beautiful you

Three little words every woman longs to hear and most struggle painfully to believe.

I know my own heart has been at odds with this elusive phrase.

I've felt woefully insecure much more often than I've ever felt truly beautiful.  I tried to tell myself that maybe I really didn't need to be beautiful after all, maybe beauty wasn't really that important.  But I never could completely convince my heart of this.  And in all my conversations with my glorious Heavenly Father, I realized that beauty was important to Him as well.

Hovering as an artist over his easel, God composed a world of breathtaking and wondrous loveliness.

And the crowning glory of his creation?  Man and woman.

Men he spun from the clay of the earth; strong, virile, and dominant.

Women he fashioned from the rib of man; relational, life-giving, and beautiful.

Both are formed in His image, both reflect different aspects of the nature of God.

But the world since those perfect days of creation has attempted to re-write the beauty that God designed.  Somewhere along the way, the definition became exclusive.

And I didn't feel like I quite fit the bill.

I vividly remember a heart wrenching time in my life when I was bound by insecurities and I was desperate for God to help me see myself the way He saw me.  I'll never forget what He whispered to my soul.  His gentle plea was simply, "Let me love you."

I dared in that moment to ask him how.  How was I to let him love me?  I thought I was already.  His patient smile hinted that I had much to learn.   There was more, so much more to His love than I could even begin to imagine.  And He began to show me;  In glimpses,  in little gifts, in time-stopping moments when I felt bathed in a love too sweet for words.  Slowly, tenderly, steadily, He revealed to me my inability to love myself had been keeping me from receiving my husband's love as well as the love of my Heavenly Father.

God has done some major heart re-construction since that illuminating moment.  All my ugliness was laid out before him and He didn't flinch.  He didn't run away.  He didn't leave me in the hopeless mess of shattered pieces that I believed myself to be in.

No, He simply changed my looking glass.  

I had been peering into the wrong mirror.  A dirty old cracked mirror the world had hung up in my room years and years ago.  A mirror riddled with lies that I had too easily accepted.  He replaced it with His own--the mirror of His Word.

And this mirror says I'm beautiful.  In a million different ways, God is reminding me that I captivate His heart.

"The king is enthralled by your beauty.  Honor him for he is your lord."  ~Psalm 45: 11

God is not a man that he should lie.  He's crazy about us.  He delights in us.  The Bible tells us that "as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." (Isaiah 62: 5)  

Wow.  The God of the universe is head over heels in love with us!

Now, when I catch my reflection in His mirror, I find a woman washed in the love of a Savior, purchased by His very own life, accepted as His daughter, rejoiced over as His bride.  

I'm learning to let Him love me.

To let Him write me love letters, send me flowers, bathe me in acceptance, sing songs of love over me.

And everyday His love is surprising me.

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