Feeling Beautiful
Originally published July 2, 2025
Our county fair was a few weeks ago. The night we went, a memory from last year came crashing back to me. I recalled the exact spot I was standing when we ran into a friend of mine who immediately greeted us with a hello and then, “You got your hair cut!” Yes, I had. That very day.
She followed up the comment with how much she loved the new style. But the thing was, I did not love it. In fact, I was rather self-conscious about it.
Earlier that day, I had gone in for my scheduled hair appointment and told my hair stylist I wanted something a little different, so she gave me a shorter hairstyle. My hair is usually no big deal to me. I never dry it. I don’t own a curling iron. In fact, I don’t use a comb or brush. I wash it, put some goat’s milk conditioner in it, and let it air dry. I have blue and blonde highlights for the fun of it. So my hair usually isn’t something I take very seriously. But that haircut really did a number on my self-esteem, and a year later I recalled all those insecure feelings when I walked into the fair and stood in that spot. Thankfully, God used that experience to take me another step farther on my faith and fitness journey.
A day or two after that haircut, when I was still literally feeling sick to my stomach when I looked in the mirror, I found a prayer card in one of my devotional books. It was a reflection about Mary, the mother of Jesus and her beauty – the beauty of her life and her example to us. Part of the prayer is, “Show me how to live beautifully, think beautifully, and feel beautiful.” It ends by saying, “Allow me to create beauty when there is none.”
Fat is not a feeling but beautiful is. You can feel beautiful when you identify with Christ and embrace who He created you to be. Share on XI meditated on that and prayed that prayer daily while my hair was growing out. A year later, I’m back to pulling it up and not caring much about my hair, but I still pray this prayer often. How the world judges my looks isn’t important, but I want to inhabit the beauty of the Lord. And I want to create that beauty where He has placed me by the things that I do, the words that I say, and the way that I make people feel when they are around me.
Summer has officially begun. If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you’re inhabiting a body. Given those two facts — summer + body — you have a summer body. How are you feeling in it?
You might be having a moment of insecurity about your own body like I had about my hair. It happens to all of us. I don’t know how many times I said, “I feel fat” in my teens, 20s, and 30s. Even after God set me free, I’ve still had moments when I struggle with bouts of insecurity. But today, I would suggest to you and to my former self that fat is not a feeling. However, when I think of the prayer reflection “show me how to live beautifully, think beautifully, and feel beautiful,” I believe beauty can be a feeling. We can feel beautiful when it’s more than skin-deep. When we’re caring for our spirit and when we’re identifying ourselves with Christ and who He created us to be.
Nobody has a perfect body. It’s okay not to love everything about it, but it’s our one body and our one chance at living a beautiful life in it. When we focus on who we are and whose we are, we can feel beautiful. When we feel beautiful, we start seeing ourselves as beautiful. Not sized up by the world’s standards but when we’re living by God’s standards.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands. Psalm 90:17 (NKJV)
May you live beautifully, think beautifully, and feel beautiful in your summer body today, this week, and all your days to come.
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