Do you long to be beautiful?
As women, I believe that we all desire to be viewed as beautiful. We want to be captivating. It's a struggle we all have had at some point or another in feeling we don't measure up. I look around and have noticed that the media makes their women look flawless. Their skin has no blemish. They have a figure that seems ideal, and never is a hair out of place.
I've struggled with physical appearance since I was probably in junior high. When I was between the ages of 11 and 13, I struggled with anorexia. I weighed around 100 pounds, but no matter how tiny I was, I felt like I was fat. It didn't scare me very much when I was going through it, but now looking back I see how dangerous that was. Thankfully God delivered me from that, and now it is just a vague memory. Even when that was over with, though, I found that I still wanted to maintain impossible standards of what the world calls "beauty".
In the last two years, a new struggle has occurred. I now struggle with the fact that I have severe acne. Thankfully there is a medicine called Acutane that clears up my skin, but it's a process of trying to get this medicine, and right now I'm in the waiting process to begin the treatment again. While I'm waiting, I'm struggling with looking in the mirror and seeing that my skin is far from flawless.
As I've struggled with this desire to be beautiful, I've come to find that there will always be something that I can focus on that will make me feel as if I don't measure up if I allow it to. I can almost guarantee that when I am out of the acne phase I'll then enter the wrinkle phase.
What is someone to do in a case where they long to be beautiful but feel they don't reach the mark?
The Bible has some things to say about beauty. Proverbs 31:30 is a well-known Bible verse, and it's one I've quoted often. It reminds us: "Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised."
I've been very real with God about my struggle with feeling less than beautiful because of my acne. Something He's reminded me of, though, is this: "Taylor, people aren't going to remember you for you having acne right now. They may remember that you had it, but what they're truly going to remember is how you treated them."
Do I think that we should toss the make-up, quit combing our hair, and change our wardrobe to baggy, torn up clothes? Of course not. What I do believe is that our main focus should be on inward beauty. I believe we should do what we can with what we have and then have peace with the fact that we are God's beautiful masterpiece. Psalm 139:14 says, "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous-how well I know it." If you go down to verse 17, it says, "How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!"
God finds each and every one of us beautiful. We don't have to have flawless skin, impossible figures, and perfect hair to be beautiful. God made each of us 100% unique, and He loves every part of us.
Dear Heavenly Father,
You know very well how much I struggle when looking in the mirror and seeing my flaws. I don't want to be all-consumed by how I appear physically, but rather, I desire to have a heart that is beautiful first and foremost. My prayer is that You'll help me see myself through Your eyes. I'll do my best and then rest in knowing that You made me and You don't make mistakes. "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous-how well I know it." Psalm 139:14. In Jesus' Name.
Amen.
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