You are strong and dignified;
you can laugh at the days to come.
-Proverbs 31:25
This is such a well known verse and a verse I often overlooked until the day in Ecuador when one of my leaders, Danielle, handed each girl on our team a journal. These journals all had a different bible verse written on the front cover in free-handed calligraphy. Danielle told us that before she knew us, she had been praying for us and asked God for a specific verse to write on these journals to speak over each of our lives. Proverbs 31:25 was the one God had for me, and I am now seeing how it plays out in my life.

I remember staring at this verse, re-reading it over and over, and wondering just why God had shown her this specific verse. The more I pulled the verse apart, the more depth I saw in it that I had not seen earlier.
You are strong…
There were moments in Ecuador and moments upon my return that I did not by any means feel “strong.” In fact, my emotions have been the opposite. Weak. Incapable. Overwhelmed. Whether I felt these things because I could do nothing about the poverty or pain we saw, or from coming home to a family hurting due to circumstances, or from going to my college orientation only to realize everything was about to change, each of these experiences challenged me and continue to challenge me mentally in new ways, and they have caused strength to rise. Everything experienced in life is to make us look more like Christ and teach our hearts truths about him.
He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power
is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the
more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may
rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in
weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
-2 Corinthians 12:9-10
…and dignified
Dignified can be defined as “having or showing a composed or serious manner worthy of respect.”
I am realizing by his wisdom that there is a correlation between strength and dignity. I believe that in this verse, the word ‘strong’ comes before ‘dignified’ because the experiences in life that strengthen us then cause our character to reflect dignity, obedience, and self control.
What a privilege to think that God believes
I am both strong and dignified and He believes it
about every single one of his daughters.
…you can laugh at the days to come.
The idea that I can laugh at the future has not seemed to fit reality lately when much of the future has been unknown on the mission field and back home, but last week a truth was spoken over me. Someone once said, “Fear is dispelled when confidence in Christ is renewed.” So now, I am realizing that when my full confidence and hope is put in Jesus Christ, then I can laugh at the future because I trust the one who holds my life in his hands. If I put my confidence in him, then I believe he loves me enough to take care of me and has a plan for my future or even my everyday life (Jeremiah 29:11). And when I am immersed in Jesus’s perfect love for me, fear is always cast out.
Romans 15:13 : “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
1 John 4:18a : “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…”
-Caylee Collins