Being a girl can be hard. The expectations seem to rise every day and you can’t seem to keep up with them. Be skinnier. Wear more makeup. Dress the way others do. Straighten your hair more. Be enough. But you will never be enough.

These are things the mirror tells us every day. We look around at the movie stars and models and we look at ourselves, and we hate what we see. When we look in the mirror we start to see what we think everyone else sees. We pull apart any possible flaw that we can think of and we tear ourselves down until there’s nothing left. It’s horrible. But here’s what I can assure you: these are all lies.

Let me just start off by telling you that I don’t have to know you or see you to know that YOU are beautiful. Beauty is not what we see in the magazines and on TV. Beauty is anything made by our perfect creator above. You see, the God that made you doesn’t have a single flaw and He most definitely does not need you. So the question is; why are you here? If He didn’t need you, then what’s the point? But sweet daughter, the point is that He didn’t need you but He wants you.

You, were chosen by the King. The Lord, in all of his perfectness and beauty could have created anyone. But He didn’t just create anyone, He created you. Everything about you and every flaw that you hate about yourself is something that He carefully molded into the masterpiece that you are. Everything from your height to your weight to your hair color to the color of your skin are all small pieces of beauty that He added to His creation.

Genesis 1:27 says “So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them.”

You might think to yourself that this verse is very repetitive and just repeats the same thing over and over again, and you would be right. The importance in that though is that we’ve heard it before yet we still don’t believe it. This verse reminds me every day that the Lord loves me, He made me and He made me in His image. By reminding me over and over again it forces me to push aside what society thinks about me and remember what God already knows about me. The thing is, that you probably think that God loves you because He created you. But God doesn’t love you because He created you, He created you because He already loved you. Before he made you His love was already stronger than anything you could ever imagine. Then with that love in Him he created you into everything that you are.

Let me also remind you that beauty is not just what is on the outside. The person that you are; your goals, morals, and beliefs make you beautiful. Everything in society these days focuses on how people look and then based on what we see we determine how pretty we think someone is. However, the way a person carries themselves is so much more important than their looks. As humans we fail to realize that what you look like on the outside can change in an instant. Looks are temporary, but who you are that’s what stays forever. The way you treat people is how you leave your mark on this world. You have the power to influence people not with how you look but how you act and there is so much beauty in that alone.

So next time you look at the mirror remember that you are beautiful. Before you tear yourself down, know that everything you are seeing is something that God loves and cherishes so deeply. You were not created to please this world, you were created to change it. So please, look in the mirror and smile because you are beautiful and strong and loved by someone who gave up His life just to know you and that is the most beautiful thing of all.