As a woman, our deepest doubt is that we are beautiful. When it come to the issue surrounding beauty we alternate between striving and surrendering. We want to beautiful, but we just don’t think we have it in us. We try new clothes, new diets, new hair styles, and yet nothing seems to be working so we just give up. Hiding is much easier, and who cares anyways? Put up that shield and get on with life. Hide in your busy school schedule; hide in church activities; hide in depression. There is nothing breathtaking about me. Certainly not inside of me.

When you were a little girl, you played dress up and always wanted daddy’s attention. You wanted to know if you were lovely. Then middle school happened and girls got catty, and boys turned into d-bags. Many of what women do in their adult life is fueled by her longing of being delighted in, her longing to be beautiful, to be irresistible, to have someone say, ‘Yes! You are lovely.’

Why isn’t what God says about us change how we feel? Why don’t I feel like I am captivating when I know that He made me perfect in every way?

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” 

“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.(Gen. 3:1-6)

The woman was convinced. That’s it? Just like that? In a matter of moments? Convinced of what? Look in to your own heart- you’ll see. Convinced that God was holding out on her. Convinced that she could not trust His heart for her. Convinced that in order to have the best life ever she had to take matters into her own hands. And so she did. 

So women are cursed with loneliness (relational heartache) and with the urge to control (especially her man). Isn’t that true? Aren’t your deepest worries and heartaches relational? Don’t they all get connected back to someone? 

As hard as it is, trust God. Trust His heart for you; trust that He has made you so incredibly perfect just the way you are; trust that He isn’t holding out on you. 

You were beautifully and purposefully created. Not mistakenly or horribly so. 

xoxo