I read quite the post recently, from a woman who asserted that women's ministries tell women too often that they are beautiful. Is this a thing? It must be a thing. She is sick of hearing it.
(What woman gets sick of hearing that she's beautiful? Not in an egotistical way, but in a way that truly affirms the God-given beauty in her?)
Since I'm not much of a conference-goer like the writer spoke of, I haven't a clue that this complimenting is a problem.
But I'm here to tell you: Ladies, you ARE beautiful.
I come from a life-long Catholic faith upbringing, in which being told I'm beautiful in relation to God is almost normal to me. It's amazing now that I'm grown. It makes sense, and I find it wonderfully important business to tell women (and girls!) that they are beautiful.
Why? Because too often the world tears us down. We're too fat, too thin, too frumpy, too made-up, too pretty, too fit, too lazy, too much everything and not enough everything. Surely, the world's "beauty" dissatisfies and flatters the ego. This is not the beauty I'm talking about (maybe the other lady is?).
Too often the world tears us down.Click to tweet
I'm talking about God-given, divine-life-within-us, inherently true beauty.
We're made in the image and likeness of God! Sit with that for a moment.
Sure, you've heard it and read it thousands of times, but wow! It's an incredible truth. And if God is who we believe He is, then nothing is more beautiful than God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) in His image (Gen. 1:27), and we're beautiful.
To return to the blogger's opinion, women should not be told they're beautiful or special or unique because of sin. In fact, she asserts that we're not special or unique.
Hold up.
False.
Ladies, you are beautiful, unique, and special. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and not a soul ever is just like you. God in His infinite LOVE for YOU made you on purpose, for a purpose (Eph. 2:10), and He made you beautiful.
We are beautiful as women because God placed His own life in our being. God created us and said it was good. He created us because the world—His creation—was not yet complete without us.
Instead of rambling on more, I'll address one more point.
"We need freedom, not compliments."
Absolutely, we need freedom in Christ from sin. Yes, we're sinners. Yes, we're fallen because of Adam's sin. Yes, we need saving! I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest something—if we're not special, why save us? If we're ugly, why should God bother? If we aren't beautiful, and we're sinful and ugly, then does that make us like trash? Trash is not for saving. Beautiful things are for saving. Tarnished and stained vintage treasures from your grandmother are still beautiful and worth saving, right? So sin dims and hides our beauty, but the beauty is there. God knows it. God wants you to know it and believe it so that you know He finds you worth saving.
It all works together. Gosh I love how much the pieces are woven together!
God's creation is always beautiful! And even in our sinfulness, He sees the beauty that is yet to be revealed in you and me, and because of that, you and I are worthy of His saving love. If I could draw a picture to show this, I would. But God did that, too, even better than I could. He created the world. He sent us the Savior. The picture is the Crucifix—that Love for a *beautiful* creation (you and me) that is so great He couldn't help but to save us. Over and over and over.
So yes, sister, you are beautiful. You are beautiful IN Christ, you are beautiful BECAUSE of God's love and life in you, you are beautiful and WORTHY of love and redemption.
Gina Fensterer. You can find out more about her here.
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