Confidence is Beauty

When I was younger I wanted to be a ballerina. I remember having an entire book with pictures of famous ballets, I fingered through pictures of Swan Lake and Giselle thinking that that's what I was going to be. A famous ballerina. One who had roses thrown at her feet and brought smiles to the faces of the people in the crowd. I wanted to glide across the floor with grace and poise. I wanted to plié in the grocery store while people gave me odd looks. I wanted to practice my coupé-chassé en tournant until it became second nature. I never did get ballet lessons, and to this day that is one of my greatest regrets, because who knows, maybe I could have been the lead in La Sylphide. However, that's obviously not what God had in mind for my life (sadly). Looking back on this dream makes me think of something important; would I have the confidence that it takes to be on stage in front of thousands of people each week? I barely had the confidence to look at myself in the mirror half the time, let alone obsessing over my pas de couru in the mirror for hours for a show coming up.

I remember a time period when I hated myself. I spent hours in the mirror pointing out things I would change if I could. My teeth, my hair, my stomach, my legs, my skin tone. I would leave the mirror feeling miserable because I knew most of those things I couldn't change. I had the confidence of a breadcrumb, if even. I tried to do my makeup heavily to feel prettier, I tried dressing "desirable" and soon it led to an eating disorder. I knew that if I couldn't find confidence, I'd make myself the way I wanted until I made my own confidence. I would be what society told me I needed to be to feel happy; skinny, gorgeous, long hair. I found myself even more discouraged than I started out because soon I was boney, pale, my skin was blotchy and my hair was falling out. It was a mess, I was a mess. I just wanted to be confident and beautiful, and I was neither. Or at least that's what I let myself believe. I spent years thinking "if only I was ___ I would be so confident", and when that thing came and went so did my joy. I didn't understand why I wasn't happy with myself, I was doing everything society told me to do to feel confident. Including not being overly confident (which I was nailing).

I came across a verse that read "The Lord will be your confidence..." Proverbs 3:26. I realized then that my legs won't always look like this, my stomach won't always look like this, my face will not always look like this... They will actually only get worse. Does that mean that my confidence should get worse, too? No! My confidence should be an unwavering confidence. I soon became confident in who I was as a person. I could sit down and say "Yeah, I am a little chubby, but my personality is golden and I am hilarious" or "Wow, my eyes look so pretty today with this makeup! I did such a good job", but that came with a price. Now I was seen as egotistical. I had "too much confidence" for people's liking. I couldn't please society! I was either not confident enough and an attention-seeker or overly confident and self-absorbed. But then it hit me, who am I trying to please? Proverbs 3:26 does not say "The approval of others will be your confidence", No! It says the Lord will be my confidence. With confidence came beauty. No, I didn't suddenly turn into Glinda because I believed the Lord was my confidence, but I became beautiful in my heart and in my outward actions. In being confident in myself, in loving myself, in seeing the good that God has given me which helped me see the good that God has given to those around me.

If I have to give one thing that is so very important, if you have only skimmed my blog and get nothing else please get this the only confidence that is permanent is not a confidence that you can see, it is a confidence from the LORD, a confidence that makes you as beautiful as the night sky and worthy of the only love that will ever last.


7 Things I'd Rather be Than "hot" - Grace Valentine
http://theodysseyonline.com/baylor/7-things-rather-hot/168793

Philippians 1:6
"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."