beautiful

beauty: a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses,esp. the sight; a combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense.


there are many words, places, things that we can classify as beauty or beautiful. often these things are sunsets on a mid summer night, or the sunrise against the mountains in the early mornings. we even sometimes use this word to describe an individual or a celebrity that we deem as beautiful. most of the time though we never actually use the word for ourselves. lets be honest. we may wake up every morning and have all the confidence in the world, but as soon as we walk down those stairs or into our everyday locations we are filled with insecurities and things that make us think differently. we allow comments like "well that's new" or "are you really going to wear that" to bring us down and be the foundation of those insecurities. we hide our true selves from the world and in doing so we hide our feelings and what we love the most from those most important to us. 


over Christmas break i read the book Captivating, which one of my friends highly suggested. in the weeks that i read it my world was totally rocked and i slowly started opening doors in my life that i thought i had closed forever. i was scared that if i allowed people around me to see the true me that they would think differently of me. but more than anything i was afraid that God would think differently of me and in some way love me less. but as i read on and on i was sent, all most everyday i was texted words of encouragement and affirmation that honestly kept me reading on. 


being a woman a lot of times is hard. you have to know when to be strong and fight for the things that you love the most and when to be fragile. you have to know when to be independent and when to rely on others for help. you have to know when to guard your heart and when to allow people in and who those individuals are. you have to figure out your feelings and be able to communicate them properly. and more than anything you have to humble yourself before God and lay it all down. now i'm not saying that men don't face these same things, but for a lot of women including myself becoming less independent is hard and will probably be forever hard including when to be less independent before God. the other huge battle is guarding my heart. people want you to be open with them and be real but just how to you do this?


beauty isn't defined by that person, place, or thing, but it is defined by the Creator and the master artist who designed every single part of you way before you were even thought of or planned. you were designed to share your feelings and be real with people that He orchestrated to be in your life at the time that they were. He designed every single freckle, every birth mark, every hair, every single part of you to show you the beauty and worth that He sees in you. He knows your strength and all your weaknesses. He sees it all and he longs for our hearts before we give them away aimlessly. 


my one friend grew up with the rule that she wasn't allowed to date before she was 16 and for the longest time i thought that was so crazy and mean of her parents. but the more i experience life the more i understand. i can see why her parents would make that rule and it was because they were trying to protect her and in their way guard her heart from aimlessly giving it away to a boy that would eventually break it. life was designed to be beautiful and to see God's beauty in every creation and place that we turned, but things happened and that was hidden. we have to seek it out and in seeking it out we find the beauty of God and the works of his hand. we find that we aren't defined as the "most beautiful girl in the school" but as the craftsmanship of a God who sees worth and beauty in us every single day. so look in the mirror and don't walk away until you believe that you are beautiful and have worth from the Creator of the universe. know that you are loved first and foremost!!!