Very Good

Hey there beautiful. If you read my 3-part blog intro, this post is expanding on one of the ideas I shared there:  our intrinsic beauty as women.

Intrinsic Beauty
As I explained before, we all as women are intrinsically beautiful. That means we are naturally beautiful; it is part of our essence, or who we are to the core, as women. So by default you are beautiful. But why? Because you were divinely created by God.

Creation 101
Notice, in Genesis 1 that everything God makes, He calls it "good". Here's a brief rundown...

~Light - Genesis 1:4
~Separation of Waters/seas and Land - Genesis 1:10
~Vegetation - Genesis 1:12
~Sun, Moon, and Stars - Genesis 1:19
~Fish and Birds - Genesis 1:21
~Land animals/livestock - Genesis 1:25

Therefore, just to simply be made by God qualifies you as "good".

Image-bearers
But look specifically at how God goes about creating mankind. He drops the "Let there be..." pattern and says, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26). Suddenly, this gets very personal. God is not just calling humans into existence like everything else He created. Instead, they (the Trinity - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) create mankind in their own image. Wow. Just wow. Take a minute to try and wrap your brain around that. The God of the universe made you in His image. You are a reflection or image-bearer of God. That means you have character traits of God in you.

If we continue reading, it says, "So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27). (Side note for later:  notice that it specifies He created males and females - this points to the fact that men and women while both being image-bearers of God, reflect different aspects of His nature and character.) 

Very Good
The story continues, and God blesses the humans (Genesis 1:28) which He did not do with any other aspect or species of His creation. Clearly, there is something unique in being human, something divine. Psst...here's a hint...it's our image-bearership, so to speak. God then sets up mankind with all the animals to rule over and plants to eat. Then once He was finished onboarding Adam and Eve, "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31a). We, humans, took something "good" to a whole new level - "very good". You could say, we were the finishing touch. "For we are God's masterpiece..." (Ephesians 2:10).

Creation 201
Now that we see us as "good" and "very good", let's take it a step further. Genesis 2 is basically a magnified look at the creation, specifically at the creation of mankind. It is a much more personal account and describes in detail how God made man and woman. In Genesis 2:7 Adam is created from the dust of the ground when God breathes the breath of life into him, but He does not create Eve in this same way. Adam is alone in this world as the only human, to which God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18). He then goes about having Adam tend to the animals, naming each of them and hoping to find him a partner. Unfortunately, none were suitable. 

Back to the Beauty
So then with all sorts of artistic mystery and infinite wisdom, God causes Adam to fall asleep, takes a rib from him, and uses the rib to make the first woman (Genesis 2:21-22). When God presents the woman to the man, Adam (I'm sure jumping up and down, shaking his head wildly "yes", and with an abundance of enthusiasm) said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman', for she was taken out of man" (Genesis 2:23). Finally, God had created the perfect companion for Adam, his wife Eve. She was just like him in the sense that she too was divinely created in God's own image, yet she was the exact opposite of him in all the ways he needed for doing life together. The original word used to describe this role translates to "helpermate". (More on this in an upcoming post!)

Cherry on Top
So if mankind is the finishing touch to creation, you could say the whipped cream to a sundae, then women are the cherry on top. We were the absolute last piece to the puzzle, and we filled the hole by fitting perfectly into God's design. We were the series finale to your all-time favorite tv show that wrapped up all the lose-ends and answered all your questions. We were created beautifully by a beautiful Creator and were meant for beautiful things.