Beauty Around the World

3:08 PM Edit This 12 Comments »


These girls are part of the Karen people in Burma. When they are about five or six years old they begin wearing these rings around their necks. As they get older, more and more rings are added, pushing the ribcage down and making the neck look longer. A woman generally has about twenty or more rings around her neck. These women are considered beautiful.



These women are part of the Massai tribe in Africa. Massai women wear long dangly earrings, as many as five or six, suspended from very stretched out earlobe holes. They also shave their heads so they can carry things on them. These women are considered beautiful.


This is a painting from Europe, during the Renaissance. Women wanted to be pleasantly plump, since the more you ate the richer you were. They wanted high, wide foreheads, and would sometimes pluck their hairlines to achieve this. They wanted pale white skin, and would avoid all sun and sometimes paint their skin to look as white as possible. They wanted eyelashes that were short and thin. These women were considered beautiful.

Are you noticing a pattern here?

…Not really.

You may have heard the saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” In a sense, that’s true. What is considered beautiful in one country or time period may be completely different from what is considered beautiful somewhere else.

Right now in America the thing is slim, trim, and tan. Fifty years ago being tan wasn’t nearly so popular, and women tried to be much more curvy. In fact, Marilyn Monroe would have been considered overweight by today’s standards. Who knows what will be the thing in another fifty years?

So here’s my question for you: whose definition of “beautiful” is the real beautiful?

Are the Karen, Massai, and Renaissance women less beautiful than American supermodels today?

Who has the right to say, “This is beautiful, but that isn’t”?

Can anyone have that right?



Cadia Music Video!

11:53 AM Edit This 7 Comments »
This is my favorite song from pop duo Cadia. It has a really fun sound and I think Courtney and Tori really express what A Beauty Glorious is all about. Be yourselves, girls! Let your beauty shine!


A Beauty Glorious

2:10 PM Edit This 4 Comments »
Do you love mermaids? Fairies? Did you want to be Tinkerbell or Ariel when you were younger? (Or maybe you still do. That’s fine, I’m right there with ya.) Why? Because they are…otherworldly. Special. Beautiful and mysterious. There is nothing ordinary about them.

Do you mind if I blow your mind a little?

Gen 1:26-27 Then God said, "Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness….” So God created humans in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female.

Have you ever drawn a picture or made a doll that looked like you? You made it in your image. It’s not you, it’s not even made of the same stuff as you. But you made it to be like you; you put yourself into it. That’s what God did. We are the closest thing this world has to seeing what God looks like.

In Genesis 2:7, God even took that a step further by breathing into us. He breathed into us. We have God’s breath inside of us. Wow. I get goosebumps every time I think of that.

Ladies, his fingerprints are all over us. Everything we have and everything we are came from God. Can you imagine? Can you even begin to imagine?

My sisters, we were birthed of God. We are otherworldly. We are real-life fairies.

And as such we are stunningly beautiful.

Really. I believe the angels are jealous of us. Out of all creation, God created us in his image especially for himself. For that reason we have a special kind of glory that no other creature in the universe can touch.

Not only all that, but we are women, the final crowning touch on all creation. People throughout the millennia have agreed that there is nothing in the universe that compares to a woman's beauty.

I remember one night when I heard God tell me so. I was laying in bed thinking of nothing and he all of a sudden said, (and I am paraphrasing) "Can you see yourself? Look at you. You are incredibly beautiful." I kind of giggled, and he said, "I'm serious. You're breathtaking." As soon as I figured out it was really him and not just my own mind, I felt so beautiful and so wrapped in love. For a minute there I got a glimpse of how God created me and how he sees me.

Face it, girls, we are uniquely beautiful. I don't mean "You're beautiful on the inside; you're beautiful in your own special way; oh well, dear, I think you're beautiful." Frankly, I think those kind of comments sometimes do more harm than good.

No, I mean that YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. Unequivocally. Look down at your body right now. It's a work of art. An absolute masterpiece. It's a reflection of God's beauty. What could possibly be better than that? You are human, God's treasure, a reflection of his glory. And that makes you stunning.

Welcome.

2:04 PM Edit This 18 Comments »
Hi. I’m Caitlyn. Nice to meet you.

I’ve been thinking for a while about starting this blog, and I finally decided to just go for it. I’d like to be able to share with young women, especially those in Jr. High and High School, some of what I'm learning about who we are as women and daughters of God. If you’re not a Christian, that’s okay, God still created you and loves you more than his own life. A lot of this will apply to you as well.

I’m only eighteen myself, and you will never hear me claim to have life all figured out, but God has shown me a few things that I’d like to share with you through this blog. And in writing it, I’ll also be reminding myself, because I forget so easily sometimes. Some days it feels like God’s grace is the only fuel in my tanks; without it, I’d stall and die.

A minute ago I said that we are women and daughters of God. Maybe you’re thinking, “Caitlyn, I’m not a woman, I’m only thirteen,” but I’m going to call us women anyway. God didn’t create men, women, boys, and girls, he created man and woman in his own image. In his own image? You’ve probably heard that before, and it can be a really crazy idea to get your head around. Whole books have been written about it, but in my next blog we’ll see if we can unpack a little of what it means.
Newer Posts