NAS: Beauty

What does authentic beauty mean to you and how can you be better at believing/accepting that you are, in fact, beautiful?

I almost didn't answer the prompt this week.  Beauty, so cliche, so elusive, so big.  But who am I if not a chronic blogger linker. 

Authentic beauty means knowing you are beautiful when you climb out of bed and still look comfy cozy in your pajamas (you have to look past the morning breath obviously).

Authentic beauty means being before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in complete adoration, littleness, and awe.

Source: Franciscan Sisters, TOR of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother Facebook 

Authentic beauty means the joy of doing a hobby you love--creating a masterpiece on the stove, achieving a great run or the wonder of a hike.

Authentic beauty means laughing with a child. 

Authentic beauty is loving an elderly woman who is sick and suffering.

Authentic beauty is walking down the beach with sand between your toes side by side with your best friends.

Authentic beauty is knowing you are beautiful because of the Lord's love for you.

Create this beauty in your home, in your life, in your soul.  Surround yourself with people who know beauty isn't skin deep.  Invite people into your life who don't need a magazine, guy, TV show, or model agency tell them they are beautiful.  Authentic beauty-deep, know down in your soul beauty-makes a guy want to be a man.  It is powerful and it is needed in our world today. Accept you are beautiful first because you are  loved by the Savior but also because our society needs women who know they are beautiful.    

Be beautiful.