I Am Beautiful

Look in the mirror. Do you like what you see? Do you smile upon seeing your own reflection?

Every morning when I wake up, I look in the mirror. Sometimes, I like what I see and utter words of prayer to God. But most of the times, I just shrug off and go on with my daily activities. There were even times when I don't want to look in the mirror at all because I know imperfections are all I see.

Have you ever wished you have a different figure? A curly hair perhaps, pouty lips, or a chiselled nose? I know for sure that there are a lot of people like me, who, in one time or another, had wished they were somebody else. Have you ever asked God why He made you that way?

I had one of those times. Upon looking at the mirror, I wished I had a slimmer figure, just like when I was younger, before the kids came. I wished I could get rid of these flabby arms. I wished my eyebrows are a little thicker and my eyelashes a little curlier. As I go on finding fault on my own body, I had this awful feeling that the rest of the day would do me no good.

As I was browsing the Bible to look up a verse, I was led to Psalm 139 and I quote [NIV];

"1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in - behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain."

My eyes are getting heavy with tears. The Lord knows me, my thoughts and my emotions. He knows at that moment I am not feeling good about myself. It's just like telling me, "My child, I knew you too well". I have read these verses too many times since I became a Christian, but today, it seemed that I am reading for the first time.

"13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully
made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made at the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the
earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be."

I wonder what King David must have felt when he wrote this Psalms? I am amazed and in awe of the fact that God had fearfully and wonderfully knitted me in my mother's womb. God was so involved from the very beginning of my life, "your eyes saw my unformed body". This very body that I detest sometimes. I am guilty for the things I do to my body/health, for the lack of discipline, for neglecting its importance. What I have become is of my own doing, not God's. God designed me to be wonderful, not awful. I am ashamed of myself for ever thinking God made other people beautiful and I am not. In God's very own eyes, I am beautiful, I am wonderful, I am special, I am loved.

As I finished reading Psalms 139, I made these verses my very own personal prayer:

"23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting."