Real Beauty

The following essay was written by my cousin's 14 year old daughter. I am posting this on both my blogs, simply because some of you read one blog; others, the other blog...and this is too good for anyone to miss. (The author's name has been withheld by request.)

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Letter About Beauty

I hate it when the girls show off their bodies. They show off all of their legs, as in, if their shorts went any shorter they’d be wearing underwear. I guess they think they’d be accepted if they wear basically nothing. It bothers me that their shirts are like bras; it shows all of their stomach and a lot of their chest. What’s with this? It drives me insane! Why can’t they be modest for once? Why do their parents even let them wear this stuff anyway? Why do they even make those clothes in the first place? Who came up with that? Why does everyone strive to be “beautiful”? Why do we all want to be skinny? Yeah, everyone does think about being beautiful and skinny. Even beautiful, skinny girls think that they’re not skinny or pretty enough. What’s with “Oh I wish I had her clothes”, or “Why can’t I get into a size 0 like she can?” Or even “Oh I love her hair! I wish I had her hair.” Or “She always gets the hottest guys, why doesn’t any good looking guy want to go out with me?”? I hate that! But yet, I do that too, just like you do. So this is why I’m writing this to you. I’m going to try to stand up against those lies. You are beautiful, I’m beautiful, she’s beautiful, we are all beautiful. Even when we grow older and the outside appearance may not be as beautiful as it used to be, lets make sure that we’re always modest, and that our inside is beautiful. There are some girls out there who have the most beautiful outward appearance, but inside is the most hideous person on the face of the earth, just by her attitude and her thoughts. We need to be confidant in ourselves. Girls, we need to remember to not show off our bodies so those guys can see it, just wait for your husband, only he should see that. I love the way Emily Downs puts it in an article in Focus On The Family’s teenage girl’s magazine, Brio, she says that “As females, we need to stop putting so much of our worth in outward appearance. Our Lord created humans in His image, not just the thin, perfect-looking people, but every one of us in all our shapes and sizes. God doesn’t see beauty the way today’s media do. He created tiny girls and curvy girls.” God did create us. He doesn’t make junk. He made you the way you are; he made me the way I am. Even the models are not as thin as the pictures in the magazine. They use computers to fix up their hair, eyes, their size, they get rid of their zits, they make their boobs bigger, or their legs more tan, or they get rid of the spot that they missed when they shaved. No one is perfect.

We don’t need to show off our bodies to be beautiful, in fact that’s just disgusting!

We don’t need to have perfect hair; we don’t need to be a size 0. We just need to be ourselves. Proverbs 31:30 says “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” Also Psalms 139:14 says “…I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” The bible says that we are created in God’s image! If you think that you’re ugly, and not good enough, that’s just like insulting God because he made us like this! So think positive, be modest, and most importantly of all, be the girl who God made you to be!


And to this, I loudly reply, "Amen!"