Hi Lovely Ones,

I'd love to share my story with you of how I stepped into womanhood. It's still an ongoing story about a life-long, intriguing process where God introduces me to myself. It's a collection of moments where I am confronted with the reality that I am distinctly different yet beautiful and significant in my Father's eyes.

There are many aspects, many layers to womanhood, so my goal with this letter isn't to define womanhood or femininity, but rather to share my experience as a woman with you.

Growing up, I was surrounded by strong woman, who owned their femininity to the best of their ability. Each of them were mighty yet tender. They walked in wisdom and integrity and as a result of that inspired me to aim to become a woman of substance. In a culture that predominately celebrates women's physical appearance and sexuality, these women inspired me to look beyond my body and try to find beauty in my mind, soul, and spirit through the eyes of Jesus.

Now before I move on, I'd like to say that I personally don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating physical beauty and embracing our sexuality as women. In the contrary, it is empowering and God delights in it. What I actually needed to understand, as a young girl, is that my physical beauty only represented a facet of who I am. It never was supposed to define me nor should it have as much power as it had over me.

I didn't always use to believe I had an "inherently beautiful body." Once I became a teenager, I had a really hard time accepting that my body was evolving. I didn't understand what my body was going through and I mistakenly punished myself for gaining weight and started to look different. The problem was that I had unrealistic expectations about what it would look like when I'd go through puberty. 10-year-old-me used to see the women in movies and music videos and assume that I'd magically look like them as I grew older. The problem was that I had no idea about the price the majority of these women needed to pay to maintain such beautifully toned figures. Nor had I any idea about the amount of photoshopping that took place. I expected my body to naturally develop what needed to be worked for and in some cases, would need some editing. I misdiagnosed my body and, therefore, mistreated it. I gave culture permission to define beauty for me and let it tell me that beauty could only be found in one body type. I believed that if I couldn't measure up to those standards, I therefore, wasn't enough. That's when beauty became really one dimensional to me. It lost all its life and vibrant nature. Inception took place. Culture planted an idea in my head that I started to water and nurture... not knowing the effect it would have on me.

A few months ago, the presence of God fell really strongly in the room and as that happened I felt the urge to lay on the floor. A man came to minister to me and whispered in my ear that God called me beautiful. I started weeping and my under lip started quivering. When I asked the Holy Spirit why that was happening, He took me back to a prayer I'd been praying: "Lord, I give you permission to shake what needs to be shaken." So He did. He started shaking belief systems inside of me that I'd been creating for years. He started challenging lies I'd been holding onto for so long. He showed me that it was ignorant to believe that beauty is only found within the physical. It robbed me from the opportunity to look at myself in a healthy way and discover me through the lens of God. The truth is, after having an encounter with the Creator, I no longer want to be entitled to my opinion anymore. Especially when it doesn't align with His. He makes me feel like a natural women and He is the one that silences the war within my head. It wasn't until I gave God permission to redefine beauty for me that He gave me His definition of beauty.

I've never felt more in line and more feminine than I do now. He has the last say over my femininity. Beauty is found in all layers of our human existence. This revelation changed everything for me. All of the sudden beauty became about more than just a pretty face. It became about representing a facet of who God is on this earth. He taught me that I couldn't afford to have a thought in my head about womanhood that didn't originate from His mind since there is too much at stake.

God is calling women to rise up. Those who will let Him define beauty for them so they can start to thrive, change culture, and do His works on the face of the earth. We've been distracted long enough. We've been trying to strive for the very thing that we inherently are! I'm no longer okay with the enemy trying to distract and fool me.

God started to unpack all these beautiful gifts that He gave women such as, the ability to carry and nurture life, compassion, intuition, tenderness, elegance, and so forth. And in all those qualities there's beauty interwoven. His plan for us is to take back our rightful place as matriarchs alongside the patriarchs in society. We need to stop disqualifying ourselves for what God has qualified us, starting now!

My prayer for you is that God reveals you're inherently beautiful because you're His and that you'd start walking in noble character and live courageously. I bless you to start living in the same freedom I've found through Jesus.

Much Love,

Hasse

You can follow Hasse on Instagram: @hasse_louage_