To the girl at the crossroads: I know where you are; I’ve been there.
Your lips are smiling, but on the inside, your confidence shrivels like a parched flower. While the other girls revel in the attention of boys, you stand there tugging on a strand of hair, knowing that if your skirt were shorter, or your top tighter, or your sometimes-imperfect skin masked with cosmetics, you’d get noticed, too. And the more you think about it, the more you’re sure: you have all the appeal of a Brussels sprout.
Sure, there are bigger problems in the world than whether or not you’ll ever have a boyfriend. You know that. You know children are starving and being abused, people are homeless and dying . . . But those horrible realities don’t ease the ache through which you force your plastic smile — the ache of feeling unattractive. Invisible. Plain.
You are at a crossroads.
You can’t see it, but you can feel it: the tug-of-war battling for your loyalties, the pull toward glamour and allure — and then the call back toward the only kingdom that really matters.
At the crossroads, you must make a decision.
You can surrender yourself to what marks you as different — this consecration that separates you unto God — or you can “join the 21st century” as they say; you can be like the rest of them and finally earn their admiration.
But before you scrap your integrity for a glossier image, consider first the benefits of the path less traveled: In a spirit of obedience, enhanced by clothing that respects your fearfully and wonderfully made body, your beauty stands out to God like a diamond in a dump yard. And the same peers who don’t understand your chaste wardrobe choices also don’t understand what you must understand — that in the presence of the holy, one must cover up.
You are not just another girl living for the next weekend. You have been called out from this world by the One who created it. You have been chosen to represent the kingdom of God on this temporary, deteriorating earth so that more souls may be drawn to spend eternity with Him in the forever world to come.
It bears repeating: You are not just another girl.
You can give in to the fickle demands of a flaky, superficial culture and make it your goal to blend in with everyone else. Or you can be about something so much bigger than that: You can be an Esther. You can be a Ruth. You can be a Mary, a Dorcas, a Jael, a Deborah, a Lois. You can be stronger and braver and wiser. You can have a confidence that comes not from others’ approval of your clothes and body and face, but from knowing the value you have in Christ.
Before you make your choice, picture this: a young woman confidently natural, modestly classy, and powerfully separated unto God.
That’s you.
Remember that as you face life’s decisions, when you’re standing at the crossroads: you’re not ugly. You’re not plain. You’re not boring or awkward or invisible. You’re a daughter of God, and you’re downright beautiful.