"May I Plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: "You can't live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people's opinions make you self conscious you give away your power... The key to feeling confident is to always listen to your inner self- the real you. And in the Kingdom of God the real you is more precious than rubies. (proverbs 3:15)
Every Young Women is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women. And if you are obsessing over being a size 2, you won't be very surprised when your daughter or the mia maid in your class does the same and makes herself physically ill trying to accomplish it. We should all be as fit as we can be- that's good Word of Wisdom doctrine. That means eating right and exercising and helping our bodies function at their optimum strength. We could probably all do better in that regard. But I speak here of optimum health; there is no universal optimum size.
Frankly, the world has been brutal with you in this regard. You are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is "If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular." That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood. In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard. In terms of preoccupation with self and fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity, it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance- tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled- those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children. At some point the problem becomes what the Book of Mormon calls "Vain Imaginations" (1 Nephi 12:18) And in secular society both vanity and imagination run wild. One would truely need a great and spacious makeup kit to compete with beauty as portrayed in media all around us. Yet at the end of the day there would still be those "in the attitude of mocking and pointing fingers" as lehi saw. Because however much one tries in the world of glamour and fashion, it will never be glamorous enough.
For you to fully claim Heavenly Father's blessings and protection, we ask you to stay true to the standards of the gospel of Jesus Christ and not slavishly follow the whims of fads and fashions. I want you to be proud you are a woman. I want you to feel the reality of what that means, to know who you truly are. You are literally a spirit daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and an eternal destiny. That surpassing truth should be fixed deep in your soul and be fundamental to every decision you make as you grow into mature womanhood. There could never be a greater authentication of your dignity, your worth, your privileges, and your promise. Your Father in Heaven knows your name and knows your circumstances. He hears your prayers. He knows your hopes and dreams, including your fears and frustrations, And he knows what you can become through FAITH in him.
BE A WOMAN OF CHRIST. Cherish your esteemed place in the sight of god. He needs you. This church needs you. The world needs you. A woman's abiding trust in God and unfailing devotion to things of the spirit have always been an anchor when the wind and the waves of life were fiercest.
"To Mothers and Daughters" By Jeffery R. Holland was originally published as "To Young Women" in Ensign, November 2005
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