tell our girls they are beautiful

Last year I remember sharing an article from Huffington Post with my women's small group about little girls and beauty. The gist of the article was that we shouldn't make beauty the focus with our little women...that we should ask them about their educational pursuits, their favorite books, value them for their minds and talents, not just their looks. The follow up article that we discussed in our group expounded on that fact and argued that we should model and teach our girls that their value lies in who they are as an image bearer of God, not just beauty, talent, brains, or brawn. That's all great and good.

But.

This morning at church, a little ray of sunshine danced past me in a twirly dress with twinkling blue eyes and I had to stop and exclaim "you look like such a beautiful princess! that dress makes your blue eyes even bluer!" (forgive the grammar, I was talking to a 4 year old.) Her eyes danced, her smile widened... she gave a half twirl/half curtsy and danced away with her little friend. 

Do you remember?

If no one ever stopped and told YOU that you were beautiful, precious, lovely and sweet as a child...I'm so deeply sorry for you and I hope you know that you *are* beautiful, precious, and lovely. Words from others don't make it true. But if you were told these things, maybe you remember the way it made your heart warm even as a small child, because you knew it was true. Somehow there was an echo of a memory of glory in your heart, that you instinctly knew you were made to be beautiful, to love beauty, to enjoy beauty, to cherish and love it in others. Eve's DNA runs in our veins. We're made to be a beautiful compliment, a crown of the Father's creation.

God is beautiful. God loves beauty. He didn't have to make us beautiful, the world beautiful, or the Gospel so intensely gorgeous. But he did, and he does, and he loves to see beauty forming in us as we change, daily, into the image of the most beautiful one in the universe - his son Jesus.

So tell your little girls they are beautiful. Heaven knows they won't hear it from the world. The message they will get outside the walls of your home and church is most likely going to be "you're not beautiful without this... or that...or the other." You're not sexy enough if you have that extra ten pounds. You're not beautiful if you have scars. The list goes on and on. So why NOT tell our babies, our toddlers, our girls that they are a beautiful creation of our beautiful God? 

And when we do, maybe you'll feel your own heart warm and your smile widen as you see a little creature dance away with a twinkle in her eye because someone else recognized that yes, she is a beautiful princess.