B is for Beautiful. You are Beautiful.

This post is written specifically for my little sister. As the oldest girl in my family,  my goal as my sister grows up is to be the older sister to her that I wish I had growing up, the one who was supposed to tell me all of these things.

However, the things that I will be writing about in this installment can apply to everyone- even boys!

A few years ago I took a family finance class here at Utah State. While in the class one of our assignments was to figure out our net worth. For those of you who don’t know how to find your net worth, in simple terms, you take everything you own and add up how much that is worth, then subtract all the debts you have and wham! That’s how much money you are worth.

As a poor college student, sitting down to do the assignment proved to be discouraging and upsetting. The most expensive thing that I owned was my camera, and possibly my laptop. I had a $200 championship water polo ring, but other than that, I didn’t have anything of value. Those few hundred dollars didn’t even begin to make a dent in the student loans I was currently racking up. Suddenly, I was worth nothing.  As a woman, I had grown up with media shoving their idea of a worth while woman in my face constantly, and according to my net worth, I didn’t measure up.

This assignment made me start to think about the idea of self-worth and body image. Why is it we tell the girls who have the expensive haircuts and designer jeans that they are the important ones? That they are the ones who have the most worth? How is this supposed to make the girl sitting in the corner in with the supercuts haircut and $10 walmart jeans? Is she not important? Does she not matter? Is she not beautiful as well?

Sydney, (and all of the rest of you reading this) YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

As a daughter of God, a princess of the most royal king, created in His image, there is no way that you can not be beautiful. President Utchdorf has given numerous talks on this subject. One of his most famous, the one about the Forget-Me-Not, although aimed at Relief Society sisters, has important applications for every woman (and man, of course) no matter their age. Heavenly Father loves you. He is always aware of you, of your hopes and desires, of your sorrows and trials. He does not look to earthly things to determine your worth, but rather, He looks inside of you.

Recently, President Utchdorf gave another talk, this time in the General women’s session of the October 2014 conference. While his talk was focused on living the gospel joyfully, he did say this- “Do you suppose it matters to our Heavenly Father whether your makeup, clothes, hair, and nails are perfect? Do you think your value to Him changes based on how many followers you have on Instagram or Pinterest? Do you think He wants you to worry or get depressed if some un-friend or un-follow you on Facebook or Twitter? Do you think outward attractiveness, your dress size, or popularity make the slightest difference in your worth to the One who created the universe?” None of that matters to Him. It doesn't matter if you carry hundred dollar purses, or if you wear sweatpants all day. 

Because you are a child of the most high God, you are infinitely precious in His sight.

And, you are beautiful.  Don’t any of you ever forget that.