IS MY HEART BEAUTIFUL?

We had just finished church on a Sunday afternoon when a married man complained of his wife spending along time making herself clean and beautiful which was the cause of their missing the great praise and worship at this church, he went on explaining to his buddies how many Christian women have fallen short of 1 peter 3:3, “if only our wives understood what this verse meant, we husbands would have no problems at home”, was the married man’s actual words.

I kept thinking of the words that this married man mentioned to his buddies, I can’t argue with him even as am writing this because he has way more experience to being around women than I have, but am sorry not count his experience in my writing and thinking. Am not saying he is wrong but his words drove my mind to taking a closer look to the verse he was basing his conversation. I had already made a study on 1 peter 3:3 not basing it on ladies but looking at how it actually relates to us the men.

1 peter 3:3-4

³Who’s adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;

⁴ But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

Peter writes this in a century where every woman is expected to virgin on the wedding day, a century where men are looking not for the physical but that which is not seen but hidden inside. Because this was the men of the first century, Peter addresses the ladies to be that which the godly men are looking for. I believe that 1 peter 3 having been directly written to women does not mean that we the men have nothing to pick from it, this verse directly applies to us just that in some times men have used it to criticize them of their short comings. Yet in the same way this verse shows how our expectations and motives have fallen when looking at ladies.

Revelation 19:7-9

⁷ Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.

⁸ And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

⁹ And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed [are] they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

We all wait for a time when we shall be taken up in glory to heaven, and when we reach there revelation says, let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him, for the marriage of the lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. It makes me happy to have the promise that when it says the wife, it means the church. We will by then have made ourselves ready. (Verse 7)

As the body of Christ, we are on a journey to heaven, where we shall be married to Christ. If we live with this hope what should our walk be like in this life? Shouldn’t this change how we prepare ourselves? 29^th of this month is a day when two of the sons and daughters of new hope Uganda are getting married, this is exciting news to many people, to the person who will appear at the wedding and be pleased at how beautiful they look and the decoration, people might not actually realize the great work that was involved in the wedding’s taking place. The shopping, endless meetings, the finance, decorating, the stress that comes out of it all, It actually takes a lot of preparation, prayer and trusting in God for that day to happen when the two become one . If it takes this lot of preparation for an imperfect man to marry an imperfect woman, how much preparation should we go through to marry perfect Jesus? The good news is that by then, we shall also be perfect like our bride groom.

I have been to some what many wedding ceremonies, while other people like the end part of the ceremony; I have come to like the very start of it for different reasons. My best part is when the bridegroom is already in the church waiting for his bride to appear, and when she does, hand claps and noise of applause is not an option, everybody stands up to welcome her because they are all there to witness her becoming one with the bride groom. As she walks on the aisle, all yes on her. While every one’s eyes are looking at the bride, I tend to fix my eyes to the opposite direction, the bride groom has nothing to distract him from enjoying the beauty of his bride, and he gazes at her with bright eyes and a smiling face. To him nothing at this point is more important than her and no beauty surpasses the one that is coming towards him. This is best understood by the look on his face. He can’t with stand the beauty that is about to approach him. All that the man is looking at is the gown his lady is putting on, the jewelry, the makeup, and the nice shoes. The bride brooms eyes are only looking at the outside, the physical. How does this relate to our marriage in heaven? We know that we shall one day be joined to Jesus in glory. I for now can only imagine, how happy will Jesus be on my walking on the aisle with him on the other side? There will be a great should by the angles when I appear walking down the aisle to go meet my bride groom. At that point he will be gazing at my beauty with his eyes, he will look at me but will not be interested on my physical appearance, and his eyes will zoom right in the heart. The smile he will have on our heavenly wedding day will be how beautiful my heart will be, not the wonderful makeup, not the fine linen or the smile I will poses on that day. His concentration will be how beautiful my heart will be, not how beautiful my face and outside will be.

One of the wise man said death was like his car because it takes him where he wants to go, this is a man who does not mind of the world, he is confident and clearly knows his destiny and lives in preparation for heaven. I know that one day Jesus is going to be waiting for me on the other side of the aisle to be married to him and that heaven waits for the day when the church shall be joined to its true bride groom. Know of this, I confidently read 1 peter 3:3 in relation to my own life, this puts me to thinking of how much attention I give to my physical and the less time I dedicated to building a beautiful heart for Jesus on that day. When I prepare for the wedding is not when I reach there but now, you don’t start preparing on the day of the wedding, this preparation starts on the day you are proposed to. Jesus proposed me in john 3:16, he use the most romantic words ever and because his ways are higher than our ways, instead of kneeling on one leg, he died, on the cross to confirm how much love he was willing to offer me. When he proposed me, he did not expect me the answer there and then like men do, he gave waited for me to first consider the cost. Luke 9:26. After I said yes he gave me the time to prepare myself and make myself beautiful because I was filthy, Romans 3:23. He did not tell me the day of the wedding, Mathew 24:42, so I live each day so wise waiting for the day of his coming. He is not marrying me and after renting a house, no he is first building a house for me before he comes for me, john 14:2. We will not leave after the honey moon; we will stay in the same house built not of bricks or cement, but of gold, Revelation 21:18. The man who will marry me will give me total peace, he will be faithful, Revelation 21:4. From then we shall be happy thereafter.

 This is a kind of husband we should expect to marry, this challenges me not to view my singleness as preparation for the day I will marry an earthly wife, but to use my singleness to prepare my life and making my heart beautiful for the day I will walk down the aisle with him waiting for me. Being a man, my understanding is limited; I don’t fully grasp the concept of being a bride. I can only picture myself waiting for the bride as she walks towards me. Although I haven’t waited for one, I know how happy I will be to see her walk towards me, for this reason, I have a little tiny understanding of how happy Jesus will be after looking at how beautiful my heart will be. To some of the girls who have told me they wish they we boys, my only message has been that, you are on the advantaged side of the wedding with Christ, because you know how it feels like to have Jesus waiting for you on the opposite side of the aisle. I don’t. if we all will be wedded to Christ in heaven, knowing that he won’t base our beauty on the outside appearance, what should we do to see that we put our concentration on that which will be pleasing to him, 1 peter 3:4. It is the state of our hearts that is going to win Jesus’ heart. For the ladies, it’s not the long gown, not the earrings, not the bracelets, not the hair, not the smile. To the men, it’s not the black suit, not the wonderful tie, not the pointed shoes, not our combed hair and not how much we have built our bodies.to all of us, it will be that which no human eyes can see, it will be our hearts. What will influence how big Jesus will smile is how beautiful our hearts will be, we are all brides of Christ so should work at preparing for the heavenly wedding. If our hearts are focused on heavenly marriage then earthly marriage will not be a hindrance. 1 peter 3 is a calling to every man and woman who is heavenly minded. David is an example to us the men, 1 Samuel 16:7.  is my heart beautiful for Jesus?, is your?

DO I REGRET?

.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       November 11- 1989

Mom stopped working a week before I was borne; mom was taken on a bicycle to deliver me. On the 11^th of November 1989 a young hero was borne, a new stainless steel brand original baby boy. This time not made in China, on this day I entered the world’s trouble, and it was time to share the pain that the world had to offer. When I reflect 22 years  back, this was definitely the genesis of trouble, pains, heat breaks and hopelessness in my life but was over all the genesis of God’s favor in my life, all that life would bring me in days, weeks, months, and years to come were opportunities for me to see God in a better angle he is, I was not to see this right away but He divinely preserved this for later in life, moments like now when I look back at each one of the and marvel at how it was his hand the saw me through.
It was somehow difficult for mom to stay at her grandfather’s house with two grandsons without a reasonable source of income, it was impossible for a young lady trained to work just to stay at home. In the course of finding work , she came across a young man who promised her heaven on earth, this was an opportunity for Patrick and little me to grow up in a real family with mom and a father figure to compensate the relationship of our biological father.it  also relieve mom from having to provide everything in the home. All the above was secondary, this is the main point. Mom was still young and beautiful, she couldn’t afford seating on her beauty yet there was a nice man promising to appreciate it. She survived living in the nights cold alone, but by the time I turned three she could not hold it any more. With few or no arrangements we were in another home. I was just three but really remember we how different my third home was from the second one. I still have clear memories of what was going on it’s now that my mind truly justifies it. It is this home that it all began, this is my story.
Wabitunda was my next home replacing Bweyewo not far away from each other; our new home was the third last in community, a rectangular small house with mad walls made by erecting poles in a desired shape. Rids are tired across the poles , then well prepared soil mixed with water is forced between the poles which takes like five days to dry. The roof is made up of dried spear grass which is paced on top and tired firmly to avoid sliding during stormy nights. The house a living room and a bed room, please don’t picture the living room and compare it to yours, it was a place where we would eat supper while sitting down on the floor so this eliminated the pressure of having a dining table.  It was a living room in the day and a bed room in the night for us the kids. Life was good here, so far mom had chosen the best husband for life and a good father for us kids, he had all that a young lady desired in a young man. We were the only children in the home so for those first days we got some love that a muganda man can give his step kids. Christmas was full of fun caused by the variety of food in front of us, Coca-Cola filled the evening of Christmas day, it was the day many of the Ugandan kids anticipate, it’s the day to eat the food you have missed for a year. We lived in a community where we were isolated from most of fun, we were in the middle of old couples that hadn’t any little kids around so Patrick and I had to figure out what games we played that only involved two people, it was only this little girl who was in the same situation we were in that except from her home just to give us company. Mom was afraid how we would behave in the middle of a thousand kids?
When mom promised him a child I saw his attitude, love and behavior drift from us kids to nowhere,  he started complaining how bored and lonely home was for him on days he didn’t work, well, I would watch him go but up to now I don’t know what work he was doing by then. I watched him leaving very early just to avoid seeing us in the morning, he would also come back late for just the same reason. He knew mom promised him a child so found no interest in us baggers and fatherless.  At the time Ruth was her first borne was delivered, Patrick and I then had a clear view of the matter, we definitely knew he hated us and didn’t like us home. I use the word home not in a serious and loving way, it was a home for his newly born baby mom and the step dad but not Patrick and I. the right word to use would be house because when it reached night it held us all. We had no option. As we study in school, a family consists of mom dad and children this wasn’t us, no family can be family without relationship. What many people consecrate on is the presence of a female and male figure, they don’t go ahead to ask and find out the relationship aspect of the so called family. He loved mom because she took care of his children, as you may know, children Buganda culture belong to the man, all that the mother does is takes care of them but derive no identity from the mom, good children belong to the father while bad, knotty, lazy and stupid ones are attributed to the mother. On the fourth child he stared having misunderstandings with mom. Am not trying to say they didn’t have misunderstanding before but this time ending up in almost a fight, as a man in the home he would try to correct us but it was always through spanks, mom could not watch him beat us that bad and keep silent, this was the beginning of a fight. We were not his kids, this we knew and he knew so hurting us physically or emotionally wasn’t a big deal for him. Mom knew we were her kids so defended us.
Misunderstandings never ended with them alone of course we were the trouble; there was one night out of the many that the three of us were chased of the house at night. We ended up going to the ashy kitchen for that night; mom could not sleep until we were snoring. Throughout the day he would not be there so that gave us time to really have fun and enjoy our childhood, we although became stubborn for mom that she some time told him to discipline us, that was of course tough, mom ended up being sorry for us but it was too late. 
i don'y regret it.

Well, it’s true that I have been hurt in my life. Quite a bit, But it’s also true that I have loved, and been loved and that carries a weight of its own, I’ll look back on my own life and see that the greatest piece of it is love. The problems of sadness, isolation those will somewhat be there, but just smaller silver, tiny pieces.  Sarah Dessen – This Lullby 

I don't spend too much time thinking of the bad things that happened in the past, i don't want the past to take most of my today. when i decided to look think of it, i force my brain to think of the good that happened and how the bad has turned into good.
I don’t regret it all because living with regrets is like driving a car that only moves in reverse.