Many years ago, browsing through our church library, I stumbled upon a book entitled “Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman,” by Anne Ortlund. I was drawn to the title because like most women I wanted to be beautiful.

But it wasn’t the word “beautiful” that first drew my attention, it was the word “disciplines.” As a young wife with two small children, I felt dictated and controlled by members of my household, great and small, along with a never-ending stream of laundry. If I didn’t do something soon, the everyday moments of life threatened to steal what beauty I had left!

All it took was a college ruled spiral notebook with dark lines and a fine point pen—a useful tool I employed implementing her advice. I began to plan out my life in detailed fashion. The book (still in print) had all the usual suspect chapters on how to organize your day and personal space. Today, planners are the rage, but beautiful women have been writing “a better story” for centuries—Queen Esther and Ruth of the Bible to name-drop a few. But something else must come into place before any discipline or habit can take hold.

She has to become a beautiful woman first.

Ortlund spends the beginning chapters discussing this foundation, which is our identity in Christ. We can’t plan anything successfully unless there is a well-spring or fount to draw from. Because no amount of planning or discipline will succeed unless your identity is separate from your responsibilities and goals. Seems even if you’re born with physical attributes, you have to become “that kind of beautiful,” which can only manifest itself with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The little word “the” is significant in the title: Disciplines of the Beautiful woman. It’s not a book on how to be beautiful (although she gives tips on make-up), it’s more on how a “beautiful woman behaves.”  We represent and are witnesses to a Living God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is really saying, what an already beautiful woman does to discipline herself to reach the goals she is responsible for by the Lord.

To this day, I still plan out my day. I’ve upgraded to a planner software that I love. I would be lost without my planner, no matter what stage of life. My time with the Lord is still scheduled, the same as when my children were little and the laundry higher. But life doesn’t get any easier, and new chaos threatens even veteran beauties.

I am committed to keeping my disciplines to the end, even though I have failed many times by disobedience and wanting my own way. But his mercy endures forever and joy returns, and once again we become the “apple of his eye”; where as beautiful women our faces are mirrored there, raising the efforts of our daily routine into the heavenly realm.

#annortlund #disciplines of the beautiful woman