You are Beautiful!

If I ask you to think about beauty and what it is that you find beautiful, what would be your response?

Mountains, ocean, running water in a river, birds singing in the trees, an eagle soaring through the skies, a new baby (yah - I know ... some of you like it better than I do), puppies, your children, movie stars, maybe a gorgeous car. 

When you look in the mirror, do you see beauty?

As I consider beauty, I realize that many times the only way for us to feel beautiful is to have others express to us that they see beauty in us.  'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder' is, on the flip side, necessary to how we present ourselves to the world.

While I fully believe that inner beauty comes from a place within us that only God can reach, I also believe that we depend on those around us to affirm in us the beauty that is already there. 

If the African tribe that sees beauty in long earlobes and extended lower lips were to spend time with an American woman, she would not be seen as beautiful. Peter Paul Rubens would not find today's women beautiful, he saw sensual beauty in the voluptuousness of the women he painted.

It is so easy to never see the beauty that is in ourselves.  The world ignores us and tears away at our confidence.  The ones we count on are so wrapped up in their own search that they don't have the energy or wherewithal to expend anything extra.

Now, before you get too worried about me, these thoughts aren't coming from a personal place.  In fact, I have been reminded a lot lately by many people that I am beautiful (whether or not I fully believe them is an entirely different situation, but for now, my confidence is doing just fine).  No, this is about friends that desperately need to be reminded that they are more than beautiful.  To them I say:

You are a stunning creation of God. The things that make you different from others are the very things that God gave you to make you unique in this world.  When I see you or hear your voice or see words you have written, my heart leaps with joy because I think of the incredible gift you are to me and to the rest of the world that loves you.  Every day as you face the world, you do so with a foundation of friends and family that love you and want you to be happy and content with yourself.  You are enough.  You are the person that God made to live right here, right now.  He is within you. He is the source of your beauty.

You are beautiful!