Last night I joined a group of my closest girlfriends (and two guys!) and headed to my senior homecoming dance. Before the dance my friends came over and we got ready, ate a fabulous dinner, and posed for about a million pictures. We seriously felt like princesses, beauty queens, divas–you name it! We were just ourselves–wearing dresses that we were comfortable in (and had even worn to previous dances!), not loading on the make-up, and even just wearing our hair how we normally wear it! We went to the dance being ourselves! How else would you go, right? (Honestly I spent more time cleaning out and washing the car in preparation for the night than on grooming myself!)
Once we arrived at the dance, however, it was heartbreaking to run into girls that I didn’t even recognize! Girls had spent so much time primping and prepping to “make” themselves beautiful when they already were gorgeous!
My girlfriends and I went to the dance to enjoy each other’s company. We did just that! In the middle of the dance floor we did the goofiest dance moves seen all night! But we had fun with it! We were comfortable in our own skin and in just making memories with each other. We were not worried about impressing certain guys and seeing how many boys we could dance with.
It makes me so sad to think that the majority of the girls at my high school homecoming dance didn’t think that they were beautiful enough to say “no.” To say “no” to changing who they really are. To say “no” to wearing a dress that disclosed every secret thing about her. To say “no” to that boy’s movements up and down her body. To say “no” to disrespecting herself in that way.
If we really believed that we were beautiful would we have to worry in advance if our hair turned out “just right”? What is “just right” anyways? To be honest, my hair didn’t turn out exactly how I had planned it for the dance, but I ended up enjoying how I wore it much more than what I had hoped for! But seriously, why do we try so hard to fit the mold of a certain image that no one really remembers anyways? I do not remember one single dress or hairstyle from the dance–and it was just last night!
When we as women finally stand up for ourselves and declare, “Yes, I am beautiful” then we stand confidently in who we are and be fine with or without a date, with or without the latest dress, and with or without the perfect hair.
You are gorgeous. Will you have enough respect for yourself to believe it? God thinks that you are the most beautiful girl on the dance floor. He loves you with an unending love. Song of Songs even says “All beautiful you are my darling, there is no flaw in you.” Did you get that–you are beautiful, you are flawless! God, the Creator of the entire universe, thinks that you are beautiful! Shouldn’t that mean a whole lot more than some guy’s perception of you?
“Mirror, Mirror on the wall; am I there yet? Cause Mirror you’ve always told me who I am. I’m finding It’s not easy to be perfect. So Sorry you won’t define me. Sorry you don’t own me. Who are you to tell me that I’m less than what I should be? Who are you ,Who are you? I don’t need to listen to the list of things I should do. I won’t try – I won’t try. You don’t define me, you don’t define me. Mirror I am seeing a new reflection. I’m looking into the eyes of He who made me. To Him I have beauty beyond compare I know He defines me.”
~Barlowgirl, “Mirror”
