You are beautiful, you are beautiful, you are beautiful, you are beautiful. This is something I encourage everyone to say to themselves. I encourage everyone to put down their phone or step away from their laptop and tell yourself that you are beautiful four or five times. Do it. Right now. Tell yourself you’re beautiful.
It’s a lot easier said than done isn’t it? I’m willing to bet a large amount of you guys reading this didn’t tell yourself that you’re beautiful. You may not have because you feel ridiculous doing so, because you just want to keep reading and not stop to tell yourself this, or because you don’t believe it enough to tell yourself. Whatever your reasoning is, just know that it’s okay. If you did tell yourself that you’re beautiful, I’m proud of you, you deserve it.
I don’t always believe that I am beautiful. Now, I know you may be thinking, “Excuse me? How can you write a post about loving yourself when you can’t even say you love yourself?”. I never said I don’t love myself. I very much love myself, I mean I’m a child of God for goodness sake, that’s pretty awesome. You’re all children of God, whether you believe it or not, and that’s pretty awesome. I love myself because God loves me, I love myself because God created me the way that I am for a reason, I love myself because I get to travel the world for nine months and help others. However, I don’t always think that I am beautiful.
Song of Solomon 4:7 says: “You are all together beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.” Although this is Solomon speaking to his bride, I believe this is also God speaking to us. He loves us, He believes we are beautiful, He KNOWS we are beautiful. We are flawed and God knows that. But flaws and all, God still thinks that we are beautiful. However, a lot of us don’t think we are beautiful. Why is that?
So, there’s a difference between outward beauty and inward beauty. Right now, I am speaking of outward beauty. I know that outward beauty is nothing compared to inward beauty, who needs to be physically beautiful when you’ve got a beautiful heart and soul…right? I wish I could say I believe that of myself. I wish I could say I look at myself in the mirror and I like what I see. I wish I could say I look at pictures of myself with other girls and I don’t compare myself. I wish I could say I look at pictures of models that are obviously photoshopped like crazy and I still don’t compare myself. I wish I could say I feel confident as I walk around in public, surrounded by so many beautiful people. However, I can’t say those things quite yet, no matter how much I wish I could.
I have struggled with self-worth/self image for pretty much my entire teenage life, as have most other teens. I have dealt with it in many different ways. I have covered my face in makeup. I have worn clothes I felt so uncomfortable in just to get attention from boys. I have accepted the false attention from boys as real admiration and care. I have accepted the fact that I am not beautiful and shut myself off, secluding myself from others because, amongst many other things, I didn’t think I was pretty enough to be outside. I know that those things will not make me feel any more beautiful, if anything they’ll make me feel even worse.
I know that I am beautiful, because God made me. However, I cannot see the physical beauty that God has created in me sometimes. Sometimes, I look at myself and I think “Heck yeah, girl, you look great! You’re beautiful! Yeah!”. Other times, I look at myself and think “Why isn’t your stomach smaller? Why isn’t your face more clear? Why isn’t your skin darker? Why aren’t your legs toned? Why aren’t your arms skinnier?” and this goes on and on and on. I wish I could say I look at myself and I think that I am beautiful every single day, but I would be lying.
Instead, I like to think that one day I will love how I look. Someday, I will look at myself in the mirror and I will think that I look beautiful. I know this won’t just come to me, I know that I’m going to have to do some work to be able to get there, but I will someday. I like to remember Psalms 139:14, which says: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” I know that God created me in his image of beauty and I praise Him for that. I look forward to the day that I will be able to call myself beautiful.
Until then, I will continue to remind all his children that they are beautiful. I will break apart every person and tell them why each little thing about them is beautiful. I will admire all those around me, because they are all beautiful. I will continue to praise God for creating so much beauty. I will praise God for including me in that beauty. I will help others praise these things. I will help others to discover their own beauty and self-worth. I will do these things because they make me feel beautiful.
