advocate life...

Deep, dark eyes, barren and empty, filled with tears as he spoke in tones hushed by fear. He sat across from me and let out the guilt, shame, and rejection he was experiencing from his family and church. He grew up in the church and knew the Leviticus and 1 Corinthians texts about homosexuality. Reiterating these truths would be moot and wasteful.

He wasn't asking for spiritual insight or forgiveness, but rather crying out as a broken man in need of love. In that moment I remembered a quote from one of my favorite pastors, "It's God's responsibility to save. It's our responsibility to love." My friend didn't need condemnation. So many others already had. He needed to know he was a child of God who, like me, needs a Savior.

Advocacy for Children of God from Bianca Juarez on Vimeo.

I came across this article on the Marin Foundation blog and was completely taken back at what is occuring in Africa. There is a grave injustice occuring and if the church believes in the sanctity of Life, this matters. Despite gender, color, race, or ethinicity, we are all children of God. Advocate life. This is not a social gospel. This is the gospel.

haute couture...

In order to be irreplaceable, one must be different--Coco Chanel

It called to me from the coffe table like a Siren at sea. It was if I heard intoxicating songs about French fashion with a Parisian accent as I lifted up the most recent edition of the holy grain of fashion. Yes, it was if Jean Paul Gaultier himself lured me to sea only to die from desire. I flipped through fashion magazines and drooled over dresses that I foolishly believed were going to make me a haute couture woman who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on garments designed to tailor-fit my waist, hips, and [not so long] legs. The magazine documented waif-like woman on the Parisian runway who stopped and did a little turn on the catwalk... and I was undone! 

In that nanosecond I truly believed that if I put on that dress, I will be the envy of every woman and the desire of every man. Coco Chanel would applaud me and Christian Lacroix would nod at my fashion saavy decision to pair a vintage Valentino piece with a Balenciaga heel. I would bask in my prowess and pride and stand before the world because I had something no one else had: haute couture clothing. A one-of-kind, hand-sewn, pain-stakingly difficult garment made through the blood, sweat, and tears of a little Italian woman hunkered over a pile of priceless material and thread. 

I shut the magazine and I was convicted. The one letter boldly printed on the cover stared back at me in silence as if letting me know W stood for Wanton or Wishing,  but definitely not Wisdom. I'm not a fashionista, I'm not a wealthy heiress, or socialite. But I realized something profound in the glossy pages of a fashion magazine: I am a haute couture woman. I have a one-of-a-kind Savior who has tailor-fit to my soul and has pain-stakingly created a piece of art through blood (Matthew 26:28), sweat (Luke 22:43), and tears (John 11:35). By the avant-garde holes in His wrists and pierced side, He has designed a robe of righteousness for me that no one else could create for me. Yes, I love adorning the exterior, but more importantly than any robe I can put on,  is the fact that the Creator of the Universe lives inside of me. Therefore I am and heiress; an heiress to the kingdom of God (James 2:5). 

Today I will walk down the catwalk of Life sharing my haute couture relationship with my Savior. And if I'm feeling up to it, I may just do a little turn on the catwalk. Why not?