'To God, you are the most beautiful thing that exists'

BY DANIELA WILBERT

I was discovered by a modeling agent when I was 14 and went to São Paulo to do some sample modeling tests. (São Paulo is a vibrant place, where everything happens, like New York City.) Soon, I was selected to be represented by a big agency in São Paulo, so I moved there. And then I started to get a lot of jobs with magazines, catalogs, and also to walk the runway.

While I was there, I wasn't going to school. Instead, I lived in an apartment building with other girls of the same age, and there was a guardian there from the agency who took care of us. And I went back and forth to visit my family.

Although I liked modeling, after a little while I felt anxious and unhappy because I missed my family. I felt very lonely in a huge city of 21 million people, where I didn't know anyone. Then, I began to gain weight, and this made me lose some modeling jobs.

In Brazil, the standard for models is very, very thin. As a model, there is a constant "fight" with the scale and the tape measure. And you are expected to be a certain size—for example, a girl who is 5 feet 7 inches is supposed to be 110 pounds. It's easy to feel very pressured because you're measured all the time. In order to keep your career going, your diet cannot really be much besides salads, fruits, and chicken.

So the fact that I was gaining weight made me sad. I turned to God and prayed a lot. I was raised in Christian Science, and I always went to Sunday School. I knew that it wasn't right to feel lonely, because God is our Father-Mother and He was there with me.

At the age of 16, I finally decided to go back home and take the opportunity to finish my high school studies. Even while I was at home, I still wanted very much to be a model, but I prayed to see if it was God's plan for me to go back to São Paulo someday. If it was, I thought, He would open the way.

Something in Science and Health came to my attention. It was actually a phrase that Jesus says in the Bible. Part of it was, "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him" (p. 1; see Matt. 6:8).

I also liked this line from Science and Health: ". . . God pours the riches of His love into the understanding and affections, giving us strength according to our day" (p. 5). I thought a lot about how I was not ever separate from God's love and that every day He gave me the strength to go forward. Because I was made in the image and likeness of God (see Gen. 1:26), I reflected divine beauty. It's a spiritual beauty that transcends the body.

At the age of 19, I did feel more mature, and ready to go back to modeling. My prayers had shown me discipline and had given me control over anxiety. I was able to go back and give modeling in São Paulo another try.

But once I got back to São Paulo, my eating habits weren't always so healthy. To fit in with the standards, I couldn't eat very much or go to the gym. Sometimes I felt weak. It turned out to be harder than before to maintain the size and shape that was required. I wasn't 14 anymore! As a model, it's very nice to see yourself on the cover of magazines, and it can be easy money. For some time, these things had kept me going, but now they weren't enough to keep me happy.

Again, I prayed to God asking which path I should follow. A Bible verse, Jesus' counsel, was very helpful to me: "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" (Matt. 6:25).

I continued to pray and soon made the decision to return home to my family. I came to realize that I could be happy in another profession. But I was grateful for the modeling experience. I'd learned the importance of looking beyond appearances for fulfillment—beyond external and physical beauty to find the true beauty within. Everybody express their natural beauty just by reflecting Godlike qualities like goodness, intelligence, and joy.

I'm in my mid-20s now. Up until 2006, I worked locally, as a catalog model. The people who were in charge of these local jobs didn't ask me to be a certain size. I'm now studying business administration in college, and I know that God has a path prepared for me, filled with blessings and achievements.

I'm sure that if we trust divine Love, we'll never feel lost, because He's always meeting our needs at every moment, giving us many blessings. We don't need to follow a certain standard put forward by the media. We just need to be ourselves, content with our natural beauty. And to reflect divine perfection. Because, to God, you are the most beautiful thing that exists.

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Translated from Portuguese.

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