It's been awhile since I've written, that's for certain. I make the excuse of my collegiate studies; I really don't have that much free time on my hands to post, let alone for anything social at all. But, it has been in this season of challenge that I have grown and learned a lot. It is always so funny how at one point in life, we think we know everything, or that we've grown to our capacity, and then another day we wake up and see so much change in the present and naivety in the past.
Well, I've always been inclined to share whatever has been showering my mind, and lately that's been beauty and love. Oh, sure, it sounds so cliché, and I thought it was also, until I really,
truly, came to terms with it. Frankly, I've been sanctified in a way where I see people as Jesus see's them. Not perfectly, of course, but in a much broader way than I have before.
I am aware that I have previously posted on this subject, and maybe this is all repetitive, but I don't think it is.
It's come to my attention that our perception of beauty is focusing on the wrong front. Sure, we've been told since we were little that beauty lies on the inside, but our attention still lies on the exterior for the most part today. It's interesting to note how this fourth wave of feminism has motivation for a wide acceptance of all shapes and forms of exterior beauty, but that in itself still hones in on the exterior. (Mind you, I'm not saying that that is all there is to the fourth wave of feminism, believe me. But that is where a lot of the media is taking their strength in the subject). And there's the rub.
I'd be a fool to say that there were nothing at all in exterior beauty. I believe that God formed us with a body and soul, interweaved wonderfully, and therefore prizes both. But we tend to take value more and more in the body than in the soul, and that's a major issue.
Alright, alright. So let's think for a second. When someone comes up to you one day, after you've put on a full face of make up and wore that new dress you bought and got your hair did or whatever, and says, "Wow, you look beautiful!" how does that make you feel? Good? Sure. But when someone comes up to you, on a day where there was no time for any of those shenanigans and you haven't showered in a while and you've just not prepared, and they either say nothing at all, or frown and ask if you're tired or sick, then how do you feel? Awful, I'm sure. You could apply this to boys as well, maybe save the makeup and the dresses, and they'd feel the same, I would suppose. And so it goes.
Now you feel like if you want to feel good about yourself that day, you have to try hard, look your best, and receive a good word from others on the way you look. Imagine a day when you cannot help that you look tired, that you have wrinkles, that your body is slowly decaying. You can take a look at some mid-life crisis women these days with plastic faces and wonder again if that's the road you're on. Well, let me tell you, it doesn't have to be.
There needs to be a change and the change starts with us. It only takes a few words, but it's the right words that make these things count.
You could simply say, "Hey, I see a lot of joy in you. It's lovely." Or, "You've been really loving to a lot of people and it really shows. Thank you." Or even, "I can tell you've been working hard and your ambition is really encouraging to me." And, especially, "I see Christ in you. It's magnificent." There's a world of possibilities here. I firmly believe that the amount of compliments on the internal outweigh in capacity and in measure exponentially. They last. And what do you think the reaction will be? They will then be more inclined to pursue joy or show more love or appreciate their own hard work and look and act more like Jesus rather than focus on the zit that just popped up out of nowhere or that their muscle tone is slowly fading away. These things are lasting; Matters of the heart are eternal.
I have been trying to see this more in people, because I know that Jesus looks at the heart, not the body or face. Sure, he appreciates our bodies as God's handiwork, but, as Ecclesiastes tells us, beauty of this kind is vain. He looks to the heart and to the mind, deep into our souls, and finds his image more there than in any of our other aspects.
Look at each other as image bearers of God and see the value in that; see the purpose in that; see the beauty in that. Look at every person this way: the homeless man on the street, the beauty queen, the "weird" kid in your class, the girl or guy you just can't stand, or the girl or guy you have always thought the world of but never let them know. When you see this beauty, I encourage you, tell them! Tell them immediately! Tell them with a heart of love and appreciation. This they will carry with them longer than any compliment of the curves, of the muscles, of the bones ever will.
“No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a Woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she knows.”
Audrey Hepburn
