What is beautiful?

  I had the opportunity to teach the Laurel class (16-18 year old girls) today in Young Women. They intimidate me because not only do I feel like I'm still their age, but they are EXTREMELY strong, beautiful, profound girls! They truly are way beyond their years. My lesson that I taught them has nothing to do with what I want to talk about in this post, but the reason I bring them up, is because as I was sitting there teaching them looking at each of them, I just couldn't get over the beauty that each one of them radiated. They are no doubt GORGEOUS on the outside, but it is SO much deeper than that.They are absolutely beautiful from the inside out. I think when most people think of the word beautiful, our minds tend to go directly to how something physically looks. But what defines beauty? Have you ever met someone and from just initially looking at them they may not fit the title of beautiful in the world's point of view? But as you get to know that person they just get more and more beautiful. Or it could go the opposite way. You could meet someone and just by looking at them they fit the world's standards of what beauty is, but then when you get to know them, they tend to not be as beautiful as you initially thought. Why is that? Well to me, when someone is truly beautiful, it is not defined by the outward appearance. To me beautiful people, radiate the light of Christ, which incorporates many amazing characteristics: kind, genuine, humble, self-less, caring, compassionate, accepting, forgiving, meek, and righteous.
 For Mother's Day one year, my parent's ward gave to each mother a book by Jenny Phillips. She is also a singer/songwriter of inspirational LDS music. The book is entitled "Beautiful". It is a parable about where true beauty comes from. It is about a girl named Jane. She is a laundress of an orphanage, and has enrolled in the King's (Heavenly Father) training program to become beautiful and is determined to find the Kings ten keys of beauty. But when a scholar (Satan) comes to their little town from another part of the world with a beauty training program of his own, things change dramatically. He begins to paint the picture of what beauty is in the worldly sense. He shows pictures of very beautiful women that are dressed immodestly and portrays to the women of this little town that that is beautiful. Eventually each female in the town has a crystal ball that follows her with a number on it. The number indicates how beautiful that girl is 1 being the worst and ten being the most beautiful. Pretty soon people aren't even looking at the girl's themselves but only at the number that followed them, and that is what determined who the girl was to the world based on how high or low her number was. Looking at that parable compared to the real world it really isn't much different, other than we physically don't have crystal balls following us telling everyone how beautiful we are. We often times tend to judge one another and place worth on things that don't even matter or hold any weight to who we really are as people and more importantly, children of our Heavenly Father. Instead of looking at who the person truly is, we are looking at the way they dress, the car they drive, the house they live in, the job they have, how many followers they have on Instagram, if they have the latest and greatest technology, who their friends are, how many likes they get on their posts, etc. How often do we truly stop and think about the actual person? Like I have said many times, I am guilty of many of these petty things. I have made it a goal to truly look at each person as a child of God instead of placing labels and judgments on what the world sees us as. If you have read my recent posts, you would see I still have a long way to go in getting to the point I want to be. However, just the fact that I am making myself consciously think about this goal in all situations, although I still am far from perfect, it has made such a huge difference in the way I look at everyone. Even if I initially stereo type a person or judge someone for something, I have quickly turned it around and thought about why they do the things they do, and how Heavenly Father looks at them. What a difference!!! Like I said, I have a LONG way to go, but I want to get to that point where I can be genuinely accepting of everyone for who they truly are, not for how they look, what they have, or even for the way they act.
 As I have talked about, I have struggled with an eating disorder now for just about 18 years. Although, I am doing really well (especially as compared to where I once was), it is still a battle that I live with every single day of my life. As women we are told CONSTANTLY that in order to be "beautiful", we need to be skinny. It is a message that I have even heard people that are close to me in my life convey in subtle ways, and I'm sure with no intention whatsoever to hurt or promote that skinny is what is pretty, but nonetheless it happens and we need to be aware of the things we say to these girls, and other women. When I was in the Center for Change trying to get help for my own eating disorder, I was shocked at how many of the girls that were in there with me had people make comments about their weight, either intentionally or unintentionally hurting them. One girl in particular that I actually became really close with, was telling me one time that she over heard her mom talking to someone telling them that when her older sister was her age she wore clothes that were 2 sizes smaller than what she wore. From that moment on, she started to worry about her weight which eventually turned into almost loosing her life as she developed anorexia. Another girl was constantly compared to her step sister. They were about the same age, and even her own mom would say that her step sister always had all the boys after her, but she was glad that my friend didn't look that way because she wouldn't have to worry about the boys chasing her. Which once again landed this sweet friend of mine in a situation that could have easily taken her life. One of my best friends that I became super close with in the center has actually started her own blog. You can read it HERE.

My beautiful mom

 As women and girls, we need to buoy each other up, not tear each other down. Isn't it such a common thing that we do as women? Especially if we feel threatened by another women and her accomplishments or beauty. We need to (myself most certainly) teach our daughter's, nieces, grand daughters, sisters, etc., what true beauty is. We need to focus on where our self worth comes from. It doesn't come from not having wrinkles, numbers on a scale, the clothes we wear, the things we have, etc. NONE of those things can or should define our self worth.Our true beauty and self worth comes from knowing and embracing who we are and why we are even here. It comes from knowing what our ultimate goal is and doing anything and everything we can to reach that goal. It comes from the way we treat others. It comes from sharing our talents. It comes from WITHIN!!!
 These pictures are, to me, some of the most beautiful women that ever lived!

Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Ann M. Dibb

   

Mary Mother of Jesus