Hey beautiful...
Why is it that we need others to validate our beauty?
What about our culture makes us feel like in order to feel beautiful someone has to tell us that we are? Why can't our internal critic also be our well-meaning coach, our cheerleader, and our biggest fan?
This year, I've been on a journey of setting other people's opinions aside and tuning into my own opinions. I've been asking myself if I really agree with the lies I tell myself about how I look and how I live my life. Because I'm always doubting my beauty, my intelligence, my understanding, experience, and perspective. Because my inability to recognize my beauty is more than me just looking in the mirror and saying that I look rough today - it's a fundamental break in how I perceive and interact with myself. The real truth is that we are all beautifully and wonderfully made*. That truth just hasn't begun to inform our own opinions and lives as it should.
Let's also remember that being humble does not equate to self-depreciation. In the past, whenever people would tell me that I’m beautiful, I would hide behind an 'aw that's sweet, not really because I'm humble anyway right' mentality. No friends, no. That's disrespecting yourself. It's disrespecting your worth and the beauty and gifts you've been bestowed with. And it encourages this idea that accepting beauty means being selfish and arrogant. No friend, it’s not! It’s simply accepting the truth. Not a truth that should be lorded over others or pridefully paraded, and not something that we base our worth on. Not something that we depend on for validation or acceptance. It's just a truth that sustains us, reminding us that we are uniquely created, and our person (emotionally and physically) is something that people can look at, love, appreciate, and be loved by. Because who doesn't want to be loved by you, beautiful human?
And the last thing- beauty is reflected and enhanced in the way that you carry it. In the way, you live it. In the way you wear your crown and carry your title. Because a truly beautiful person is only more beautiful on the inside than they are on the outside. And in that mirror reflection, we see that a beautiful inside only makes for an even more attractive outside. And that my friends, is where we begin to shine like the stars we're meant to be - when we allow our beauty to be defined by the right things and lived in the right ways, always walking in the truth that we are loved. And no amount or lack of physical beauty can change that. Instead, the way we share that love can show the world that we are beautiful, not because of the physical 'gifts' we've been given, but because of who we are.
"...beauty is reflected and enhanced in the way that you carry it. In the way, you live it. In the way you wear your crown and carry your title. Because a truly beautiful person is only more beautiful on the inside than they are on the outside."
Friend, you are so pretty. You are handsome. You are lovely. You, my friend, are beautiful. Now go out into the world and live like you are.
Joyfully yours,
Bel
*Psalms 139:14
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