Prayers for identity and self-worth
Struggling with how I look
For when you can't see yourself the way God sees you.
Also for body image · hate how i look · ugly · weight · appearance · insecure about my body · mirror · not attractive · comparing my looks · self conscious · eating struggles · beauty standards
But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for I don’t see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.”
For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.
Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing; but in the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman who fears Yahweh, she shall be praised.
God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
A prayer
Original writing, not a quotation of Scripture.
Lord, I spend so much time looking at myself and so little of it with kindness. I pick apart my face, my body, the way my clothes fit, and I measure it all against pictures that were never real to begin with. You made me on purpose.
You look at my heart first. Teach me to treat this body as a gift to care for, and help me stop punishing it. If this struggle has gone deeper than I can manage alone, give me the courage to tell someone.
In Jesus' name, Amen.