When "Beauty" is Crushed

"Beauty is sold in exchange for a "dime"

Nothing to attract us to You, yet we worship Your creation as fine

Captivated by it's forbidden fruit

Pleasing our senses, so we suppress the truth

And eat the lie

Media's fig leaf deadening our soul and mind...."

Beauty is fleeting. We've all heard it and, if you're a woman you've likely felt it. I honestly don't know a woman alive who truly feels she has attained the perfect standard of beauty. No matter how pretty she feels in some moments there is always something lurking inside of her that tells her she is falling short in some way. Something that isn't good enough. Or maybe that's just me. What I can tell you for certain is that you are about to get a crash course in my self-image insecurities. Starting all the way back in elementary school I can recall my clothes and the way I looked being important to me. By middle school I hated my nose and felt like I was the most unphotogenic person on the planet. In highschool I developed an eating disorder that took my 5 foot 10 inch frame down to 117 pounds before I realized my body was going to die if something didn't change. I truly believed that if someone thought I was pretty enough to marry me then that would change everything. But let's be honest, it made it worse. If my husband's affection was based only on my looks then what happened when the looks were gone? Now there were women prettier than me who could steal away his attention. Women who didn't have seven pregnancies worth of stretch marks and baggy skin. Thankfully my husband chose me for what he saw inside as well as an attraction to my brown eyes but the lie still ate away at my soul and mind.

Enter Cancer.

This has been one of the most humbling and sanctifying experiences I've ever been through. In the last six months I've aged about six years. My hair has been stolen. My body which once had hardly any scars is now butchered. Scars from my PICC line. Scars from my port. Massive scars from my mastectomy. Oh, and even a scar from where they "dropped a cauterizing tool during surgery" just for good measure. While they each tell a story of battle all collectively produce a cry of agony. A cry of brokenness. A cry that no longer allows us to suppress the truth that we are dying. That things are not as they should be. That this body is decaying because of the curse of sin and that there is a beauty far deeper that we fall short of.

"Sin blinding us to You

The only objective Beauty that's truly absolute

Hidden in the symmetry of Your goodness, glory and truth

Each attribute working harmoniously

Justice with patience, wrath with graciousness

Omnipotence with humility, long-suffering with faithfulness

Each a note to a sweet melody

The ultimate hymn entitled "God's Beauty""

But there is another Who had no external beauty that we should be attracted to Him. He didn't need beauty in his physical appearance because that wasn't the point of His existence. He came to point other's to the God of the universe. To the Maker of Heaven and Earth. His name was Jesus. Had He been the hottest guy on the block our mortal

fallen idolatrous hearts would have been distracted with the things that didn't matter. The beauty Jesus Christ desired us to see was a perfect beauty that went beyond any attempt that mortal man can achieve. An objective, absolute beauty of goodness, glory and truth.

"Immutable, no change

Because "dimes" get lost daydreaming in dark gutters

Unable to hear the call to wake up

They, the noose, dripping honeysuckle

Lips pasted on with Mac makeup

If they truly beheld Your beauty

You'd make magazines and Mattell go bankrupt

You sent Your Beloved to be lifted up

On a beautiful, seemingly ugly cross

The visible image of Your hiddenness

Only You are beautiful and yet invisible"

In the midst of a broken and scarred world Jesus Christ came and showed us what perfect beauty looked like. None of it came from the external but rather from the absolute perfection of righteousness and holiness. A God so set apart yet with us. A God who named every star yet breathed on a little girl. A God Who hated sin so much that He sent His Son to pay the wages of death and buy us back. His humble and unattractive existence was meant to ensure that the Most Beautiful One could be seen on full display.

"True beauty is spiritual

Therefore, sanctify our worldly minds

Your complexion is unappealing to lustful eyes

Besides, apart from new birth in Christ

Sinners beholding Your Holy beauty would die

Therefore, beauty residing in the eye of the beholder is a lie

It is found in the Beautiful One- The Most High"

- Lyrics by Shai Lynne

I've held off writing an update because these are truths I didn't want to listen to. I wanted to wallow in my ugliness. I wanted to feel all the feelings of the injustice of it all. To write meant to expose my insecurities and to preach truth to myself and I'd rather not. So as it sits on the page I must ask myself, "Is it more important that I feel temporarily stunning or that, without the physical distractions, others can better see my stunning God through me?" Am I growing in patience, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, purity, and love? Is my mind being sanctified to lust less and less after rotting human flesh and more after the Most High? Because of the unattractive Christ I have direct and open access to the God of the Universe. Let us look on His Beauty and live.