Sometimes, I just want to look like the girls on Pinterest.

I want a head full of thick and manageable, perfectly colored hair instead of the dull, thin, string-like hair I have now.

My clothing isn’t what I would consider highly fashionable. I don’t have the time or money to create a wardrobe that anyone would deem #closetgoals.

And while I would love more than anything to have abs like Kate Hudson, legs like a Cuban Salsa dancer and the butt of a professional kickboxer… I do not.

I often find myself a normal, 23-year-old girl.

Regardless of the fact that my awesome and supportive friends remind me time and time again that I was made in the image of God, the creator of beautiful, snow-capped mountains and oceans that are full of more diverse life than we can even count… I find myself wanting.

Wanting to be more than who he created.

But then I realize, underneath my misguided thoughts… I like who I am.

The majority of the time I think about my life and my personality and the way I look, I’m good.

It’s just in those moments where it’s easier to be upset by what I lack than joyful about what I have. It’s the insecurity that we’re all born with and live our lives trying to stifle. When that reaches the surface, I forget how hard I have worked to love who I am. I forget how loved I am by my creator.

That being said, beauty is obnoxious. The lengths we women go through to be a certain weight, hair color and skin tone are obnoxious. When I look on Pinterest and see all the different beauty pins, I realize one thing: no woman will ever measure up to all these goals. No woman will ever have the perfect hair, nails, and style. If they do, they won’t maintain it for very long. Personally, after I have a day when my style is on point, the next day I am in athletic shorts, an over-sized sweatshirt, and my makeup is either off or left over from the previous day.

We all get so caught up in being all these different things that we lose sight of what is truly important. Isn’t our sanity and happiness worth so much more than perfectly polished nails or being a size two?

1 Timothy 2:9-10 says, “I want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.”

The most important thing has never been to look good. It’s to do good things.

It’s lifting people up and being a light in this dark, miserable world we live in.

Eating disorders and self-loathing have been around for way too long. Pictures of models with protruding collarbones should inspire anger instead of self-loathing. Styles and trends need to stop defining what’s cool and start defining what’s right. Every generation of women has it so much harder than the previous one. It’s about time we stand up for ourselves.

We are all beautiful because that’s how we were created.

Hair flowing in the wind, face bare and clean, clothes comfy and realistic.

God created us for worship and love.

Let’s start putting our energy into that.