I admit, I don’t feel very beautiful today. My nose looks like a tomato, and is nearly as tender, my eyes are bloodshot and watery, my voice sounds like I’m talking through a toilet paper roll holder.

I have a cold.

I’m moving slowly. With moans. Through layers of fog and grogginess, with the aid of cold medicine.

I’m even a little crabby.

But my son doesn’t see that. He sees a mom who made him pie for lunch. My husband sees a woman who made it out into below-freezing weather to watch their son play basketball. My daughter sees the mom who let her ask a boy to the upcoming dance.

They think I’m pretty good looking.

But even they don’t matter, because, well, Ps 45:10-12 says:

Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear:
Forget your people and your father’s house.
The king is enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.

See, even in my sluffies of cold and aches (yes, sluffiness is a word. I made it up but it captures how I feel), God thinks I’m pretty. Why? Well, it’s not because of anything I DO (unlike my son and hubby), and it’s not like anything I say (like my daughter). It’s just because He made me. Sort of how we look at our children when their sleeping, their blankets askew, one unclad leg sprawled out in defiance to the cold, drool leaking upon their pillows. We look at these amazing creations and our hearts melt. They are ours.

It’s days when I feel sluffy that I remember that God thinks I’m beautiful just because I belong to Him. When I have nothing to offer Him, I’m still enough for Him to sing over me.

You are beautiful. You are beloved. You are His.
Even when you feel sluffy.

This week we’ll be talking about the beauty of a heroine. And it’s not what you think. It’s so very much more. But today, I want you to stop, and just feel the embrace, hear the song, of God’s love for you, because you’re His.