Jenna Lucado Bishop - Redefining Beautiful: What God Sees When God Sees You

Redefining

{beau.ti.ful}

Redefining

{beau.ti.ful}

[adj.]what God sees when God sees you

Jenna Lucado

WITH MAX LUCADO

2009 by Jenna Lucado and Max Lucado

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Cover design by Greg Jackson
Page design by Mandi Cofer
Back cover photo by Karen James: www.karenjames.com

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

This story is based, in part, on true events, but certain liberties have been taken with names, places, and dates, and the characters names have been changed in this story to protect their identification. Therefore, the persons and characters portrayed bear absolutely no resemblance whatever to the persons who were actually involved in the true events described in this book.

Unlessotherwise noted, all Scripture verses taken from HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NCV) are from New Century Version. 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are from The Living Bible. 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (AMPLIFIED BIBLE) are from THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE: OLD TESTAMENT. 1962, 1964 by Zondervan (used by permission); and from THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE: NEW TESTAMENT. 1958 by the Lockman Foundation (used by permission). Scripture quotations marked (MSG) are from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (PHILLIPS) are from J. B. Phillips: THE NEW TESTAMENT IN MODERN ENGLISH, Revised Edition. J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are from Holy Bible, New Living Translation. 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are from THE NEW KING JAMES VERSION. 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lucado, Jenna.
Redefining beautiful : what God sees when God sees you / Jenna Lucado with Max Lucado.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4003-1428-7 (softcover)
1. Teenage girls--Religious life. 2. Christian teenagersReligious life. 3. Self-esteem in adolescenceReligious aspectsChristianity.
I. Lucado, Max. II. Title.
BV4531.3.L79 2009
248.833dc22

2009021703

Printed in the United States of America

09 10 11 12 13 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

I know how to dream because you said, I believe in you.I know how to stand because you said, Im proud of you.I know how to love because you said, I love you.And I know who I am because you said, You are mine.

To my daddy on earth and to my Daddy in heavenI knewhow to write this book because of you. This book is for you.

{ contents }

chapter eight Mercedes? $40,000. Mansion?
$3 Million. You? Priceless!

S ome days I like him. Most days I hate him. But I do have to admit, hes honest. Hell always tell me if I have food in my teeth or a booger in my nose. He isnt afraid to let me know if a certain shirt is too tight or if a color doesnt complement my skin. I appreciate the honesty, but he is deceiving all the same. Deceiving because anytime he tells me, Just get this cute shirt and feel better about yourself or Just lose five pounds and be forever happy, it doesnt work. Im never good enough for him.

I try not to hang out with him too much, or else I can easily fall into his trap of discouragementJenna, I see that cellulite back there. Your skin is looking pretty oily these days. Those teeth need some whitening! I try to block out his lies that tell me Im not good enough, that Im not beautiful, but its hard.

Im sure youve met him. He tends to pop up in all sorts of places: bathrooms, cars, department stores, gyms. And Im sure youve felt some of these same insecurities when standing in front of him.

His name?

Mirror.

Unfortunately, the mirror rarely tells me how beautiful I am. He never notices when Ive helped my mom clean the kitchen or when I avoid the gossip at the lunch table. Even when Im having a great hair day, he just notices the pimple on my chin. Because of him, sometimes I wonder if the word beautiful could ever describe me.

Beautiful:adj. 1. Having attractive qualities that give great delightor satisfaction to see, hear, think about, etc. 2. excellent of itskind. 3. particularly graceful, lovely, or pretty....

Okay, so that may be the dictionary definition of beautiful, but lets get real. Mirror, along with his other sidekicks like TV and Magazine, seem to determine what is beautiful and what is not. We have let boys tell us whether or not we are beautiful, and sometimes we even let the popular group of girls at school define what beauty is.

Because of all of the thousands of definitions people have for beauty, we can easily get confused and struggle to see ourselves as beautiful. But the truth is, Mirror got it all wrong! He never uses the most important definition, the one that clearly states what beautiful really is:

Beautiful:what God sees when God sees you.

What does beautiful mean to you? Think of someone in your lifewhom you consider beautiful. Why is he or she beautiful to you?

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Okay, girl, were going to talk about all the big stuffour looks, our clothes, and our friends. Well share some secrets; well get real about our lives, dreams, parents, and God; and you know were going to talk about guys!

Most importantly, were going to talk about what beautiful really means, kick Mirror to the curb, and find out how really being beautiful will make your life twenty thousand times better.

Jenna

chapter one
{ weird is beautiful }

I m weird.

I really am.

If In Style magazine were to peg my look, Im sure they would call it something like Creative Casual or Eclectic Elegance (although In Style would never feature me, because there is not much in to my style).

What is your style? Is it Disheveled Divawaking up at the last moment, tossing on whatever fell out of the closet, throwing on a favorite pair of earrings, rushing out the door to get to school, glossing up those lips in the car, and running to first period with wild bed-head hair? Or maybe you are a Sporty Starletheading to class in the latest Nikes and a zip-up hoodie that matches the swoosh on your shoes, and modeling a permanent ponytail hair crease. Or are you trendy, artsy, earthy, classy, or just not interested? We all have a look. Whats mine? Well... its weird.