true beauty

I once saw a quote that states, "Become the type of person the type of person you're looking for is looking for." I was thinking about this the other day as Josh and I had a conversation about the way girls think. Girls seem to think that in order to get a guy to pay attention to them, they must wear lots of makeup and very little clothing. If that really does get guys to pay attention to you, is that the kind of guy and/or attention that you want?

Before I met Josh, I was dating a guy who didn't have my best interest at heart. One night, completely out of the blue, he showed up at my house and dumped me. I kept thinking that if I was prettier or had bigger boobs, he might have stayed. I became so obsessed with my appearance I spent lots of money on makeup and getting my hair done. I bought clothes that were very immodest and spent most of my time staring at myself in the mirror thinking,
"I'm so ugly."
"I'm so fat."
"No wonder no one wants to go out with me."

During this time I was called to serve as an advisor in the Young Women's program. Shortly after accepting the call, I went to E.F.Y. (especially for youth) with the girls. A woman spoke about how when we become so obsessed with our outward appearance, we become ugly on the inside. It didn't take long for me to realise that her message was meant for me.

She challenged everyone there to spend as much time as you need getting ready in the morning. And when you are done, you are done. You don't look in the mirror again for the whole day. I decided to accept her challenge but I added onto it. I decided to set a timer so that my time to get ready in the morning was limited. I also decided that EVERY time I had a negative thought about myself, I would IMMEDIATELY do something for someone else.

At first, it was hard to come up with things to do for other people. I would go to the high school and leave a cute note in my sister's car. Sometimes people would come into work saying they were tired or didn't feel good and I would offer to take their shift for them.

I started thinking of things ahead of time that, just in case I had a negative thought. I got more and more creative with my ideas. I found that I became so excited about doing things for other people that I couldn't wait until I had a negative thought and I would just do the nice thing.

It wasn't long after that I was sitting at a table at my brother's wedding reception and Josh walked in. I watched as he went through the line shaking everyone's hand and then he went to the refreshment table. I tried sending subliminal messages to him (sometimes I pretend to have super powers) "come sit by me...come sit by me...there is a seat right HERE!" And then...he did it, sat right next to me (probably the only time my sending subliminal messages to someone actually worked).

That night as I was getting ready for bed, I looked at myself in the mirror. My first thought was, "WOW no wonder he wanted to sit by me." I had spent so much time working on being beautiful on the inside that I hadn't had time to think about what I looked like on the outside. My eyes were sparkling, my skin was glowing, I FELT beautiful! I learned that true beauty comes from the Light of Christ shining through us.

Recently, I have forgotten about this important lesson. I have allowed myself to become ugly on the inside. I have made comments about my liking food too much. I even wrote a blog about my being the size of an elephant. I need to realise that I am not the size of an elephant, I am the size of a daughter of god. I know that if I spend more time trying to FEEL beautiful, and less time trying to LOOK it, I will be truly happy and more beautiful than ever.