A beauty that's all your own - Biblical insight about beauty

Am I beautiful? How can I be confident in how I look? Why was I created to look this way and not like someone else?

As a women, we are asking these questions over and over again most of the time without a good, fulfilling answer. In a time and place where people create an unrealistic idea of what I should look like and who I should be, I find myself asking these same questions.

Recently I have been really impacted by a few verses that change ever aspect of beauty and the concept of beauty; 

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well." - Psalms 139:14 

(God has made us beautifully. He didn't just throw together some features and leave you without his mark. He *Loves* you and calls you *his own*.  Do you understand how beautifully and extraordinary you really are in God's eyes?)

 ^"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." - Proverbs 31:30

( This is a hard one. To give up our vain desires and to know that God is what makes us beautiful. I have met many beautiful women who have a corrupt and unhappy spirit and suddenly they lose that sense of beauty. It is who you are on the inside that will define your beauty, not how you look (although it can be a bonus ;).

"Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed." - Psalms 34:5

(I had never read this verse till just recently while flipping through the bible. Wow. What an amazing way to think about beauty. If you are seeking God with all your heart and look to him to fulfill your needs, your face and beauty will be ever imprinted w/ his radiance. With the beauty of the Lord you will never ever have to be ashamed or discontent with how you were made)

"For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷ The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever." - 1 John 2:15-17

(This was kind of a new revelation to me of what I was truly doing when I'm not content with who I am. I was lusting after the face or the body that I wanted and discontent with the features I was given. Just like any other fleshly desires, being discontent and longing for something you don't have is a sin and an area that needs to be surrendered to the Lord. The Lord has really been working on my heart now that I have surrendered this area of life to him and noticed it as a sin. The beauty that God gives you through surrendering will never fade.)

Do you long to be beautiful but just can't seem to meet up to the world's image? Surrender your outward and inner beauty to the Lord. *He* will transform you, fill you with confidence, and be your beauty.