You Are God's Barbie Doll:
A lesson in self esteem for God's woman!
Pastor Cathie Miller
Ordained Womens Minister
In 1959 I was thrilled to be the owner of one of the first Barbie dolls to be distributed. My closest playmate lived across the street from us. Her father was a toy salesman who attended a toy show in New York City, NY that year. While he was attending the doll, destined to be famous, was introduced. He was fortunate enough to obtain two of them. He bought one for Susan and one for me.
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The doll came in a somewhat plain box, especially when you compare it to the Barbie dolls of today. The doll was wearing a black and white swimsuit. Very modest, by today’s standards, I must say! She had a blonde ponytail and her make-up was very unique with highly arched eyebrows. I thought she was beautiful!
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As time went by, they came out with more and more clothes for Barbie. My playmate and I spent hours upon hours dressing her and imagining her going on glamourous excursions. A friend of my family even made my Barbie a custom wardrobe. The Christmas, following the time I had received my Barbie, she gave me a huge shoe box full of Barbie doll clothes. Those clothes were my favorite gifts that Christmas and I played with my Barbie and dressed her in all sorts of glamourous outfits.
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The years of childhood seemed to fly by and before you knew it I was starting to want to fix my hair nice and put on make up. I started to look at magazines and began to compare my looks to those of the beautiful models and movie stars I saw. In my mind I never did look as pretty as my first role model, Barbie, and those girls in Seventeen magazines.
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I have baby fine hair that would never hold a curl. My features aren’t quite as perfect as I thought they should be. I begin to obsess with my nose. It is larger than it should be and no matter how much make-up I put on it never looked as nice as I thought it should. I begin to feel that when anyone looked at me they thought “My goodness, what a big nose she has.” This feeling stayed with me for years. My self esteem was never as good, at that time, as it should have been.
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In 1979 I was facilitating a woman’s bible study in my home. We got on the subject of low self esteem. During prayer request time I asked for the ladies to pray that God would restore my self esteem, I admitted my feeling that I was never pretty. I admitted the fact that I had wished I could get a nose job. To my amazement after the bible study ended several women came up to me and said the following:
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“I don’t know what you are talking about, I have never even noticed your nose before!”
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It was then that I begin to deal with my self esteem issues. While I was praying one day, the Lord brought an image to my mind. I was six years old at the time and my mother and I were at a store shopping. My mother ran into one of her friends from highschool.
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The friend said “Is that your little girl? She sure is pretty!”
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To which my mother replied “She isn’t pretty, but she is such a sweet little girl.”
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Those words had taken root in my spirit and though I had forgotten about it, the Lord wanted me to know that it was then that satan used my mother’s words to plant a seed of low self esteem in my spirit.
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I had to deal with the hurt that remark had caused. I had to forgive my mother and realize that in God’s eyes each one of us is beautiful. God showed me a field of flowers during one of my intimate prayer times with Him. I saw a field of beautiful flowers..all red and all tulips. The scene changed and then I saw another field of flowers. The flowers in this scene were all multicolored there were tulips, irises, roses, lilacs, etc.
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The Lord then spoke to my heart “Which scene did you enjoy the most.” I thought “Well of course, the multicolored one.”
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Then it was as if I heard God say “So, did I!”
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“In my garden I have children of every color and each one is unique. That is what makes them so beautiful to look at!” I thought about that and realized how true it is. It is our uniqueness that makes the world so interesting. How boring it would be if everyone looked alike!
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Now that I am a grandmother I look back upon pictures of myself when I was young and think “Wow, I sure wish I had known at that time, how much I had going for me. I was really pretty!”
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The things I have learned about being beautiful come from scripture. God tells us that we “are the apples of his eye”.
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In Isaiah 64: 8 the bible says “But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father, We are the clay, and thou our potter; And all of us are the work of Thy hand.”
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God made you and me especially for His enjoyment. He made us all unique and He took time in doing so. He worked with the clay and then when He got it just so, we were created, to be a piece of heavenly art. Who are we to question the work of the Master artist?
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Knowing who I am and what I mean to the father has changed my life. I no longer suffer from feelings of not being beautiful. I know that I am a daughter of the King of the Universe and to Him I am a thing of beauty. Whenever I have moments of doubt I remember that and walk into a room, head held high.
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Proverbs 31 V 10- 31 doesn’t talk about the beauty of a Barbie doll, the beauty of a movie star or the beauty of a model. To find out what the Lord considers to be a beautiful woman read it and let the words of that Proverb be who you are; the Proverbs 31 woman.
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A woman who is found beautiful by God, her husband and her children. When all is said and done the old saying “Beauty is within” is still true!
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Make yourself and your life something beautiful in the eyes of your Creator and those who know you! “Charm and grace are deceptive, and beauty is vain (because it is not lasting), but a woman who reverently and worshipfully fears the Lord, she shall be praised” Proverbs 31: 30 Amplified Bible.
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Please check out my website for more encouraging words of hope!
Please check out my website for more encouraging words of hope!
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Please write me with comments or for prayer: Hsbelovedhandmdn@aol.com
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