hears the messages, the same message will be heard again in ninth grade. Reaching them at different stages of life will bring the various truths alive, as applicable.

Judith Flemming continued the Groton Heights Baptist Church, Beautiful You ministry. The BY group had a very eventful year with a lot of fun activities, including opening and starting the clothing closet, a “what not to wear” fashion show, and a day to beautify the Church’s park property.

History - 2003

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Let me just begin at the beginning and bring everyone up to date with where BY came from to where BY is today:

As a pastor’s wife I wanted to connect with all the girls of our youth ministry. But, there were thirty of them and only one me, and I was a mom of two very young children. So, I knew that I alone was not the answer. My desire was a ministry with lots of interaction, where teens can learn that their value and beauty comes from the Lord. Although a club ministry can be very time consuming and demanding, I thought this would be the best way to connect teens with caring women. I have found Beautiful You to be relationally rewarding.

Combining the idea for a series of lessons on spiritual beauty and physical beauty tips, with the teen girl club concept, we created Beautiful You. The first leaders meeting was in August of 2003 and the first club meeting was September 2003. That first meeting was exciting.

The leadership was as follows:
Prayer partners: Mae Greenleaf, Hannah Thomas, Judith Flemming, Lori McClain, and many others…
Director: Holly Carver (me);
Leaders: Judy Elwood, Lynne Kinneman, Yvonne Elwood, Karen Sullivan and Judith Flemming.

We had about twenty committed teen girls and a year full of fun. Our major events were a sleepover, a trip to “Girls of Grace” in Bethlehem, PA, and a banquet with a fashion show. Overall, it was an exciting, eventful year.

Short Description

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Beautiful You is a teen girl ministry whose goal is to teach truth to teen girls living in a world of lies. Truth of where beauty and value come from – The Lord God, our creator. The theme verse for Beautiful You is 1 Peter 3:3-4. Beauty is not limited to outward appearance, but begins within the heart, the core of who you are and then spreads from inside - out. Balancing spiritual and physical beauty is challenging. Both require daily care and discipline. Beautiful You is a curriculum tool, designed to equip women to share keys on maintaining and caring for both our spiritual and physical beauty. This ministry is geared toward teens, but can be adapted to meet the needs of girls most any age, really.