beautiful:: part four.

I was tempted to call it good with my explanation of beauty, with my last entry.  After all, there is no possible way of summarizing beauty in its entirety.  I couldn’t help feeling, however, that I was being a coward.  Failing to answer some of the very questions that led me to this pursuit.  And as those questions loomed, unanswered, I feared that if I failed to shed light on this remaining aspect of beauty, its shadows would taint its very purpose and potential.  The type of beauty I speak of is not nearly as “Christian-y” or “spiritual” as the beauty I have been describing previously- obvious by the fact that it is rarely addressed from the pulpit.  But though this aspect I speak of is easy to ignore in theology, it is impossible to evade as an everyday woman.

Physical Beauty…

Am I pretty?  Is it wrong to want to be beautiful?  How much time, money, and effort should I invest into the physical?  How do I pursue beauty without becoming worldly?  These queries that have haunted me recently may or may not sound familiar to you, but we all answer them subconsciously each and every day.  We answer them as we get ready in the morning, examining our forehead for wrinkles or acne.  We answer them as we scan Pinterest for fall fashion ideas, lustfully pinning the image of a sexy lady with painfully tall heels.  We answer them each time we get offended that our husband didn’t notice a new hairstyle or feel insecure at an event we underdressed for.  We are in a constant battle with beauty, either beating down or being beat down with the materialistic accusations and challenges our mind is plagued with.  There is no debate as to whether or not this war exists in our hearts and minds.  The problem is, so often we don’t know which side we’re on or even what we’re fighting for.

What side are we on?

Contrary to what you might be expecting, I believe that in this war over the physical- which is ironically quite spiritual- we are on “team beauty”.  My goal is not to demonize Pinterest, plastic surgery, or mascara; so hopefully, you’ve made it far enough down the page to realize I’m not going to tell you to swear off sit-ups or your favorite pair of designer jeans.  Because the Bible is silent on the specifics, I am in no position to draw a hard line on what measures you should or should not be taking to dress up your exterior.  Don’t despair, however, for there is conviction and truth to be found. The Scriptures are not silent on the deeper issues that exist at the root of our questions.

First and foremost, we must recognize that beauty is God’s design, His creation, and His idea. Physical beauty is not evil. It’s easy, for me at least, to view physical attractiveness with weariness due to the way the world has perverted it.  Anorexia, lust, and Playboy were not God’s intent.  But admiration, desire, and loveliness were.  There will be no doubt of this when we glimpse heaven for the first time.  The inspirations of beauty splattered across this canvas called earth are only a fraction of the splendor eternity has in store for us. The sooner we remember that our Lord is the Source of beauty- including flesh and blood, womanly curves and youthfulness- the sooner we can use beauty for His glory. 

The Grass is Greener

Even after establishing the Divine origin of beauty, we are left to grapple with transferring theological truth into practical day-to-day living- no easy feat.  This is because each woman must search deeper than the contents of her closet to know whether her motives for beauty are God-glorifying or self-centered.

Take my yard, for example.  It’s embarrassing; I mean, there’s just no way around it.  It’s half-brown, the other half is weeds, and rodent-hills decorate it unabashedly.  This is due in part because our home had been vacated and untended to months before we began renting and in part because my husband and I were completely overlooked by the “green thumb gene”- we could kill a cactus in a week.  Excuses aside, every time I gaze upon that balding square of rodent-infested land I am filled with the desire to replace it with glorious green.  That desire never changes- my motivations for it do.  When I am not submitting our life and home to the Lord, my desire for a botanical transplant is driven by insecurities and discontentment.  But when I am talking and walking with the Lord often, I am filled with gratefulness for our cozy, character of a home and my desire for a new lawn is driven by the desire to make the best out of what I’ve been given, to make “beauty from ashes”- mirroring God’s heart. 

I go to such lengths to depict this crime-scene-of-a-front-yard and the effect it has on my heart, because I believe it is telling of our similar battle with the way we look.  The Bible says, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” (Mark 7:15).  Just like planting new grass is not inherently sinful, the brand of clothes we pride ourselves in and the inches of foundation we bury ourselves beneath have no power to condemn us.  It is the will of God, in fact, to “present our bodies as living sacrifices.”  (Romans 12:1) God desires us to take care of “the temple” of our bodies, reflecting the purifying work He continues to do in our souls.  On the other hand, one can invest thousands of hours and dollars to be deemed “hot” by passer-byers, and the fact of the matter is this body is a tent- aka temporary!  (2 Corinthians 5:4) If we elevate physical beauty over spiritual beauty, we fall into a downward spiral of worldliness. 

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It may be agitating to present these all-too-real questions and never respond to them directly, but I believe that the answers are unique to each woman and the convictions God gives her.  Though having to do the dirty work on our hearts is initially hard and frustrating, we should be thrilled at the thought of our Lord wanting to reveal to us personally His heart toward us. So while I encourage you to get your answers from the King of Kings Himself, I am posting a list of questions for my next and final post on beauty, in order to get us started in hopefully exposing the true longings behind our loveliness.