Gail M. Hayes - You Are a Daughter of the King: Embrace Who God Created You to Be

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Verses marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cover image Magenta 10 / Shutterstock

Published in association with the literary agency of The Steve Laube Agency, LLC, 5025 N. Central Ave., #635, Phoenix, Arizona, 85012.

YOU ARE A DAUGHTER OF THE KING

Copyright 2005 by Gail M. Hayes PhD

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hayes, Gail M.

[Daughters of the King]

You are a daughter of the king / Gail M. Hayes.

pages cm

Rev. ed. of: Daughters of the King : finding victory through your God-given personal style. 2005.

ISBN 978-0-7369-5665-9 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-5666-6 (eBook)

1. African American womenReligious life. 2. Christian womenReligious lifeUnited States. 3. Typology (Psychology)Religious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.

BR563.N4H379 2014

248.8'4308996073dc23

2013043557

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To Gabrielle Christina
Thank you for holding up the royal mirror and helping me see that I am a daughter of the King. I promise I will always do the same for you!

The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace;
Her clothing is woven with gold.
She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors.

P SALM 45:13-14

Contents

M any women suffer with confusion regarding their self-image. They believe that we must dress or act a certain way or we will not be seen as acceptable. Our enemy loves feeding us this lie, and we digest it like an appetizing meal. Its time to stop the spread of this toxicity and fight oppression with all that is within us.

Since we know this lie did not come from God, it is time to push back from the table of self-degradation, enter the royal banquet hall, and taste of a new feast. We have a royal heritage, and with it comes the responsibility to walk in the realm of the miraculous.

The Beginning

I once had a conversation with God in which I told Him someone needed to write a book on women and image. I also told Him that I wanted to provide some information to that person when she was ready to write. I had strong thoughts and feelings in this area that needed to be addressed.

I believed that I had firsthand information on how to help women because of my experiences. While serving as the first African-American female law enforcement officer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I worked with men. I discovered that even if men did not like each other, they still worked together. They did things very differently from women. While women are relational, men are mission-focused. They are able to put their personal feelings on hold in order to achieve a goal. In law enforcement, they had to do this since their lives depended upon one another.

When I left law enforcement, I carried this life skill with me into the world of women. I could work with others and not have a personal relationship, I thought. I focused on the missionbut in doing so, I became a victim to traps and potholes placed in my path. I was devastated. Why couldnt women be mission-focused like men? Why did we have to devour one another?

The Father took me on a journey where I discovered the answer to my questions. I realized that many of my sistersand I along with themsuffered from a negative self-image. Because we have difficulty accepting how precious we are, we all suffer. This breeds conflict among us. If we dont like ourselves, how can we possibly like or accept one another?

As this book unfolds, you will discover what makes your individual beauty so extraordinary.

You will hear your sister Bathsheba as she stands before King David and requests that he crown Solomon Israels next king.

You will lie on the threshing floor with Ruth and rise with her as Boaz makes her promises for the future.

You will stand in the waters of the Nile with Miriam and pray with her as the Princess of Egypt opens the basket containing Israels future.

You will touch Lydias purple robes as she stands in the marketplace and boldly walk with her as God saves a soul for His kingdom.

You will sit with Huldah as she hears the footsteps of the kings advisors and rejoice with her as she authenticates the Book of the Law.

You will weep with Martha as she sees her brother Lazarus die and celebrate with her as God performs a miracle in Bethany.

You will discover that God fashioned you and each of your sisters as integral threads in His majestic tapestry. You will discover that you truly are a daughter of the King!

A mans heart plans his way, but the L ORD directs his steps.

P ROVERBS 16:9

D o you remember the first time you noticed that you had a unique sense of style? If you stop and think, it surfaced when you were just a child. Your sense of style is not only the way you dress, but also your way of doing things and the way you process information. It is your very essence. God placed this sense of style in your spirit during the creation process.

When I was a child, my mother dressed me in lace and ruffles. She put large satin ribbons in my hair and made me wear crinoline slips. At the time, I felt simply beautiful. Sometime later, around the age of nine, I developed my own sense of style. Mom and I did not always agree on the size and color of those hair bows. I also realized that crinoline slips were hot and scratchy. This tug-of-war revealed that our style preferences were similar, but a difference was becoming obvious.

The difference was our image types. My mother preferred wispy fabrics with lace and ruffles. To me, they felt uncomfortable, cumbersome, and fluffy. I wanted straight lines with dashes of high drama. It was the age-old struggle between mother and daughtermy taste versus Moms authority and pocketbook. Mom was almost a nervous wreck by the time I got through puberty. I remember getting off the school bus with my satin bows hanging down around my neck. During war games with the boys, I tore the delicate lace trim on my dress to smithereens. This struggle with my mother was a critical part of my journey to wholeness. Even as a child, I knew there was something missing. I needed something different from the lace and ruffles. I needed something more like me. I needed something elegant and flamboyant. Why did I feel so out of place in all those wisps of femininity? I decided to search for the answers.