Dianne Christner

Book Giveaway

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:00:00 +0000

It’s time for a giveaway.

For me, Spring is all about new beginnings. Recently I read…and want to pass along…this book and music CD for young women who struggle with self esteem issues. I think it fits the theme of plain girl romanticizing.

The Insatiable Quest For Beauty by Tiffany Dawn is a young woman’s guide for overcoming culture’s obsession with perfection.

Each chapter is a coffee date with Tiffany. She shares about her quest for beauty and how it affected her eating habits, her self-worth, and her relationships. These chats cover issues like body image and low self-esteem. She gives entries from her diary and shares her journey to freedom.

A sneak peek at a few chapter titles:

To Be Beautiful

Unconditional Love

A Healthy Balance

Models, Image, and What You Can Do

She concludes with a chapter entitled, Your Story. This is where her story ends and she adresses her readers about their unwritten stories, although she offers quality tips throughout the book.

Now Tiffany Dawn speaks and performs her music across the United States. Her CD This is Who I am is included in this give away.

To enter the giveaway:

Leave your email addy in a comment. Every time I do a giveaway, it saddens me that some forget to leave their email address. I need these to contact the winner. Your email will remain hidden, if you register as a reader on this site. If that is the case, just leave a comment to be entered.

Giveaway ends April 9th

Blessings,

Dianne

Tiffany Dawn's website. http://tiffany-dawn.net/fr_home.cfm

Winner is Diana Montgomery...Congrats!

The Refining Fire - Bridal Gowns, Part 4

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 06:20:00 +0000

It's Spring!

Here's the perfect dress code for a picnic.

Happy toes, wiggling in the sunshine.

There's a dress code for everything these days, and luckily all matters of etiquette can be researched on the internet. Recently, we were invited to a party. The invitation noted the dress was resort casual, so we googled it. Modern brides buy magazines and search Pinterest for the latest styles. But long before the internet, God gave us His dress code.

Rev. 4:17 "You say you are richly dressed,

but you are not until you buy from me gold refinined in the fire"

There's only one place to get the gold...in the dressing room's refining area. Nope, can't buy it with money. Not only that, in order to get to the gold stash, we have to walk through a firey path of trials, hardships, and temptations. It's a place where we must cling to God to survive because we don't know how we'll take another breath, find a ray of hope, or the strength to drag ourselves through it.

We're not alone. He sent us a personal attendant. The Holy Spirit reminds us of the Groom's love. He holds us up, restores our faith and hope. He verifies the true path and convicts us of sin as threads of gold are woven into our heavenly bridal gowns.

Discipline can be part of our refinement.

Proverbs 1:23 - "If you had responded to my rebuke,

I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you."

This awful room is where we get to know God better.

It's one-on-one, quality time.

When the Holy Spirit appeared in the upper room, He fell as tongues of fire. He is our refining fire. He draws us right into the heat just as He drew Jesus to the mountain of temptation and to Calvary. But He also becomes a dove with healing in His wings. He is sufficient to bring us to victory.

We must encourage each other to remember that one day we'll be arrayed in glorious splendor. Golden threads and adornments will sparkle and bring glory to God for what He has done in us.

When your happy feet touch the hot coals...

...keep heart.

God is doing something beautiful...

...preparing them to skip on heavenly streets

Our visit to the Dressing room comes when we least expect it.

But we need this one-on-one, quality time that prepares us for eternity.

Happy Easter!

The Dressing Room - Bridal Gowns, Part Three

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 07:00:00 +0000

Did you ever choose eyeglass frames?

It's almost impossible to do alone.

Either your eyes are dilated and blurry or you can't see through the clear sample lenses. When I purchased my old pair, I asked the clerk for frames that were current and flattered my face. I let him make the final choice. They were more glitzy than I would have chosen, but I loved those glasses. I kept the frames longer than normal, just replacing lenses. But eventually I needed a style update.

Last summer I went with specifics. I wanted frameless (around the lenses) hoping to draw attention to my eyes and not the glasses. I preferred black. Afterwards, I waited with anticipation for their arrival. But when the day came that I could finally see myself in them, I sank with disappointment. I realized the clerk had been a "yes girl". Or maybe she wasn't experienced in choosing frames to bring out a person's best features.

These frames accentuate a frown line across the bridge of my nose, and when I'm not smiling, I look cross. Normally when I'm serious I appear to frown, anyways. These frames emphasize it so that I go around appearing annoyed, skeptical, and disapproving. Not my best feature!

By the time I was finished with the lenses--bifocal transitionals that block the sun--they were too expensive to replace. Nine months later, I still regret my choice of frames because they aren't comfortable and they make me look cross unless I'm smiling.

Thankfully, our God is not a yes-girl clerk.

We can trust Him. I like to think that God has us in His dressing room, and He's designing our bridal gowns to bring out our best features. If you remember from previous Bridal Gown posts, He's wrapping us in the living fabric of our personal faith stories. He's not like the inexperienced, indifferent clerk. He knows exactly what we need to increase our faith. He takes a tuck here, lets it out there, a pouf here, and a scallop there.

God makes heart alterations to showcase our best features, the gifts and talents He knit together while we were still in the womb. Since He's transforming our hearts, we feel each stitch of the needle. His tucks pinch, but they bring forth lovely fruits of the Spirit. He cuts away the ugly and worthless and stretches the fabric of our hearts so that our faith-stories will point to His glory for eternity.

You may be thinking, what I'm going through is more than a pinch. Really painful experiences are the golden threads purchased by passing through the refining fire, and I'm addressing that topic next week.

Time spent in the dressing room isn't always pleasant,

but if we allow God to do His work...

we won't be disappointed when we step into eternity.

This is me in my dizzy-unfocused phase.

I felt like I had motion-sickness for a month,

adjusting to these glasses.

I took them back for adjustments and finally figured out they must rest lower on my nose than I prefer. Otherwise the lenses are out of focus. So I'd been going around out of focus for a month. Now I live with grooves on my nose. But despite my hate-hate relationship with these glasses, there are some good things about them.

~They block the sun and I don't have to shuffle between sunglasses and normal glasses, a handy no-hassle aspect for desert living.

~They match my black, go-to outfits.

~I can see most of the time.

~They force me to smile.

~They taught me a lesson. Next time I'm taking a trusted person with me to purchase new frames.

Do you prefer shopping alone?

Or do you need someone to help you make choices?

Do you think God knows what He's doing?

What Not to Wear? Bridal Gowns, Part Two

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Last night I watched an episode of What Not to Wear.

The show helps women learn to dress to reflect their personalities and complement their body types. The hosts were dressing a woman who had polio as a child. She wore leg braces and sometimes used a wheelchair. She participated in Wheelchair Triathlons so her arms were large and her legs tiny. On the show, they gave the participant a make over. She looked radiant when they were finished.

In order to get her new wardrobe, she had to spend time in the dressing room. Last week I wrote about the gowns God's preparing for us. We have to spend time in the dressing room too.

I like to think of it like this. When we become engaged to God (a Christian), we get a dressing room where God creates a designer gown to display our best features. A gown where our weaknesses will be covered by His glory in a luxurious dazzling white fabric.

In What Not to Wear, the contestant was a professional so they were fitting her with dressy jackets, using stretchy materials because of her large arms. She loved the unrestricting fabric and movement it allowed.

Today there's a fabric for every occasion or sport.

Linen is God's preferred fabric for us.

Do you know your linens?

Don’t think of the wrinkly material that we wear when we travel - so we don’t get wrinkles. It's not like our dish towels that don’t aborb...none of them do, by the way. But think of the finest of finest materials.

When I Googled linen, I discovered it has healing qualities, which is why it's used in bandages. In antiquity, linen was used to make fine priestly garments and used for burial shrouds. Think Mummies. Easter is around the corner. Christ was wrapped in linens and put in the tomb.

Rev 19:8 describes the linen in a mind-boggling way.

God’s wife has made herself ready. She was given a bridal gown of bright and shining linen.

The linen is the righteousness of the saints.

Another version says,

The linen is the righteous acts of God’s holy people.

This is where the fabric takes on a living essence. The fabric is actually woven from our righteous acts. That's supernatural stuff!

Righteouness is not being sinless. It's not being more good than bad.

It’s a faith-relationship. A word that describes our hearts in its relationship to Jesus.

This means that our gowns are created from our personal faith story. How unique is that? Our own personal faith story is going to be wrapped around us as an eternal testimony. When we wear it, others will see how God moved in our earthly lives.

The show What Not to Wear is finishing its tenth and final season. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-207_162-57572882/what-not-to-wear-coming-to-an-end-after-10-seasons/ It's too late to get a make-over from them, but not too late to get one from God.

Ever watch the show?

Thoughts?

Don't Be Shabby - Bridal Gowns, Part One

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:00:00 +0000

The other day while running, a startling question hit me.

In heaven, will I be able to wear my favorite black clothes?

Raised Mennonite, I constantly struggle with black and white thinking. Here it was again and no denying the symbolism that black is evil and white is good. But you see, my favorite lounge-around-the-house outfits are black yoga pants and black stretchy tees. I wear them on the days I'm not going out, especially love the comfort when running and writing.

When I go out, I wear jeans or choose appropriate colorful outfits which fit my personality. As I ran, I thought about how I would look in my same yoga outfit, only in white. My eyes saw dimples and ripples. Yikes. We know how black covers imperfections. Black makes me comfortable because I don't stand out. That's the last thing I want to do when I'm running in public places. So I just grab black when I'm in a hurry because I know it hides imperfections with the least amount of effort. I could relate my physical imperfections with sin, how it's drawn to darkness, seeks to hide.

In heaven, our spiritual bodies won't have imperfections...

so we can wear white!

No cellulite to hide.Then I envisioned the white gowns we'll be wearing when we worship in the Throne Room. I personally believe we won't wear these gowns and our glittery crowns all the time but when we gather for group events or go into the Throne Room of God.

Some people who claim to have seen heaven say people wear various clothing and also the white gowns. Visions can be delusional, I know. But in our tech age, we're hearing more and more stories of heavenly visions because communication is easier. The Holy Spirit confirms in my spirit that some of these are real. I know that our family saw an angel when my grandpa died. So as long as visions don't go against scripture, I don't discount them. Please, stay with me.

About a year ago, I gave a talk at a Tea. The topic was The Wedding Gown. The Tea had a wedding theme and a bridal fashion show. I did a signing for Plain City Bridesmaids series afterwards, so the topic was perfect.

My research led to some amazing even supernatural facts

about our future white gowns.

Did you know they are actually made of living fabric? Ooooh, I'm getting chills writing this. There's way more to these gowns than I had ever imagined--or to be honest--cared about. Now it's been burning in me to share this on a larger scale so I'm doing a series of blog posts about what I've learned. I'm trusting God to tie it in with life each week, so my posts don't stray much in style from their norm.

The thing I want to leave with you today,

God doesn't want us to appear at Christ's wedding shabbily dressed.

In John's Revelation letters to the churches, he writes:

"...you're a pitiful blind beggar, threadbare and homeless. Here's what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that's been through the refiner's fire. Then you'll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You've gone around half-naked long enough." Rev. 3:17-18 The Message

So you see, He doesn't want us to come to the biggest wedding of the universe shabbily dressed. This wedding will be more spectacular than any earthly royal wedding. And He gives us instructions about this. We'll chat more about those and the refining fire in future posts.

Since we reflect Him on earth, clothing concerns us now. Amish and Mennonite women wear plain dresses for femininity and modesty's sake and to reflect God's purity. I believe God rejoices over their actions because He looks at their devoted hearts.

But He's a creative God. Consider His creation. Our God surrounds Himself with gold, glitter, rainbows and glory. I believe colors and a multitude of styles also gives Him pleasure.

Don't you love the various costumes in the Olympics on opening night?

It's nice to know that God's glory will reflect on us and hide our figure enough that no matter what we're wearing we won't be immodest. Since I'm from Phoenix, otherwise known as the Valley of the Sun, I'm used to the tingly feel of sunshine against my skin. Won't it be great to live on a planet that basks in His glory and we won't get sun damage? And His glory will cover all our imperfections.

I hope I get to wear some jeans. I'll bet modern guys would like that too. God's word actually says our gowns will reflect who we are as individuals. Can't wait to share more on that!

What's your go-to outfit?