Female Body Image: Loving the Way God Made Us

I'm sure many of you have had this experience: you know a beautiful girl who's smart, funny, healthy, and absolutely gorgeous, but her self-esteem is in the dumps. She thinks she's fat, ugly, dumb, etc. I can't tell you how many girls like this that I've met, and it baffles me.
Some of you have probably heard me make remarks like this about myself, and so it seems strange that I'm writing about how wrong this is. Unfortunately, all women are affected by this epidemic that there's something wrong with us physically, that we don't measure up. We know this is untrue, but we can't seem to shake the thought that maybe, in our case, it is.
I'm just going to say right now to all of my sisters in Christ: STOP. NOW. PLEASE.
We cannot keep doing this to ourselves!!! The social messages, propounded by the media, constantly proclaim that we aren't good enough, pretty enough, sexy enough, thin enough, alluring enough, tall enough, short enough, blonde enough, brunette enough, interesting enough, smart enough, etc.
And I say ENOUGH!!!! to all those not-enoughs.
Ladies, I want you to read this carefully. Yes, you have heard this before; which is why you need to read it carefully so you actually ABSORB and BELIEVE what you're about to read. You ready? Ok then:
You are beautiful, just as you are.
You. Are. Beautiful. Exactly. The. Way. You. Are.
Somos mujeres hermosas; es verdad.
We are the pinnacle of creation. Remember the creation story in Genesis, how after God made the world, the animals, nature, etc. and then he made man, he realized it still wasn't complete? Do you remember what he did next?
Oh yeah. He made WOMAN.
As in "Whooooaaaaa man!! That's much better." (Just kidding, we love and need our Christian brothers).
The world literally was not complete until we were here. Um yeah, that's right.
Blessed John Paul said that feminine beauty, both spiritual AND PHYSICAL, reflects the infinite beauty of God. Yes, you read that correctly. YOUR BODY REFLECTS THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD AND CREATOR OF THE ENTIRE EARTH.
So why do we believe society's lies that we aren't beautiful? Society's idea of truth is not credible for the most part. The modern standard of beauty is tall, thin, darker-skinned (tans, etc.) and (I think) dark-haired. During the Renaissance, thin women were considered low-class, and were not considered for their beauty; the standard of beauty at that time consisted of having a large body, pale, untanned skin, and blonde hair. Before that, who the heck knows?
The point is, we learn from the world's constantly changing definition of beauty that physical beauty is not a single truth in the world: it's a social construct. But just because everyone and their mother has eaten it up like a fat-free low-carb ice cream that somehow tastes delicious, does not make it true. On the other hand, I'd bet that since God is Truth, his definition of beauty is the one true one. Considering how when pitted against society, God always comes out far more reputable, accurate, and consistent, I think it'd be best if we went with God's definition of beauty here, and that is YOU.
You are beautiful because you have been delicately and sweetly formed by the hands of the Creator, our Lord, the best artist of all time, the entity that knows you better than you know yourself, our lover who literally carried all of the sins the world has ever and will ever commit, including yours and mine, on his shoulders and suffered the fires of hell so that WE may obtain redemption and salvation - all of this out of the infinite, immeasurable LOVE and DESIRE that he has for us - he made you. Every weird birthmark, every embarrassing mole, every stretch mark naturally and humiliatingly developed during puberty rather than during the normal time of pregnancy, every blemish, even the odd shapes of our noses and feet, were all lovingly sculpted by the very hand of God. So, the world says moles are ugly, acne's ugly, cellulite's ugly, stretch marks are ugly, certain facial structures are ugly, bodily features are ugly. The world also says that sexual promiscuity is "healthy", which, considering the prevalence and health problems of STDs, seems like a contradictory statement. So, I ask: who gives a f*** about what the world thinks? God knows everything about everything, meaning that he is literally the smartest being in the entire world, and he thinks we're all beautiful. Considering that his intelligence far outranks that of the editors of Cosmopolitan and Vogue, it seems that he's the one who's right here.
So, please stop believing the lie. All the self-loathing pushed onto us is seriously heartbreaking to God as well as ourselves. So stop: you're beautiful. Believe it, it's true - God said so.
Finally, I'd like to ask that you take another look at the picture above. Those are my two nieces, Betsy (left) and Violet (right). Granted, I'm pretty biased when it comes to those two, but I'm pretty certain that I can objectively state that they are seriously the most beautiful girls in the world. Even if you don't agree with the superlative, I'm sure you can concede to the fact that those two are downright adorable, and so amazingly beautiful. Now, would you ever for even a second think that those two are anything less than utterly beautiful? Of course you wouldn't (if you would, get out of my life because I no longer like you). Now, imagine how God sees us. If you think that the idea of someone thinking that those two beautiful angels are physically flawed is utterly ridiculous and untrue (which it would be), how could you ever think that about yourself?