By Kris Reece – Author of Build a Beautiful Life Out of Broken Pieces

Hair color change this week, nails next week, maybe a plastic surgery next month….these are just a few of the everyday ways in which we try to change our outward appearance. I have yet to encounter a woman who was completely satisfied with how she looked.

These all deal with external appearance—how about on the inside? Here too, many women are constantly striving to be something that they are not.

Are you one of them? Do you wish you were smarter, wittier, or more captivating somehow? Do you look at others and crave who and how they are?

This not-good-enough disease plagues too many women, to the point where they are completely missing out on all that God has for them.

I am reminded of what the Psalmist David wrote in Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

Yes, God created us, but there’s much more. He knit us together. Knitting is a very detailed, intricate process that requires a lot of patience and desire.

My mother used to knit when I was a little girl. I would watch her sit in her chair for hours seeing this tiny piece of yarn turn into an entire blanket or outfit for a newborn. It amazed me—so much so that I asked for her to show me how.

Well, it didn’t take long before I lost all patience and desire. Not my cup of tea, I thought and that was the end of it.

Thank God our Heavenly Father doesn’t give up on the process of “knitting” us together. He takes the time and attention to every detail needed for every aspect of our inner and outer being.

So the next time you are unhappy with who you are, or striving to be something you’re not, remember these three things:

• God doesn’t make mistakes and God doesn’t make ugly. He made you just the way He did for a purpose. There are no mistakes. There is nothing wrong with you.
• The enemy wants nothing more than for you to think that you need to fix all the things that God created. His tactic is to keep you depressed and constantly striving for the unattainable, like a hamster in a wheel.
• If you break free from the demands this world puts on you, and say yes to all that God has for you, a sense of peace and freedom will overtake you.

Fellow princess, I pray that you come to embrace the beauty both inside and out that God has imparted to you. Be who He created you to be and watch His light radiate in all you do.