I’m fat.
My hair is stringy.
My hair is frizzy.
My legs are too short.
My neck is wobbly.
My eyes are the wrong color.
My wardrobe is outdated.
If I could lose _____ pounds, then…..
I don’t like my nose.
I have freckles.
I’ve never been what they call beautiful.
I feel old.
I have wrinkles.
My hips are too wide.
My buns are saggy.

Here is my sympathy:  “Oh, you poor thing.”

Now, here is what I’m thinking: “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  Get over it.”

Listen THINKING GIRLS, it’s 2013 and it’s time to:

Give yourself PERMISSION to feel beautiful.

I don’t just mean pretty or presentable.  I mean BEAUTIFUL!

It’s time to shut the door on all the lies, half-truths, stupid remarks and a belief system that keeps you in a prison of comparison and nominal self-worth.  What a sad, depressing way to live.

Are you finished yet?

Enough is enough and it is time for you to come out into the light and believe, truly believe, that God created you just the way you are, BEAUTIFUL.  He personally picked out your eyes, your hair, the length of your legs, the shape of your body and everything else, right down to the arch in your foot, or lack thereof.

Ps. 139:14  “I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Marvelous are your works and my soul knows very well.”

If He, the Creator of the Universe, could do this just for you, how selfish and rude are you to think anything less than you are beautiful?  Have you ever seen a sunrise or a sunset that took  your breath away because of it’s beauty?  How much more beautiful and valuable are you than a sunset?

Let me tell you a story.

Growing up no one every told me I was beautiful.  Oh, they told me I was cute and pretty, I got lots and lots of pretty, but never beautiful.  So I believed them.

When I got into middle school and high school I was super into fashion magazines.  Seventeen and Elle were my favorites.  You guessed it, the comparison game began.

I had this battle going on inside me that created an constant tension.  Everyday before school I would look into the mirror and search for the beautiful.  Was it in my eyes?  Was it in my hair?  Was it in my body shape?

I searched and searched for it.  It affected my choices, my attitude and my dreams.  And I was always teetering on the edge.  One comment in the wrong direction could send me over.  So I compensated, with a bitter tongue.

I recently saw one of those funny quotes on Facebook that said, “I’m not always sarcastic.  Sometimes I’m asleep.”  It’s funny because sarcastic remarks can make you laugh, but it’s also serious because sarcasm is a classic way to deflect and can be very hurtful.  And deflect I did.  I sharpened my tongue.  It was like a razor and it could shred another person to bits.  I had little or no mercy.

My thought process, though I didn’t know it then, was, “Fine, if you don’t think I’m beautiful, if you think I’m sub-par, then I’ll make sure you can’t get in and if you get too close I’l make you pay!”  Brutal.

Proverbs 10:1 “The words of the godly are a life-giving fountain; the words of the wicked conceal violent intentions.”

That second part was me.  The first part?  Not so much.

My freshman year of college I went far away from home.  I was making my way in the world, still in constant tension, and one day as I left the dorm I heard a guy yell out a window to his buddy, “Check out the one with the bike.”  When I turned around he said, “Forget it.”

A dagger hurled straight down at me.   That incident was so hurtful that it is acid burned into my memory.  So much so that I can tell you everything about that day, the angle of the sun, the temperature, what shirt I was wearing, everything.

But that day was also a game changer.  I was much too humiliated to have a deep thought at that moment, but that day I began to contemplate my own beauty.   I began to question why I relied on others to determine my ideas of my own beauty.  It was mine.  Not theirs.  Why did I give them so much power over me?

I also began to stop compensating.  I realized if my beauty was my own, then so was my authority over it.  I didn’t need to push away or deflect.  Over time I eradicated sarcasm from my lexicon and retired it as a weapon.  Don’t kid yourself, I’ve still got some zingers, but I don’t use them against others now.  I don’t want them to feel the pain I have felt.  I don’t want to be the source of their sorrow.

In the years that followed, I continued to question and form my ideas.  I had many good encounters when it came to how I felt about myself.  My confidence grew as I accomplished my goals, as I matured and as I came into contact with people who didn’t emphasize looks, but saw the real me inside.  Over time the inside and the outside began to catch up with each other, and I embraced them both.

By the time I reached my mid to late twenties I was able to look myself in the mirror and say “You ROCK!” and mean it.  And as many of you know that was the end of the end for me.  My head blew up and my ego outgrew the room.  But I digress.

Seriously, it has taken me a lifetime of looking into the mirror and appreciating what I see staring back at me.  But I do.  I really, really do.  I am beautiful, not just inside, but outside too.  God made me BEAUTIFUL!  (And I can feel it!)

What about you?  When you look in the mirror do you see beauty?  True beauty?  Because that is what you are, a beauty.  Everything about you is not only pretty and lovely, but also BEAUTIFUL.  The Creator, God, made you so unique, so perfect and absolutely wonderful.  And while you may have a lot of accomplishments under your belt, it is your beauty that other see before they know anything about you.  But do you let them?

It is time to give yourself PERMISSION to feel how beautiful you are and let others see it.  As you give yourself PERMISSION to feel beautiful, others will begin to see it.

C’mon THINKING GIRLS, really feel the beauty that resides in you and emanates from you.  Give yourself PERMISSION to look into the mirror and embrace the beauty that God created.  Your eyes, your hair, your big toe.  Your knees, your elbows, your nose.  All of it was created, fashioned out of dust, just for you.  It’s time to stop being selfish by comparing yourself to others.  It’s time to stop wishing you looked different.  Stop desiring something different when you look into the mirror.

It’s time to give yourself PERMISSION to feel beautiful.  For that is what you truly are, BEAUTIFUL!  Can you feel it?

In the words of Solomon, the wise king:

You are beautiful, beautiful beyond words.

It’s the truth THINKING GIRLS.  It’s the truth!

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