You look beautiful

There comes a time in every girls life where she must part with her old prom dresses. Years pass and the opportunity to ever again wear one of those sequent embodied gowns becomes increasingly unlikely. At some point valuable closet space trumps nostalgia.
As freeing a moment as it is to unload of heavy taffeta and satin, it is, at the same time, bittersweet. Woven into every bead and intricate detail is a memory. The songs danced to at prom...The comical and clumsy ordeal of pinning the boutonniere....The heels that were too tall and too painful but too perfect to be denied...The thought that passed through my mind when I looked at myself in the mirror, all dolled up and ready for the big night, "I look...beautiful."
Each dress brought about sweet remembrances. It was a blissful walk down memory lane. But the journey had to come to an end. The garment bags, filled with formal gowns and cherished memories, made their way to consignment store racks and into the lives of other giddy teenage girls eager to make prom memories of her own.
I hope she looks in the mirror and thinks she looks beautiful, too. Because isn't that what every girl wants, to look beautiful on prom night? Isn't that what every girl wants long past the days of formal wear and corsages? To be lovely and stunning, an image of timeless beauty?
Prom night can give that to a girl. She can experience the elegance and grace of a fancy dress and perfectly pinned up-do. But someday the days of dolling up for a dance will be behind her and she, too, will have to part with her dresses. Will she still see her beauty?
The true beauty that lasts past high school dances and outlives dress styles and wilted flowers is the beauty of a woman's inner spirit that is gentle, quiet, loving and, above all else, God-honoring. The beauty of a woman after God's heart is a beauty that never fades and doesn't take up an inch of closet space.
I've parted with my dresses and to date, I still don't have any good reason to wear anything with a sequent attached. But I'm still beautiful. I am still a daughter of the King, filled with the Holy Spirit and love of Jesus Christ. I don't need a fancy gown and the perfectly matched set of heels to reveal what dwells inside my heart because I am adored and admired by God. And when He looks into my heart He smiles and says, "You look beautiful..."