You Are So Beautiful

When God showed me to share this I got that feeling in my stomach. You know the one that isn’t quite butterflies but more like scorpions moving around with daggers. Okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration but you get where I’m going with this.  So here’s my truth. I haven’t been feeling pretty lately and I feel really stupid to say that. I have been having the breakout of my life for months and my skin is looking like who did it and why and to be honest it’s been taking a bit of a toll on me. Something that I realized however is that we can try so hard to be perfect in order to fit this mold of what we think we’re supposed to look like. We look at ourselves in the mirror and no matter how nice we look we find ourselves staring at our imperfections. We pick apart the things that we think are wrong and we compare ourselves to other people who appear perfect yet we don’t see or know of the imperfections that they critique of themselves daily. The crazy thing is that as we look at other people who we deem to be perfect, that person is also looking at someone else and thinking the same thing as they look at their own flaws. The truth is there will always be some flaw; we will always be able to find something wrong no matter what we perfect. It will always be something wrong! You want longer hair, you get it and now you want it longer or you’re ready to cut it off because you’re bored. You lose weight but now you don’t feel as curvy, someone else thinks they’re too curvy, and someone else thinks they’re too skinny….it’s always something but IT IS OKAY! Do yourself a favor and kill the idea of perfection in your head, especially the one that has been created by society and the media. Society has a tendency to put what is deemed beautiful into an unrealistic box that the people who are portrayed as the image of beauty don’t even fit into because they’ve been so airbrushed and photoshopped. 

But as I was writing this God asked me the question “what does beauty look like to you?” It’s not important about what other people think or describe beauty as, what is important is how you define it. I would love to sit here and say beauty is my heart for Jesus and the love of God. The truth is however there are some days where I define beauty by my physical appearance and that’s where I mess up. I messed up because there have been instances where I felt like maybe if I looked differently things would’ve been different. Maybe if I was prettier, weighed a little more, was a little taller or a little shorter, my hair was longer or if it was straight, I wore heels more, did my makeup all the time, and the list goes on and on and on….maybe if I would’ve done those things maybe my boyfriend’s would’ve stayed, maybe they wouldn’t have cheated, or maybe some guy would’ve chose me over some other girl. Do you see the cycle that this begins? You start to feel as though what you have to offer is not good enough. If people cannot accept the stripped version of you they don’t deserve the best version of you FYI. Don’t ever allow anyone or even yourself to convince you that you’re not beautiful because of how look on the outside. You are so beautiful and it has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on with your outward appearance. Until we are comfortable with the stripped version of ourselves we will continue to conform to what we expect people want us to look like and we’ll wake up one day and realize that we’ve become an imitation of ourselves that is not even reflective of who we are. We make all these changes to please everyone else only to learn that they like the person we’ve made ourselves up to be but not who we really are…

I know that we can get weighed down by the pressure of what we think we’re supposed to look like and comparing ourselves to what we think is beautiful while excluding ourselves at times because of our flaws. God made you perfect in His image and He created every flaw perfectly for you. He looks at you and sees you as beautiful and He wishes that you would stop beating yourself up and stop trying to alter the way He created you. You are so beautiful and don’t wait for someone else to tell you that. As you look at yourself today and feel the need to point out everything that is wrong, stop. Look in the mirror and say God I thank You that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and You made no mistakes. Learn to love the stripped version of you that God created because it so beautiful. With that being said…as God placed it on my heart to write this He also placed it on my heart to take a selfie. Now I’m the queen of selfies so I’m like okay cool…not quite the selfie I thought lol He showed me to take a selfie stripped of makeup, filters, and with the real camera not the forward one that comes out kinda blurry. I’m going to be honest I had quite a bit of anxiety about this and I thought is that really necessary??? Come on God! But it was a lesson in it. So I encourage you to take a selfie as well and share it and embrace the stripped version of you. Did I take about 20 selfies before I chose one that I was okay with sharing? Absolutely. Did I consider putting a “natural” looking filter on it? Sure did. Did I think about taking the picture from far away? Yup. Am I nervous about sharing my bare face? Uh yeah, but I am so beautiful not because of what I look like stripped down or made up but because of who God is and because I am made in His image and so are you. You are so beautiful. Love you, mean it. 

Proverbs 31:30 Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that fears the LORD, she shall be praised.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made every thing beautiful in his time: also he has set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end.

           1 Peter 3:3-5-  And let not your adornment be merely external-- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands.

          1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

I wouldn't normally add a secular song to my blogs but this is what I was led to. The crazy thing is I don't really listen to any secular music at all anymore and all of my music in my iTunes is gospel music but the other night I decided to listen to India Arie's song I am not my hair and then I decided to listen to this one and that's what led me to write this.