What Makes You Beautiful
What makes you beautiful, my dear?
What’s in your heart? Why are you here?Is it your eyes, your ears, your nose,
The face that your reflection shows?Or what about your favorite shoes?
Your trendy clothes in many hues?Is beauty based on what you see?
Or who you’re turning out to be?It’s fun to wear your shoes and clothes,
To paint your fingers and your toes,
To play with makeup, do your hair,
To love what’s lovely and to care
About your looks, how you appear—
But these things will not last, my dear.When you grow old with hair turned gray,
Your outer self will fade away.
So beauty’s more than what you see,
For looks will change and youth will flee.
What Makes You Beautiful
Kristen Wetherell
This devotional, written for girls ages 9–12, explores the theme of beauty to help young readers appreciate the beauty of God, and in turn, become more beautiful themselves.
But what about the things you do,
The gifts and work God’s given you?Is beauty found in being great,
In what you’re able to create?It’s good to try to be your best,
To learn and grow, to make a quest
To realize all that lies within
And use the gifts that God’s built in.
But—is beauty based on what you do?
Or what the Lord has done in you?And what about your many friends,
The ones on whom you can depend?
Does beauty come from human love?
Or from the heart of God above?It’s wonderful to be desired,
Appreciated, and admired,
To know you’re valued, loved, and prized
As being “someone” in their eyes.But human love and fleeting praise
Will not compare to endless days
Of God’s rejoicing and his smile.
(All else will only last a while.)What makes you beautiful, my dear,
Is not your eyes, your ears, your nose,
The face that your reflection shows.
It’s not about the things you do,
The gifts and work God’s given you,
The risks you take, the friends you make,
Or beauty for pure beauty’s sake.
It’s not what people say or do—
But what God says is true of you.For God says beauty is the art
Of loving him with all your heart.He says that knowing him means more
Than all the knowledge you could store,
And all the places you could go,
And all the people you could know,
And all the pretty, lovely things
That you could wear, like diamond rings
And trendy clothes with all the frills—
For knowing Christ is better still.What makes you beautiful, my dear,
Is that your God is whom you fear,
The one you follow all your days,
The one you love and trust and praise.For he’s the one who says, “You’re mine,”
Who made you from his good design,
Who knows your thoughts and all your deeds,
Your longings, sins, and all your needs.He knows what makes you really you!
He died and rose to make you new.And when you offer him your heart,
Your God begins his work of art.
He makes your heart his home and throne—
A lovely place to call his own.
This poem is adapted from What Makes You Beautiful: 20 Daily Devotions for Girls by Kristen Wetherell.
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