Some days I like him. Most days I hate him. But I do have to admit, he's honest. He'll always tell me if I have food in my teeth or a booger in my nose. He isn't afraid to let me know if a certain shirt is too tight or if a color doesn't complement my skin. I appreciate the honesty, but he is deceiving all the same. Deceiving because anytime he tells me, " Just get this cute shirt and feel better about yourself" or " Just lose five pounds and be forever happy," it doesn't work. I'm never good enough for him.

I try not to hang out with him too much, or else I can easily fall into his trap of discouragement - " Jenna, I see that cellulite back there. Your skin is looking pretty oily these days. Those teeth could use come whitening!" I try to block out his lies that tell me I'm not good enough, that I'm not beautiful, but it's hard.

I'm sure you've met him. He tends to pop up in all sorts of places: bathrooms, cars, department stores, gyms. And I'm sure you've felt some of these insecurities when standing in front of him.

                                                                       His name?
                                                                       Mirror.


Unfortunately, the mirror rarely tells me how beautiful I am. He never notices when I have helped my mom clean the kitchen or when I avoid gossip at the lunch table. Even when I'm having a great hair day, he just notices that pimple on my chin. Because of him, sometimes I wonder if the word beautiful could ever describe me.

Beautiful: adj. 1. Having attractive qualities that give great delight or satisfaction to see, hear think about, ect. 2. excellent of its kind. 3. particularly graceful, lovely, or pretty...

Okay, so that may be the dictionary definition of beautiful, but let's get real. Mirror, along with his other sidekicks like TV and Magazine, seem to determine what is beautiful and what is not. We have to let boys tell us whether or not we are beautiful, and sometime we even let the popular group of girls at school define what beauty is.

Because of all of the thousands of definitions people have for beauty, we can easily get confused and struggle to see ourselves as beautiful. But the truth is, Mirror got it all wrong! He never uses the most important definition, the one that clearly states what beautiful really is:

                                           Beautiful: what God sees when He sees you.


Shelby ;D