beauty

Beauty.
It is such a bold word. What is beauty? Here is the Merriam-Webster definition:

Definition of BEAUTY

1
: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : loveliness
2
: a beautiful person or thing; especially : a beautiful woman
3
: a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality
4
: a brilliant, extreme, or egregious example or instance

I have been thinking about this word a lot this weekend. Not until just now did I look up the definition.... and I am glad that I did. I think that we live in a society that is lets face it, OBSESSED, with beauty and being beautiful. I think it is important to appreciate beauty in things and people, but I think the obsession with always trying to look beautiful is really just out of control. I really love that the FIRST definition listed talks about qualities. (Granted physical qualities are easily encompassed in this) Then, much to my surprise, "quality" is mentioned again in the third definition. The reason I love this is because I think we all get so caught up in physical beauty and striving to look more beautiful. But what about what is on the inside, what about those internal qualities that make each and every one of us so beautiful... without make-up, without the nicest clothes, without our hair done.

The reason all of this has been on my mind is because of school (Weird, I know). I have been reading a book for my "Disability Perspectives and Narratives" class called Autobiography of a Face. The woman who wrote it, Lucy Grealy, was diagnosed with a form of cancer called Ewing's sarcoma when she was 9. When they removed the tumor, they also had to remove most of her right jaw, leaving her face very disfigured. Throughout the course of her life, she had 30 or more surgeries on her face. They did several surgeries to try to reconstruct her jaw, but every time her body rejected these attempts and absorbed the bone grafts.

This woman's story was so inspiring, but sad. She not only faced years of ridicule and taunting from people around her, but also hugely lacked support from her own family. She always felt ugly, alone, and undeserving of love. Throughout her autobiography, she is CONSTANTLY struggling with the idea of beauty and not feeling beautiful. She believed that because her face wasn't "beautiful" compared to society's standards, that she was undeserving of happiness and love. This just broke my heart.

How often does this happen today? People don't feel beautiful, so they let themselves believe that they are undeserving of love and happiness, just as Lucy did. AND THIS IS SUCH A LIE. Here is the thing: Lucy was beautiful. Inside and out. I was so caught up in her story, her bravery, her strength, her love for animals, her curiosity, her innocence, her talents... her ABILITY to create this wonderful story. Just because society made her feel like she wasn't beautiful and just because she didn't think that she represented "beauty," doesn't mean that she wasn't absolutely beautiful.

One of the most wonderful songs on the radio right now is "Beautiful," by Mercy Me.

"The days will come when you don't have the strength
When all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart they'd see too much

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful"

And that is what it all comes down to. We were made for so much more than all of this striving and trying to impress people with our outward beauty. We are treasured, we are sacred, and as Psalm 139 says "we are fearfully and wonderfully made." I know there are days when we don't feel beautiful, loved, worthy..... but what if we all make more of an effort to try to stop making ourselves look beautiful and just
be beautiful.

Be who we are. Show the world our inner beauty. Appreciate the excellent qualities that make us lovely. And love and cherish the natural beauty that is all around us.