You are Beautiful

When a designer sends a model down a runway of a fashion show, he or she is concerned with the total look of the model. The model isn't just wearing the designers garment. The designer, in nearly all cases, has spent a great deal of time and effort to make sure the model is wearing the right accessories - the right jewelry or shoes. They also tell them how to walk and turn and carry themselves and they create the overall environment in which the models are to model their designs.

And so it is with our great God. He created you as a composite. He put certain talents and features together with specific personality traits, and then he added various emotional responses and spiritual gifts. He was concerned with the overall, total you. He designed you to be a vibrant, thinking, feeling, fully functioning person who has a unique attractiveness. He adorned you with far more than physical appearance.

What we need is balance.

God made us with flesh - an outer appearance. God has blessed us with creativity and an appreciation for beauty. We can and should recognize our appearance as an area in which we express ourselves to the glory of God.

God also made us with inner qualities - gifts and talents and traits and personalities -that are also intended to be developed and displayed for the glory of God.

It is the inner demeanor that should dictate and define how we adorn ourselves.

Everyone of us must recognize that the greater part of our attractiveness cannot be bought, taken off a rack or shelf, applied like a lipstick or put on like a necklace or shoes.

The greater part or our attractiveness lies within and it wells up from the inside and finds creative and appropriate expression on the outside.

That's what Peter meant when he wrote that "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit" is what has a "great price" in the sight of God. ( 1 Peter 3:4)

God sees what no one else can see. And it's that part of you that He values the most.

~ Women thou art loosed - TD Jakes ~

Look at yourself in God's mirror. He sees all of who He made you to be, from the inside out.