Dare to be beautiful

I wasn't able to listen to conference a few weeks ago but I've been seeing some amazing blog postings highlighting my girlfriends favorite parts of it. I wanted to pass this along to you girls from a friend of mine named Holly and dare each of us to let our natural beauty out.


Elder Holland said: “I am troubled by the practice of extreme makeovers. Happiness comes from accepting the bodies we have been given as divine gifts and enhancing our natural attributes, not from remaking our bodies after the image of the world. The Lord wants us to be made over, but in His image, not in the image of the world- by receiving His image in our countanences. "
“People are like stained glass windows. They glow and sparkle when it is sunny. But when the sun goes down, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

and I absolutely LOVE this story:
One day at school as I ate lunch and studied for my next class, I noticed a group sitting near me, talking and laughing. One young woman particularly caught my attention. She was tall, with beautiful black hair, dark skin, and high cheekbones. Her appearance was as unlike my pale, freckled face and red hair as anything I could imagine. She was one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen. After a few minutes, the group rose to leave. But the young woman I had been watching stopped. I was somewhat embarrassed; I thought she must have seen me staring at them. Then something extraordinary happened. “I’m sorry to disturb you.” She said,“ but I wanted to tell you how beautiful I think you are.” After a shocked pause, I started to laugh. “ I was thinking the same thing about you!” After she left, I continued to think about what had happened. We found our differences beautiful. At that moment I realized there is no single standard of beauty. I have since thought about how our Heavenly Father sees us. I think we must be beautiful to Him, because we are all his children. And that divine birthright is much more important than any physical beauty. Heavenly Father doesn’t care about the beauty of our hair or skin- but he does care about our hearts. When we strive to experience a “might change in our hearts” then we can be blessed to receive “his image in our countenance. This inner radiance makes us truly beautiful.