Journey to Beauty - Part Four: Afterward

 Here is the final installment of Megan's journey toward beauty ...

 

Thanks be to God, receiving the Eucharist every day opened my eyes to the blessings and the love the Lord has given me and the greatness and beauty in His world. It has also made me aware of the lies society tells us, especially about feminine beauty. Through prayer, guidance of incredible friends and people in my life, wonderful books including Captivating and How to Find Your Soul Mate Without Losing Your Soul, a wonderful conference put on by FOCUS, and a relationship with the Blessed Mother my life was changed. The image of beauty that the world showcases doesn’t even exist. Too many women are getting plastic surgery; so many computer programs have editing software for the purposes of “enhancing” the faces and bodies of models and famous women who actually don’t look like that in real life. Why are we so blind to it when even the very women on magazines complain about how their photos were completely edited erasing their natural appearance? (And we wonder why people don’t feel beautiful?) We’re told time and time again that these edited photos are what truly beautiful people look like. (For specific examples of famous women who have been vandalized by magazines read How to find your soul mate without losing your soul by Jason and Crystalina Everett in the Love your Body chapter.)

I also came to realize that we are all princesses of the Lord! We are all truly beautiful and the Lord has a plan for each and every one of us. ‎Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." We have to trust Him. He made us in his image and likeness. He made us and saw that it was GOOD. He gave us the gifts, the talents and the beauty to fulfill His plan. We are fallen, yes, but He allows challenges in our lives to make us strong, to be the people He intended us to be and to always choose Him. He came humbly into this world to die for our sins, for all the mistakes that we make, because we think we know better than He does. Just like I did and like I do every day when I sin. But He loves us so much. He is here with us! His body and His blood are HERE. And we can be completely united to Him every single day by receiving His body and blood in the most Holy sacrament of the Altar. He asks His children to use the beauty and the gifts that He has given us to be His arms, legs and His voice. He feeds us with Himself in the Eucharist so that we can love like Him, so that we can bring Him to others. HE is the bread of life! He is victory over all! He can defeat anything. If He defeated every sin in the world, past, present, future, and death itself, He can certainly defeat our pains and our sufferings and He can defeat the lies that the world feeds us, because He feeds us with everlasting life. The more like Him we are, the more we are ourselves, because He created us in His image. And the more at peace and satisfied we will be.

Don’t let pride fool you into false humility, THIS, accepting the way Christ created you as beautiful, is humility my friends. It is humble because you are not saying you know better than God and that He did not create you beautiful. It is accepting that you are a beautiful creation of the Lord. Even Jesus Christ Himself says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We must love ourselves in order to love His people; in that way we love the Lord. Matthew 25:40 says, “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.” By loving our brothers and sisters we love our Lord. Expanding on the advice from Jason Everett about asking the Lord to show us our beauty, my amazing uncle and godfather, Father James Collins once told me to ask the Lord to heal me from my insecurities and to ask the Lord specifically to heal me of certain ones; for example, “Lord help me to stop comparing myself to others.” Ask the Lord to heal you of specific insecurities. The Lord hears our prayers and He answers them. He knows the true desires of our hearts and He knows exactly what we need. He knows how to make us stronger and how to take victory in our souls.

The Lord loves us more than anyone else can ever love us. He hurts when we hurt and He wants to bring us healing. Let us humble ourselves and allow the Lord to love us and to heal us. He will heal us. Like I said, He is victorious. He is Almighty, all-powerful, and all loving! Stop comparing yourself to others, because the Lord made you to be yourself, and you are beautiful and wonderful. Allow Him to reveal to you the gifts and talents He has given you. Accept compliments, it is the Lord loving you through someone else. Believe them. The Lord is not a liar. If you do not believe the compliments, ask the Lord to heal you from those lies that poison your heart and keep you from seeing your beauty. You are beautiful and you are a princess of the heavenly King! He is Our Father; He is always there with strong and undying love for us. Turn to Him always and never give up on Him, He never gives up on you.

Ask Our Lady, Mother Mary to show you true feminine beauty. (Wise advice from my dear friend ,Kelly Craige). Mary is most beautiful and the Queen of all. She is the pillar of all virtue; ask her to show you virtue and what it means to be truly beautiful and feminine. Females are the essence of beauty. (Captivating) Let the beauty of God shine through you, for you are blessed!

 This is my story, and this is my advice. I often pray for an increase of awareness of the terrible lies society tells women and for the wisdom and the strength for girls and women to stay far from being swept under the current that I had been drowning in. It might be easy to get swept in and it might look like there is a warm, sunny beach at the end. But that current is strong and it’s rough. It’s a whirlpool that spins you under and when you want to go back it is hard. But never forget that the Father is there with His loving arms to rescue His princess from the depth of despair.

Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

To go back to the beginning of Megan's series Journey to Beauty, click here.