It wouldn’t come as a huge surprise to know that most women don’t think they are beautiful. We look at other women around us and see the beauty in them, but never in ourselves. We can accept that we look alright and that certain parts of our body are better than others. Like we may love our bum but hate our legs or love our legs and hate our boobs or love our boobs but hate our arms. We are never satisfied with what we look like and so many women are constantly changing themselves to “fix” or “hide” the part of their body they don’t like.

That was me, not too long ago.

But deep down I longed to accept the me God created me to be. I longed to look in the mirror and love what I saw, not because of what I had done to “fix” me or “hide” me, but because I saw me.

At the beginning of the year God shook me, He got hold of me and made me see what He saw. Why? Because I asked. I was in New York City, with two girlfriends. We had just spent 10 days snowboarding in Whistler with a crew of friends and now we were on our ‘girls trip’ to NYC!! I had seen so much beauty in my travelling already and was in awe of Gods creation. One morning I woke up, looked out our room window, and asked God to show me something that day, I gave Him permission to show me or teach me anything He wanted. We got dressed and headed out for our adventure through the city. We took so many photos, of the sights, of each other and tons of selfies with all three of us in.

You know that moment you swipe open your phone to take another picture and its still in “selfie” mode? The “ahhhh” moment when you see a double chin and your face fills the screen. I’ve done it many times and the first thought though my head is “that’s so not an attractive look!” But that day was different, it seemed every time I wanted to take a photo of something I was looking at, I would hold my phone up and see myself in the screen, and the word, beautiful, would run through my mind. I ignored it the first half of the day, but it kept happening. I hadn’t done anything extra to my look that day, my makeup was plain and simple, my hair just straight down. But I couldn’t shake the fact that every time I saw myself in my phone screen, I was actually liking what I saw. And then it hit me…

I had been looking all day for what God would show me and never realized that He was showing me, ‘me’. Not the me I saw but the me He saw. He saw me as beautiful. Now this was a shock to my system, I’d never seen myself as beautiful. I was plain looking, nothing overly attractive about me, not ugly, just plain. And here was the God of the universe who created beauty, showing me He saw me as beautiful. My question to God was, “God I asked you to show me anything, there is so much of this world and the people in it you could have chosen to show me and yet you show me…….me?” I felt in my heart God respond, “Just showing you someone beautiful, someone I created.”

That day was the beginning of my journey in accepting and believing that I am beautiful. Not because of anything I had done to fix me but because it was in beauty that God created me.

Psalm 33:6 says “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their host by the breath of His mouth.”

Have you ever looked up at the night sky and thought it was ugly or plain? I can probably safely assume you haven’t. The night sky is amazing, the stars constant in their constellations and the moon reflecting the suns light to help illuminate the dark. Go out of the city limits to where the street and building lights aren’t seen and you see so much more of the night sky’s beauty. Those stars are the breath of God, if His breath is so beautiful and glorious can you imagine how beautiful HE is! It’s in this beauty that He created you.

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

There are still some days I wake up and I definitely don’t feel beautiful let alone believe I look it, but they are getting fewer. Because I’m believing to stand on what God has said through His Word and shown me. I believe I am beautiful not because of what I’ve done, but because of what was done for me. What Jesus did for me and for you. I’m beautiful because it is how God describes me, even on my not so beautiful days when I’m angry or annoyed or say things I shouldn’t. It’s not about me, it’s about God. And God calls you beautiful not only in spite of what you think about yourself but in spite of what other people have said and done to you. He sees the you He created you to be, not the you, you see damaged by the world.

You might not be ready to believe that you are beautiful, but you can start believing that God says that about you. There are no exceptions to His rule, you aren’t the only one it doesn’t apply to, you are beautiful whether you believe it or not. But I know He would love it if you started believing it.

He is calling to each one of us to follow His plans and purposes for our lives, but in order to do that we need to know who we were created to be, and bravely walk in the knowledge.

That is why I’m creating this page. God is asking me to bravely walk in the beauty He created me to be, and He wants me to share my journey with you. Being brave is hard but achievable. It’s knowing your weaknesses and fears and walking, hand in hand with Jesus, straight into them.

God has not only asked me to walk this journey, but He is calling you to as well. Will you join me in being Bravely Beautiful and seeing just where God can take us?