You're not sure when exactly a few insecurities turned into such extreme self-loathing, but somewhere along the line it did.

Every now and then when you're with your friends, comments about how bad you think you look slip out, sounding casual as they fall from your lips. You try to play it off with a laugh, but it never reaches your eyes. It's not a joke to you, even though you try to make it sound like one.

On the days you feel brave enough to weigh yourself, the numbers on the scale blink back at you, taunting, accusing. You see the way your thighs touch or how round your stomach is, and you decide that skipping a meal or two wouldn't hurt.

Your morning routine of applying make-up, choosing a flattering outfit, and doing your hair never seems to be enough. You look at yourself, scrutinizing every detail under critical eyes, before giving up and leaving for the day. Sometimes it's better to just not look at yourself anymore, you reason. Maybe then you'll forget how bad you look.

But then something happens—someone tags you in a terrible photo, a beautiful woman is brought up and you start listing off all the ways in which she's prettier than you—and your shortcomings become glaringly obvious. They're screaming at you for not being pretty enough or thin enough or curvy enough or smiling enough or smiling too much, and you're tired of just not being enough.

You see your reflection and want to cry and scream and break the mirror with your fists, but you can't, so you settle for digging your nails into your palms.

You're destroying yourself, angry that you're not pretty enough, but you're wrong.

You don't have to look like the photoshopped models in magazines or the celebrities on Instagram and YouTube who know all the right poses and angles. You don't have to look like any standard of beauty spewed out by Hollywood or the rich male CEOs who make a living off of your insecurities. You don't have to feel intimidated when you go to the mall, worried that everyone is judging you for not being the perfect representation of society's construct of beauty. And you don't have to look like your pretty friend or sister.

You don't have to look like anyone but yourself. You're already beautiful. You always have been.

Beauty changes from era to era and from culture to culture. A flat stomach and thigh gap may be worshiped in our culture today, but thousands of years ago the Greeks prized thickness in women. In New Zealand, the most beautiful women are those with tattoos splayed across their chins and lips.

There is no absolute standard of beauty. Its definition rests in the eye of the beholder; it's subjective. Don't beat yourself up just because you don't meet some everchanging and unrealistic version of beauty.

Don't let anyone tell you you're not pretty enough—including yourself. Your flawlessness has already been asserted by the only One whose opinion matters.

"Song of Songs" tends to be the most avoided book in the Bible, but it contains deep truths about body image that we can't ignore. The love story contained in this book is metaphorical for our relationship with Christ, Him being the Lover and us the Beloved. So when He says

Altogether beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you (Song of Songs 4:7).

He's talking about you. You are altogether beautiful. And He calls you such multiple times throughout, getting specific about what exactly is beautiful about you:

Cheeks
Neck
Eyes
Face
Voice
Hair
Teeth
Lips
Belly

And that's an abridged list.

You are gorgeous. You are lovely. You are more than beautiful enough. And if anyone—even your intrusive thoughts—try to tell you otherwise, direct them to the Creator of the Universe.