How many times have you looked at something about your personal appearance that you didn't really care for? How many of you also can stand in front of your mirror, while thinking these negative thoughts, and recall a parent or good friend telling you that true beauty comes from inside you, from your heart. At the time, especially in those awkward formative years, we (yes, even me) couldn't see beyond the mis-figured form we were looking at, so we just couldn't understand what they were talking about.
To be perfectly honest I still struggle with it sometimes today. You see, I have had a weight problem all my life. I was teased and bullied in school (and with a maiden name of Barnes you can just imagine some of the insults I got) , made fun of by my own 350lb. father, and even my mother told me that other than a premature older sister, I was the smallest baby she had, but made up for it by the time I was a year old. (I must say that my mother was the only one who told me things like this in a loving, non insulting way. I believe she was trying to help me in the only way she knew how.)
Thank the Lord for Sunday School teachers who looked beyond my outward appearance and saw through all the layers of fat to the heart of a little girl that just wanted to be loved and to love others back.