Real Beauty

I remember one night back when I was a Junior or Senior in High School.  My girl friends had all gone to a dance at school and came back to my house afterwards to spend the night (I wasn’t into the dances in high school, because I was too cool…or something. Ha.) We were all sitting around watching movies. They were all dolled up in their fancy dresses and pretty hair and make up. And as we were talking, one of the girls said something really hurtful about my friend’s appearance. Her features were different from the mean girl’s features and this was the subject of the ridicule.

I remember sitting there silently…shocked at what had been said, angry, but also too afraid and young to know what to say…to know that I should have stood up and shown the mean girl the door. My dear friend was such a nice girl, she just shrugged off the other girl’s comment and pretended like it didn’t hurt…but I could tell it did. I wished in that moment that my friend knew how beautiful she was and how the differences in her features made her unique, unusual and gorgeous. No, she didn’t look like everyone else…none of us does. It’s the differences in our appearances and our personalities that make life beautiful and interesting.

Now that I have daughters of my own, this is something that I will never stop telling them. I want them to know that they are beautiful exactly as the Lord created them. I want them to know that every personality quirk and every freckle and all of their passions make them unique in this world. That uniqueness shows, so clearly, the hand of their Creator. He took time to carefully craft each part of who they are…making them lovely in every way.

Sometimes I need a reminder of that for myself too. It can be hard with every pressure to fit the mold of what the world sees as “beauty”. How I look and who I am tells a story of how the Lord has shaped my life and the road that He has taken me down. I wouldn’t change anything about that journey that I love so much so why do I so easily fall into wishing away the physical representation of it?

I hope if you’re reading that you know how special you are just as you are right now, today. The things about you that make you different are what make you unique and interesting and perfect. Em

Posted by embjones on February 13, 2013

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