“Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us.” Ps. 90:17
When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Does the reflection looking back at you, make you feel good? Or do you look at that image negatively, seeing only the flaws? Do you ever think of yourself as beautiful, or would that thought make you laugh?
Well, may I just tell you that there is someone who sees beauty in you. Who looks at you with appreciative eyes. How do I know? Because he says so.
You can find out what He thinks of you by reading His love letter to you. It will tell you: He made everything beautiful in His time.* That includes you.
Really.
When you look at the world around you, you see the beauty of everything He made: the majesty of the blue-green mountains, the sparkling glitter of sunshine on dancing sea, the everchanging colours of the sky from sunrise to sunset. You’ve seen the incredible glory of colour on the wings of butterflies and birds. It’s a beautiful world! The One responsible for creating so much beauty can be nothing but beautiful Himself. And you are made in His image! Think of that! 
Sadly, that image has become marred, hasn’t it? But it can be restored to you. That’s good news!
When you come to Him and take His gift of forgiveness, He covers you with His goodness, giving you His beauty.
How does He define beauty?
He considers a gentle spirit to be beautiful.* Maybe you don’t have a particularly gentle spirit. As you spend time with Him, He begins to change you.
He transforms an attitude of pride and a critical spirit into humility; humility does does not mean having a low, demeaning view of yourself, it is appreciating yourself as His beloved child, and appreciating the value of others, too.*
What else does He see in you that is beautiful? The more you read His word, the more it renovates your mind until – you have the mind of Jesus.* Which means you think like Him, think about things that are good and lovely.* Your mind becomes beautiful.
And as you reach out and share His love with those you meet, He says you have beautiful feet.*
He created you beautiful. But living for yourself, closing your life off to Him, being determined to run your
own life and do your own will, causes that beauty to begin to fade and decay, in spite of all your attempts to
keep it, on the surface. And deep inside, we all know this.
But when He looks at us in our lost state, away from Him, He longs to recreate the beauty He intended we should have.
He wants to give you beauty for ashes.*
*Eccl. 3:11 *1 Pet.3:4 *Phil. 2:3 *1 Cor. 2:16 *Phil. 4:8 *Isa. 52:7 *Isa. 61:3
light touches 
