Beauty for Ashes

I've started meeting with a small group of girls each week. We talk about their faith, and friends, and family, and always, always, always we talk about boys. We're girls it's what we do.

In the process of all this talking, I would constantly hear things like, "I'm so fat," or "He's too good looking to notice me," "I'm ugly." It broke my heart because these are some of the most beautiful, loving, fun, and sweet girls I know. So, we took action. We did an activity that asked them to claim what God says about them. The things that are true - that they are lovely, they're valued, they're prized and fought for, and then they had to take the next steps of living in those certainties.

That was at least a month ago, so let's flash forward to Thursday evening. I'm taking my girls home from our Mexican dinner night, and one of them said something disparaging about herself. In a matter of nano seconds the other two girls turned and yelled out, "What's the truth?" They wouldn't stop until she gave them an answer, until she had claimed that truth for herself.

In short, it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Not only have these girls begun to embrace who they really are, but they've begun to fight for those who aren't quite there yet. They even called me out during dinner when I said something about never getting married. One girl confronted her mom about how negative she was about her body.

It is amazing that once we see truth and know it for ourselves, we are no longer content to let others feel that way. These girls are figuring it out. They know where their worth lies. I'm 26, and I can't honestly say that.

I hope my girls, for the rest of their long and beautiful lives, have a voice inside their head asking them what the truth is. If they don't, I pray God sends them a friend who will scream it, or whisper it, or write it in a song for them.

I hope that every time I think those things of myself, I'll go back to that car with those girls and hear their voices because in them was a truth that could not be denied.