Dove’s Nest

Today I would like to post a letter of encouragement for those participating in a wonderful organization called Dove’s Nest from Charlotte, NC. It is a place of hope and encouragement for those who feel hopeless and discouraged. Through Proverbs 31 Ministries, I was blessed to learn about such a great organization and I have decided to write a letter that I pray God will place in the hands of someone who will be touched by His words through me.

You are loved. You are beautiful. You are worthy.

This is what God feels about you.  God loves you regardless of the hard times that you have endured.  He can take all of the mess and whatever the world has beaten down and make something beautiful from the ashes.  When a woman turns to Christ regardless of where she is at in her life or where she came from, heaven rejoices. Heaven rejoices at the beauty God has brought out of something that seemed unbeautiful.  Each one of us who turns to Christ has a testimony, a declaration of what Christ has done for us. In some of us, God allows us to have a testimony like that of Mary Magdalene who suffered 7 demons before Christ drove them away from her. The Bible is unclear what those demons were but I can only imagine the struggle and burden she carried those years before Christ. Christ drove them away and immediately she began to follow Christ. I don’t know where you are at today, I don’t know if you struggled with things that seemed to grip you, but if you have, there is hope. Christ is your hope.  If you have turned to Him, Heaven is rejoicing! Keep your hope fixed on Him, and hold on to that hope unswervingly, regardless of the things that come before you, regardless of what is behind.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”  Our hope is in Christ who is making all things new.

Father, I thank you for the wonderful ladies at Dove’s Nest. I thank you for what the staff is doing, for the hope they are helping to bring to these ladies who have turned to the hope that Christ offers. I pray that these ladies would feel Your peace and they would feel Your presence. That when each soul walks through those doors, they would see the declaration that You make all things new, and that this would be the hope she holds to unswervingly. For each of us who has needed that hope, and searched for that glimmer of hope in the dark, we see Your light of hope and when we focus on it, hold on to it, it becomes brighter and brighter. I pray that each one would feel You, and draw near to You in the times when they need it the most. If she is too weary to draw near to You, I ask that you would hold her even closer. I ask all this in Christ’s name, Amen.

“I can almost feel the hand of God reaching for my face to wipe the tears away, and say,
‘It’s time to make everything new. Make it all new.’ This is our hope. This is the promise. That it would take our breath away to see the beauty that’s been made out of the ashes. Out of these ashes beauty will rise, and then we’ll dance among the ruins. We will see Him with our own eyes. Out of this darkness new life will shine and we’ll know the joy that is coming in the morning.” –Beauty Will Rise by Steven Curtis Chapman

“to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”  Isaiah 61:3