What I Want You To Know About Beauty

My sweet girls,

As I write this, you are happy, vibrant four and two year olds. You have so few insecurities. And yet, already I see your perceptions of beauty beginning to form.

"That girl has black hair, Mama. I really like it and I like how it's shiny. I wish I had black hair, too."

"Rapunzel has blond hair and green eyes, Mama just like you! I wish I had green eyes, too."

I have told you before, and I will tell you again -- about how I remember as a girl wishing I had dark hair instead of blonde. How I tried on a wig once for Halloween that was black and cried when I looked in the mirror because I didn't like it. How I realized that God gave me light hair not dark and that's what suited me.

And how I wished, oh how I wished that I had blue eyes like yours! And now look, you wish you had black hair, too! And you want green eyes instead of your beautiful blue!

I have had these conversations with you and I have tried to get this message across to you -- that you are beautiful just exactly as you are. You don't need to have darker hair or different eyes or brighter lips. You don't need to look like anyone but you. You are who God made you to be and that's enough.

Yet, I know that these conversations...they aren't going to stop. In fact, we'll probably be having them more frequently as you get older and become more aware of your body and those around you. Every society since the beginning of time has had issues and opinions relating to physical beauty and the one you will grow up in is no different, I have no doubt about that. There is a message that will be shouted to you, maybe not in words but in pictures. "This is what beauty looks like," they will tell you. You will compare yourself to other women. I know you will, because I do it too.

As your mama, I want so badly to be able to communicate to you that you are beautiful, but I struggle with how to do that because you know what? I don't always believe that about myself. That struggle that you feel to be content with your body, just the way God created it? I don't think there is a woman in the world that doesn't feel that way. Yes, even the ones who seem to have achieved physical perfection. The ones that are perfectly skinny and tanned and toned. The ones whose teeth are perfectly white and whose hair are perfectly styled and whose outfits are perfectly accessorized. Yes, they struggle with it too, make no mistake.

There is a video floating around right now - one that will probably be obsolete by the time you are old enough to understand it. But the message is this: that you are more beautiful than you think. That what you see when you look in the mirror exaggerates the imperfections until they are almost all you can see. That how you look in your mind does not equal how you look to other people, and you know what? It's probably true. And I want you to understand that about yourself, that you are more beautiful than you think.

But more than that, what I want you to know, what I want you to grasp way down deep in your soul is this: Your worth is not determined by your beauty. Did you hear me? Let me say it again.

Your worth is not determined by your beauty.

You might be physically attractive, you might be talented in a certain skill, you might have a beautiful voice or paint wonderful pictures or tell great stories or be really smart. You might take beautiful pictures, you might have a great fashion sense. You might be thin or really athletic or great at one sport or another but let me tell you, every single one of those things is transient. None of those things are guaranteed forever and none of those things will last.

Do not hang up all your happiness in them. Do not let them determine your identity. Do not let them be the cup by which you measure your worth.

I am going to tell you why you are worth something.

You were created by God, crafted in an invisible place.

This God, He loves you, so much more than you can imagine.

He does not love you because you are beautiful.

He does not love you because you are smart.

He does not love you because you are talented or athletic or creative.

He does not love you because you are good.

He loves you because you are His.

He loves you so much that when He saw you choose the wrong way...when He saw you turning your back on Him, when He saw you mocking His commands and doing it your own way...when He saw the eternal torment and separation that you were destined for...

He died for you.

That -- and that alone -- is what determines your worth. And sweet girls, if the God of heaven created you and died for you, there isn't anything in the world that could give you more value than that.

In that same video I told you about, there was a woman, and she said something, she said that, "[Natural beauty] couldn't be more critical to your happiness."

I want you to listen to me. That's not true.

Your beauty does not determine your happiness. It can, but it shouldn't, and that is part of the problem, right there. That we feel we cannot be happy, that we cannot feel good about ourselves unless we are beautiful, whatever our perception of beautiful is.

This struggle, it's not going to go away. I know because I've battled it for years. Satan desperately wants for us to run to other things -- anything but God -- to find our joy, but you will always eventually find them to be cheap imitations.

The joy that comes knowing that God loves you and believing that He sacrificed everything to save you -- that's what you need to set your eyes on every morning. When that boy doesn't like you or that girl makes fun of your clothes or you get that awful hair cut or you feel like you're too fat or too thin or your nose is too big or your eyes are too small -- you just remember that you are His creation. You find your identity in Jesus Christ, not in your hair and makeup and clothes or in some other boy or man.

I love you girls, but most importantly HE loves you. Let Him be enough.

Mama

Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes.You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.

I Peter 3:3-4