Conversations in bed

Have you ever looked in a mirror and saw what looked like a monster. I have.

I was about the age of 9 when I first looked in a mirror and became self conscious over my god given features. Unfortunately when I asked my father whether or not I was beautiful he said to me ‘don’t worry about what other people think.’ Yeah that didn’t answer my question what it did was reassure me that I was in fact not the definition of beauty.

The doubts I had as a child eventually kept growing through my teen years and became so I wasn’t able to look in a mirror without being able to find every single flaw on every inch of my body. I would drown myself into tears because all I wanted was to be and to know that I was beautiful.

I lived in a world where I constantly compared myself to every other woman around me. I found myself saying things like “well of course if only I had her hair than Johnny would like me”. That longing for a deeper connection with someone else seemed stampered because of my lack of physical beauty. Ah, and then of course there are the worst words that any ‘ugly’ girl hates to hear… ‘you have such a beautiful personality.” AS IF having a great personality really makes up for a lack of beauty in today’s’ society.

The worst part was when I would notice how men treated the ladies who were more physically beautiful than me. Opening doors for them letting them in line in front of them and just being more pleasant and thoughtful to them…acting as if they were truly a precious gift and the rest of us ‘average women’ were only 2nd class citizens.

I felt worthless, and loveless, and beauty-less, even though I was Christian and knew what God had to say about true beauty I didn’t trust his definition of beauty. I didn’t trust that what he said made a woman beautiful really made her beautiful. I could trust him with eternal life, but I could not trust him with a definition of beauty. It would take me 8 years of salvation and a month of debating whether or not to drive over a cliff before I would stop listening to the lies being fed to me through the media, men, and society.

I remember laying in bed one night during my senior year of college yelling at God for not giving me the what I like to call ‘super model’ looks. And as I yelled at him and told him how frustrated I was that I had all the amazing qualities that men would not notice because they wouldn’t take the time to get to know me because I wasn’t ‘beautiful’ physically …And it was in that moment, in that conversation, in that bed that God spoke to me.

“Sara, how many times do you really want to get married?

Well one,

How many husbands does that equal up to then?

One,

So how many men does that mean need to be captivated by you?

One.

Do you not think that I am fully capable of bringing that one man into your life?

Well Yes I do but

But what? Am I not the God who created the heavens and the earth

Yes

Am I not the God who can tell you how many hairs you have on your head.

Well yes but

AM I NOT the God who is capable of telling a mountain to move and it would actually move?

Yes you are

Then why do you care so much about the 3 billion men on the earth who can’t do any of those
things and who do not love you the way that I love you, why do you care what they think about you when I (the God of the universe) look at you with adoration and love, and I see you as someone beautiful and unique because I made you that way. Why do you trust more the ones who desire to hurt you than the God who gave his son for you.

Wow

Sara, you need to only captivate one man, and I am perfectly capable of bringing him into your life. And if I choose not to give you that man and even if I do choose to give you that man you need to trust my words and what I have to say about your worth, beauty and honor than any other mans…because no man will love you like I do, and no man will fill you the way that I do, and no man will complete you the way that I can. Do you understand…

Yes,

You are not alone, you will not walk this earth alone and more stronger than any man in your life could ever be you have me walking beside you guiding you leading you and loving you…will you trust that.

Yes.

Then lets take a walk.”

And so ended my conversation with God that night…and a weight that I had been carrying on my shoulders since I was 9 years old was lifted up and placed behind me because I knew I had the most important thing any woman could have. A strong loving God who would guide her. Who saw her as beautiful and who wasn’t afraid to show or tell her so.

I finally trusted God more than I trusted the words of my dad, the words of men around me and
the words of society.

I finally saw that I was and that I am

beautiful.

(and so are you :)