A little over a week ago my blog friend Sarah Markley asked her readers to write what beauty meant to them.
I'm going to propose a project for you all: Write a blog post about beauty. Your thoughts, your pain, your triumphs. It can be outer beauty, inner beauty, what you hate, what you love. Anything. Be creative. It can even be a single photo.
So here goes.
When I think of the word beauty, I think of people I love, people I admire. Beauty to me isn't about outer beauty, beauty is about the inside. The world views beauty as what's on the outside, what size you are, if you're make-up is on right, what you wear, etc. But they've got it all wrong. I think the outside is defined more by the word pretty but not beauty. Beauty is the whole package, both inside and out.
Beauty shines forth from someone by how they treat you, how they treat others, what they say.
Beauty is something that flows from the abundance of your heart. From the overflow of His spirit inside of you.
1 Peter 3:3-4
"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."
Our culture has made beauty out to be something so vain, something that is to be attained by starving yourself to look like the models, by getting plastic surgery to "fix" your percieved flaws. The enemy has manipulated us to think that if we don't look a certain way then we are ugly, rejected, not beautiful.
But that is nothing more than a lie. We were created from His image. He created us in the womb, decided every feature we would have, designed us perfectly for His pleasure. He made us beautiful both inside and out. He made you special, He made you unique, He chose every feature about you, He places gifts and talents inside of you. None of us were created as an accident, You were created with purpose.
Women around the world have been lied to, have been made to hate their bodies, hate what they see in the mirror. Cutting, bulemia, anorexia, perversion, sexual sin are all examples of what happens when we believe the lies of the world.
I fell prey to the voices of others telling me I was too fat, I wasn't enough, I wasn't pretty but it wasn't until I heard His words tell me otherwise that I became free. He told me, "You are beautiful, I chose you, I love you, I am delighted in you, I created you, You are enough." His words are what shape my world now.
Inner beauty is unfading, it is not changed by the outward. It is not swayed by how we feel. Beauty is the single mother who sacrifices everything for her children. Beauty is the daughter who prays for her unsaved family. Beauty is the people who save the victims of human-trafficking and remind them that they are beautiful, worthy, and loved by Jesus. Beauty is an action not just a description.
