Ugly

   I have a lot of voices in my head giving me a lot of crap right now. The loudest voice tells me that I'm not beautiful... You're probably thinking... "Oh wow, is this chick fishing for compliments?" The answer is no. I'm not. I don't need you to tell me I'm beautiful because it won't help right now anyway. That's just how this works.
   When I say beautiful, I am mostly referring to being beautiful spiritually, personality, and character wise. I just hate how loud and obnoxious I am. I don't like only being the funny girl. As I was driving home tonight, I cried and prayed for God to speak some truth in my life, because right now I believe the lies. I believe that I am not a beautiful person. 
   I feel so shallow and worthless. The voices tell me I have nothing to offer this world or God. I am just a terrible, selfish, arrogant, obnoxious doormat who is so scared of what others think of me. I am a scared little girl. I don't measure up. I fail at everything I do in some small way or another. This is what the voices tell me.
   I'm not sure how to combat this right now because I believe every word of it. I'm going to go to God's word and search for answers. I don't know where else to turn.
   I want to be the kind of woman of God whom people can rely on and look up to. I want to be a gracious, humble, encouraging, organized, selfless, respectful, trustworthy, but strong, passionate, and courageous... but instead, I am me. I want people to look at me internally and say "That woman is beautiful." This song by Bethany Dillon kind of sums up the kind of beauty I desire.

I want to be able to be looked at by a strong, wise man of God and live up to his expectations of what a true woman of God should be. I want to be respected and loved. I want to feel beautiful. Maybe it will happen someday, maybe God has such a man tucked away somewhere growing in his faith just like me... but right now I feel unworthy of any such man and unable to live up to anyone's expectations let alone a significant other. Then the voices tell me that it didn't work out between my parents after 31 years, so why would it work for me? How can I make it if they can't? ...but that's whole different story...
   I don't feel like I'll ever come even close to being beautiful. I feel like I'll just be stuck like this forever, and it kills me inside. As I was driving home, crying, and praying, no, pouring my heart out to God, I felt deep in my soul that He was actually listening to me and crying with me. This song came on the radio and I just listened... this song is the cry of my heart right now:

   I still feel the same as I did before, broken, beat down, worthless, hurting, inadequate, UGLY ... but I know God is listening to me right now and He feels for me. So I am wrapping this up with a heavy heart to delve into God's love letter to me to find some wisdom and healing.