Monday, October 14, 2013

Deep Beauty


My name is Rachel Rickett I am serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Chirst of Latter-Day Saints. In Ogden Utah. We have an opportunity to use the internet to share our beliefs and uplifting thoughts. With so much degrading things on the Internet I am grateful for this opportunity share thoughts about Chirst and his love for us.

Today my companion and I were talking about the pressure woman have to look a certain way. We are constantly bombarded with images of how we should look and feel bad about ourselves when we don't look how the world expects us to look. We see images on the internet, magazines, TV, in all the clothing stores billboards. We have a constant pressure to be beautiful.

As I thought more about this I realized what a cunning plan of the devil this was to make woman feel insecure about themselves. As we obsess over our outward appearance we no longer focus on who we are trying to become. Our spirituality is weakened and and our identity as a daughter of God lost.

Growing up in the LDS church each week the young woman would recite the young woman theme.

Young Women Theme pink flower

WE ARE DAUGHTERS of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. WE WILL “STAND as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:
Faith • Divine Nature • Individual Worth • Knowledge • Choice and Accountability • Good Works • Integrity • and Virtue
WE BELIEVE as we come to accept and act upon these values, WE WILL BE PREPARED to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.
Each Week I was reminded that I am a daughter of God and he loves me more than I know. He wants his beloved daughters to be respected and loved as he loves us. He wants us to remeber our divine potential and remember that we are supposed to be striving to be like him. Not like the photos in the magazines. We are taught that the person we become inside will leave a greater mark on the world than the layers of makeup and expensive clothing we put on. I learned that my faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity and virtue should define me.  
This video talks about what true beauty is. Something that can not be purchased, painted on or surgically created. It is the beauty that comes from our knowledge from how we live our lives and who we choose to become. It is a permanent beauty. One that can not be washed off. The beauty God sees in us.