When We Were Pretty.

There was a time when we were pretty. Not petty… just simply pretty. Before we knew what pretty was… we were. When did it change? How did it change? Where did it change? Every woman’s story is different… but surely you remember the day, or maybe you don’t, maybe it happened slowly, secretly shhhhh…. don’t tell her, let her figure it out.

No matter how it happened. My friend, it did in fact happen.

One day I was pretty, at least that’s what my parents said, it’s what my grandparents said and of course all their friends.

But going from pretty and secure to uncertain and awkward was unsettling but sexy was worse.

How did we get there? Who told us we were sexy? Who told us we were grown? Who told us we knew all that we were never supposed to know until we were beautiful. Beauty? That comes from the Lord.

But in between we became insecure, we became petty, we became vulnerable, we became culture, we became bound in the lie of freedom.

The freedom leading to rebellion.

We let them tell us who and how to be and what would make us happy, empowered and fulfilled.

Who is they? I don’t know… who is your they? Every woman has a different they, but there is always a they.

The whispers and yells of who to be is how we became.

Fortunately, no thankfully, no mercifully maybe the word I am searching for is graciously.

Yea that’s it… graciously.

He takes sexy and makes it beauty.

He takes seduction and trades it for salvation.

He takes rebellion and trades it for righteousness.

And then one day when we hold on to God just tight enough and we wrestle with this flesh just long enough…. It comes… we look up one day, one random day, and we are pretty again.

Isn’t it funny how that works? How now… you can laugh through the weeping.

He did in fact give us joy for mourning.

Mourning the women we became, that we idolized and took great care in curating, which was never who we were destined to become.

If you are reading this and you have ever felt anything other than pretty or beautiful, know, God is a restorer of the beauty he always intended for you to carry.

From the inside out!

Embrace the truth of who God says you are.