Lately, I've been having beauty and image on my mind a lot. I used to ALWAYS have self-image and body image on my mind constantly in an unhealthy, insecure way so having it on my mind again made me nervous. Then I remembered as I began writing this to you that God usually teaches me what to write before he gives me what to write.

I encountered a lot of different standards and expectations of beauty when I was younger. I still face a lot of different ones today but the first affirmations of beauty I got came from my family. These words and beliefs have always been a solid rock for me and I'd like to share them with you.

You're beautiful. You've always been beautiful. I know you think you look different today or maybe you thought you looked more beautiful at different events or time periods or seasons but you've always been beautiful.

You're made in God's image and in his likeness so you couldn't be anything but beautiful (Genesis 1:27). You know what he says about you?

He says you're fearfully and wonderfully made and wonderful are his works (Psalm 139:14). He was talking about you. He was talking about us. After he made man, he said and it was good (Genesis 1:27).

"God is not human, that he should lie,
not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19)

The things he has not only whispered to you about you but the dreams he's painted for you that you're not even sure how to achieve are all real whether you choose to believe it or not because he can not lie.

God telling you you're beautiful and helping you with school or work is just as true as him being able to change you, your circumstances and the course of your life if you have faith in him.

You know why the world's beauty standards don't work? Because they're deceitful. They constantly change, lie, exclude and the answer is always moving. They're inconsistent and forever changing. People's moods and opinions of things change over a million times a day. Now you tell me if that sounds like a good place to put your trust in who you think you are.

There's more to you than your beauty.

There's no one else in this world like you. When God made you he put you in a class all by yourself. He didn't make anyone else on this earth that can do what you can do the way you do it.

He didn't give anyone else your charisma, your flair, the way you laugh, the way you think, the way you love, the way you fight, the way you care, the way you pray, the way you talk, the way you walk, the way you blush, the way you stand up to things, your style, the way you see things and more. He made you your own person with your own mind. You don't have to be like anyone else because if it was God's mission for you to be the woman next to you then he's smart enough to not waste the life flowing through your veins right now.

If you're breathing then you have a purpose. If you're here to see another day then there's still purpose left in you. Do you see what He's trying to tell you here?

There's more to you then how you look. There's more put in you than the mistakes you've made. There's more to you than your wrongdoings. There's more to you than the times you've quit. There's more to you than your good days and there's more to you than your "off" days. There's more to you than your failures. There's more to you than your insecurities or what you consider your greatest accomplishments. There's more to you than your circumstance and your background. There's more to you than what you're willing to talk about out loud and there's more to you than what you're easily ready to boast about.

There's more to the story.

You are not your mistakes. You are not what you've done. Even when you don't believe it or understand it and even when they lie on your name.

You will always be who God says you are.

There's more to the story he has written for you that you or I could even imagine writing. You're beautiful because you are his.