We all want beauty.
We want to see it. We want to experience it. We want to be known for it. We want to feel it. We want to taste it. We want to find it. We want to have it. We want to claim it. We want to BE it.
Especially as women we tend to crave and strive after this "beauty" more than most creatures... largely because it would seem that men are striving to have us only IF we possess enough of this.
The heartbeat of our culture IS this journey to "beauty". Wear this brand of jeans, try this makeup style, fix your hair, get abs like this, lose more weight in your thighs, gain more weight in your chest, and I could keep typing for days.
Being a woman, I've seen these advertisements and messages targeted straight at me from everything and everyone my entire life. My heart hurts deeply for other women (and men) in our culture because I know the battle that we fight... It's never ending and it's exhausting. Once we get close to this "standard" of beautiful, the bar goes even higher. If you're a boy, replace beautiful with ripped, manly, strong, attractive, or anything else that culture pressures onto you.
What does this tell us?
If we aren't pursued, it's because we aren't beautiful enough.
The inside SHOULD matter more, but no one really looks at it.
You'll never be good enough.
Keep trying harder.
Keep adding more airbrushed faces and starving bodies to that Pinterest fantasy board.
Change yourself more.
You won't be fully loved, until you're fully beautiful.
I was talking with a good friend of mine I met at the Chicago International Airport a few weeks ago about this topic, and she said something that rocked my world: "Hannah, we're all going to be fat and old and ugly one day anyway... so it's pointless to strive for that kind of beauty in between."
Whoah. That sentence has stuck close to my heart everyday since and I've been reflecting on it's truths.
We allow our worth to become wrapped up in something that's inevitably going to die anyway. We set our energy on trying to change that which will be out of our control eventually. Sounds an awful lot like the book of Ecclesiastes to me.... "Chasing the wind..."
The most beautiful person I've ever known is Jesus. The most beautiful I ever feel is when I'm in His presence... because I don't have to strive, I just have to BE. And in Him, I'm always enough.
The most beautiful people I've ever known are the ones who are chasing God's heart. And the best part? Although your journey to beauty becomes a journey to Jesus; He is the Author of beautiful, so the more beautiful you will naturally become along the way.
One of Satan's greatest victories is the voice and the power that we allow culture to have over our lives. The method of "do this" and "try this" will absolutely leave you emptier every time. No man or woman can ever affirm the beauty you have. Because beauty was designed as a reflection of it's Author, not a destination to be reached.
I'm done fighting for this artificial beauty that is just temporary and unattainable... When people look at me, I want them to see God's beauty, not the superficial kind in me. My life and heart should be a reflection pointing towards HIM and away from me.
My heart breaks for women who put their worth in these impossible worldly standards, and for the men who are showered in expectations that are far from expected. If you're future spouse finds your heart beautiful above your looks, it's guaranteed that the day that you're both fat, old and ugly, they'll still cherish your beauty that's only gotten more beautiful on your journey to Jesus together.
Striving will get us nowhere.
BEING is the solution.
If your number one desire is to be beautiful to this world, your number one prize to show off will be yourself... and it won't last long. But if you desire above all else to seek the only true Beautiful One, His beauty will be leaking out your eyes and your lips and bursting from your heart for the rest of eternity.
Nothing in God's kingdom is done by "trying really hard"... it's always done by "seeking really deep".
Seek HIS beauty, and you'll find the unique beauty He's made you with.
Luke 12:25-28 “Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can’t even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? (The Message)
There is so much I could say about these verses. They changed my life. Wildflowers are a beautiful weed essentially that grow and blossom in brilliance and beauty all by just BEING... They don't reapply makeup every hour or go to the gym twice a day... they simply rest against the breeze. And YOU-- a child of God--in your unique and captivating being, are even more beautiful when you just rest against the heartbeat of His chest.
Let His life-giving beauty fill you to the brim so that you can exhale it back to the others around you.
One of my favorite things to tell my friends is this: "You're the most beautiful at your youiest." Because that's exactly how God intended.
-Han
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