God Made us Wonderful

This past Saturday I gave a talk at a Mother and Daughter tea put on at our church. The talk was titled God Made us Wonderful and the audience were girls in grades 5-7th and their moms. I'm putting the talk on here, though it isn't complete, since I added stuff during it; these are mostly just my notes. At the end I really emphasized that they really are beautiful. So here it is:

Read Psalm 139: 13-17

You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb.
I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are
your works! My very self you knew; my bones were not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth. Your eyes foresaw
my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one
came to be. How precious to me are your designs, O God; how vast the sum of
them!

God made us wonderful! He created you to be just the way you are and He delights in you.

Imagine art class and having others compliment your piece of work, your creation. It feels great, you delight in those compliments, you are proud of your accomplishment.

Now imagine creating a piece of art that you find very beautiful, but others start to pick out things they don’t like: the colors are all wrong, it is too wide, it’s too tall, it isn’t symmetrical.

These criticisms don’t sound nice and they can hurt us, make us sad and maybe a little angry and upset. This is how God feels when we criticize His works of art, His creation – whether it is other girls and women around us or ourselves.

Let’s go back to the beginning…

“God created man in His own, in the divine image He created them, male and female He created them” – Genesis 1:27.

God created all of us in His image and likeness.

Think of nature…of delicate flowers, magnificent trees, and breathtaking sunsets. These things are beautiful, but they weren’t created in God’s image. It is like he was showing off; He made these things for fun! They’re samples of what is to come, of a
creation more breathtaking and beautiful.

His ultimate masterpiece is us. We, as humans, as women, were created in His image and likeness, so how much more beautiful we are than nature!

When God created Eve, she was the crown of creation, the finishing touch that brought perfection to the world. The world wasn’t right without her, there was something missing… Nothing else can fill her place.

Just like Eve, God has given us certain qualities that are unique to females. The feminine heart was created to be nurturing, tender, inviting, comforting, merciful, and beautiful.

Just how beauty is the essence of God, beauty is the essence of woman, both physical and spiritual.

The world seems to have an obsession with beauty. We are told that to be successful and popular we have to be beautiful, and to be beautiful means to buy all the right make-up, fashionable clothes, and have perfect hair. The pressures to be beautiful, as defined by the world, surround us every day.
-Show examples of ads for make-up, hair products, and perfume called “Beautiful” and “Pretty.”

What we see in ads isn’t real beauty – it’s computer generated and fixed by photoshop – created by humans. That perfection of beauty cannot be achieved by us!

We already have beauty bestowed upon us, God’s beauty, which is real and not fake.

It is not wrong for women to wear make-up and fashionable clothes, but it is unhealthy when it becomes and obsession and we look to outward appearances to be beautiful, to define who we are. The world asks us to hide who we truly are, but we need to let our real selves shine through! We really are more than meets the eye!

We each have gifts and talents that God has blessed us with, such as playing sports, an instrument, finding enjoyment in reading or being good at math. We all have things we like to do – nurture those, don’t hide them! It’s who we are and who we were created to be! Our beauty and our feminine heart can shine through these, no matter what they are.

Our beauty also shines through how we love others and ourselves. If God created all of us in His image and likeness and with a heart like His, then we need to start recognizing His beauty in others and love them.

We need to stop competing with others – the world isn’t a beauty pageant! In God’s Kingdom you are all Miss Universe. (It is not about who is prettier because we are all beautiful. We have to accept the unique traits we were given, such as curly or straight hair…)

When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror,
remember that you were created from the beauty of God.

When you see another girl and you wish you could have her hair, her eyes, or her clothes,
remember that God created us all with beauty and with features unique to everyone.

On those days when you simply don’t feel beautiful…
remember that you are and that God would not have created you any other way
other than beautiful.

No one can take away your beauty, your dignity, or your feminine heart.

Be proud to be a girl because it sure is a lot of fun!

Thank you.