I was babysitting a six-year-old girl one day and she told me that we were going to play make-believe. “I get to be the princess,” she declared, “because I have blond hair.” I’m sorry, what? Where did that come from? I figure she adopted her narrow-minded view of hair color from Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Barbie, and the like.
What kind of world do we live in to think that a girl becomes a princess based on the color of her hair? It makes me wonder where our culture’s standard of beauty comes from. The thing I find most interesting is how quickly it changes. Way back in the day, women hid themselves away from the sun in attempt to maintain their fair complexion. Today, you can get laughed at for being “too white.”
What sort of people are we that we could condense beauty to a hair color, skin complexion, or pant size? Where do we get the idea that we have the right to declare a portion of God’s creation as better than the rest? The Bible says that God created everything and saw that it was good. What it does not say is, “God created a size fourteen, average looking woman with brown hair and dull brown eyes, and said that it was good. Then he created a size zero, stunningly attractive blond with sparkling blue eyes and said that she was better.” Go ahead and search your Bible from cover to cover. You won’t find it in there. There is no better or best. God saw that it was good. Period.
I don’t know who the first woman to buy into the comparison game was, but it has been haunting women of every generation for hundreds and thousands of years. We start to think things like, “I wish I had her eyes, her hair, and her smile,” and, “Maybe if I had a figure like so-and-so’s… Yeah, I think I would look better if I just lost ten more pounds.”
I once heard someone say that if you are going to compare yourself to someone, you should compare yourself to your cousins, as they are the people you are genetically programmed to look more like. I think the point they were trying to make is that you shouldn’t obsess over looking like digitally tweaked models in magazines, but what this person failed to consider is that someone has to be the cousin of the models in those magazines. Take it from the girl whose cousins look like they could be the models in those magazines: Comparing yourself to anyone (even/especially family members) is a bad idea.
The point is, God created you and He said that you look good. Period. You are His carefully crafted masterpiece, and He thinks that you’re breathtakingly gorgeous. It doesn’t matter that you think your nose is a little too pointed and your butt is a little too large. When God looks at you, He sees perfection. He sees all the concentration He put into forming you. He sees the divine purpose for which He created you.
Psalm 45:11 tells us, “The king is enthralled by your beauty: honor him, for he is your lord.” In other words, God thinks you’re gorgeous. Stop saying that the way God formed you isn’t good enough because it is more than good enough. This is the God who created the sun and the moon and the trees and the clouds. Everything He makes is 
perfect – without flaw. Just like Song of Solomon 4:7 where He declares, “All beautiful you are, my darling, there is no flaw in you.” God made you beautiful. Period. No amount of any culture’s lies can change the fact that you are His creation. God delights in you just the way you are. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. When insecurities threaten to resurface, just remember that God looked down from on high and saw that you look good. Period.
One time, when I was walking through a really difficult circumstance in my life, I had this reoccurring vision (that felt like a nightmare when I was wide awake) about a whirlpool and an eagle. I was drowning in the whirlpool, but trying to grab hold of this eagle that was soaring above the waves. The vision made absolutely no sense… until I stumbled upon Psalm 18. This particular Psalm talks about God being a refuge when the floods of destruction are sweeping over you. As I read this Psalm, I remembered my whirlpool, then I read the words, “he soared on the wings of the wind.” I don’t know that I’ve ever had a passage of Scripture take my breath away like that verse did. The eagle in the vision that I kept reaching out for was Jesus. That one passage of Scripture that is repeated twice in the Bible told me the end of my vision:
If you browse through your local radio stations, you’ll probably hear a lot of songs about breaking up. It would seem that a lot of artists enjoy singing about sweet revenge. To be perfectly honest, I’ve caught myself laughing at some of the lyrics… but only because I’ve never even considered doing such things. “I pray your brakes go out going down a hill”? Really? Or how about Carrie Underwood’s song about completely trashing her ex’s car?
The other night, I watched A Snoodle’s Tale. If you’ve never seen that episode of Veggietales, I would encourage you to look it up. It’s a must see – even if you don’t like Veggietales. It’s the story of a little Snoodle who is told time and time again, “You’re puny, you’re silly, you’re not all that smart, you can’t use your wings and you’re no good at art!” With every lie he is told, a picture is stuffed into the pack he carries on his back. Eventually, the small, dejected Snoodle leaves town, escaping to the top of Mount Ginches where he thinks he will be alone with his thoughts and the finches. He comes to find that he is, in fact, not alone. A Man lives there on top of Mount Ginches. The exchange that happens between the Man and the Snoodle is something that I find to be infinitely freeing, but here’s what jumped out at me the other night:
Beyond Waiting 