5 Ways A Husband Can Help His Wife Feel Beautiful

I began the series on beauty by sharing the story of a husband’s concern for his wife who seemed uncomfortable when he watched her undress. I’ve spent the last several posts sharing my story about embracing my beauty in order to help other women. Realizing how my past shaped my self-image, that baggage created insecurities, that I am God’s unique and beautiful creation, and that practical choices  made a difference, helped me embrace my beauty. Though a husband cannot convince his wife that she is beautiful, he can help his wife believe he thinks she is beautiful.

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Living Out Feeling Beautiful

After years of going to church and striving to do good, finally understanding God’s love instantly transformed my life. I started acting different, dressing different, worshiping with abandon and opening myself up to my husband and to others. But like anything in life, real lasting transformation is a journey. Insecurities continue to creep back in. I have moments where I feel bold and confident sharing my body with my husband and at other times I struggle to believe that he really loves me. So I thought I would share some specific choices that help me to live out feeling beautiful.

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Feeling Beautiful – God’s Amazing Transformation

My Transformation

In 2011, my life changed when I took a study on Song of Songs. Each week our assignment included reading Song of Songs out loud to ourselves and imagining that the Lover was really God speaking to us.  Over and over I read passages like,

How beautiful you are, my darling!
    Oh, how beautiful!
    Your eyes are doves.

And I would just cringe. Because I never ever considered that I was beautiful. I grew up climbing trees and playing baseball. The last thing that I was, was beautiful.

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Baggage Impacts Feeling Beautiful

Past sexual baggage impacts how we feel about ourselves. Whether your were rarely asked out on a date, or felt like all boys were interested in, was your body. Maybe we used our body to feel important and turn a boys eyes, or maybe we have experienced rejection and now hide to protect ourselves. Most of us have some kind of sexual baggage that has changed how we feel about our body. An important step in feeling beautiful is to recognize and heal from past sexual baggage.

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Our Past Shapes Whether We Feel Beautiful

I’ve never really written about feeling beautiful and yet it is a huge part of my testimony. In many ways, learning to feel beautiful was the first step to finding freedom. Not just freedom in my marriage bed, but in all of life. One thing I have recognized is how much my past  impacted how I felt about myself.

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The Importance of Feeling Beautiful

During the Men’s Edition of Awaken-Love, while discussing the challenges wives face with body image issues and feeling beautiful, one of the husbands tentatively posed a question.

“So, every time my wife gets undressed, I can’t stop looking at her boobs.”

After letting the confirming chuckles from the rest of the men pass, he continued,

“But my wife seems really uncomfortable with it and I don’t know what to do.”

I had to stop and remind the husbands in the room, “Your eyes are not a bad thing. God designed you with eyes that go, “wow!” when they see your wife. They are God’s good creation to affirm your wife’s beauty. But that is not always easy.”

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Finding Miss America

Marie is guest posting today from the mission field. For years has quietly spoken truth to women about sexuality, one woman at a time. This year she discovered Awaken-Love and is facilitating video classes to other missionaries.

I was on my way to another house visit in Asia. Temperatures were sweltering over 120 degrees and no one had air conditioning. I was soaked with sweat down to my underclothes, with my hair flat, wet and clinging to my face. Then I heard a desperate cry: “Miss America, wait”.  Images of Miss America in her tiara and evening gown began to flood my mind, and they just did not mesh with the hot, dusty, dirty streets surrounding me. “Miss America, please don’t go.” I turned around, and a lady who must have been following me began running toward me, crying.

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