My Pursuit For BEAUTY

For the past 5 - 6 months or so, I have taken up the priority to have a healthy body. I lost some needed weight and started a healthier lifestyle. I exercise several times a week and maintain a healthy eating habit. People always ask me how I lost the weight and what I did. My answer is always - DISCIPLINE! Hard to do! Sometimes when I answer that question I feel like I am answering like this - HELLTHY LIFESTYLE! It's hard! However, so rewarding and not only do I feel better, I feel like I have accomplished something and that discipline over food and my health has led to a considerable increase in my spiritual discipline, too!

Anyway, the reason that I am writing this post is not to give you some health inspiration or trainer tips. It's because I have learned so much along the way. I started this "health kick" out of insecurity. I felt fat and disgusting and hated the mirror. I felt unworthy and I already felt sorry for my future husband. I did not feel beautiful or enthralling in any way, not just physically, but not in any way. I felt like a failure as a woman. I always had a picture of what I assumed beauty was. I pictured a beautiful woman to be graceful, elegant, gentle, tender, poised, slender, and toned. I pictured her to be soft-spoken and fun with a twinkle in her eyes that suggested so much wisdom behind them. I pictured her to be thoughtful and careful with her words, always with the understanding that anything that fell from her lips represented a piece of her soul and that she guarded it by her caution with her words. There are many other things that come to mind when I think about a beautiful woman, but all of them, I felt I couldn't establish myself in or couldn't even think that those characteristics described where I was. So, insecurity drove me to strive for the "beauty" that I longed for and the first goal was to attain the "perfect size."

Months later, I can go through this above list and it makes me think. I fall over my own two feet all the time. I run into people because I'm not looking where I'm going. And I get embarrassed! So, walking in grace and elegance, kinda flies out the window at times . . .

I have a son. He's all boy! I love that about him. So, we play. We are rough and rowdy. I wear tennis shoes almost everyday and when I'm not wearing tennis shoes, you can catch me in flip flops. I can't stand heels. They are uncomfortable and hard to walk in and since I'm already prone to embarrass myself by tripping over everything in my path, it's probably not wise to put myself through it all anyway. Plus, they really don't go with my jeans and hoodies . . . So, gentle, tender, and poised - nah! There are times that boxing with my son and running holding hands takes precedence over those traits.

I lost 25 lbs. but gravity does not ignore me and I can not overcome my DNA, so slender and toned - well, I supposed that's up for interpretation. Sometimes I just can't do enough sit-ups and I get so tired of jump roping. I'm the size that I am and I will never be a size 6 with "perfect" measurements. I will never look the way I did in high school. I will never get rid of my stretch marks or scars from my pregnancy. I will never undergo surgery to have anything lifted, tucked, or sucked out, so really, there is not much that I can do anymore . . .

Let's continue through the list. I love to laugh! I have been told that I laugh too loud and I have many bouts of girlish giggling. So, soft-spoken, well, maybe I don't fit that bill either. Fun? Sure, maybe there are times that I can be fun. But, what about the wash, the car, the dishes, the bible, the bath that Caleb needs to take, the toys that need to be picked up, the lesson that I need to plan for Sunday? The list could continue. What about that stuff? How fun is all of that stuff? Thoughtful, careful, guarded? I do not think that the desire to immediately clasp both of my hands over my mouth after almost every sentence to certain "free" people qualifies me for the Proverb 4 award winner. So, what did that leave me with? The search for my description of "beauty" showed me that in every area I still came up short!

Well, that left me with the option to either change my perspective of "beauty" or to do the extreme with surgery and attempts to change every behavioral pattern that I had. And to be honest, I actually considered all this! But, when it came down to the decision, I chose to pursue what God thinks "beauty" is and that leads me to now . . . a wonderful journey of healing and acceptance!

It didn't take me very long to figure out how to understand "beauty" in God's eyes. I found it in the very first place that I looked. I opened the Bible. It said amazing things! It spelled it out so clearly for me that I was using the things of the world to dictate my thinking on "beauty" instead of going to the Creator of "beauty" and asking Him what He really made. I found wisdom in things like, Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” The Book of Ezekiel, specifically chapter 16, sheds new light on beauty and its abuse of it, as well. It’s really long, so you’ll just have to read it for yourself. But, here’s the kicker! 1Peter 3:3 – 4 says, “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 and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful." Holy cow!

So, God what you are telling me is that my beauty really has nothing to do with how I look? That’s amazing! AND that definitely takes the pressure off to pursue and be this image of what is ingrained into our thoughts of beauty. These scriptures also challenged me to find out where my validation comes from. Is it from God or from the world? When I read Psalm 45:11 “The king is enthralled by your beauty...” who is my king? Am I making my Father God the “King” or the guy in the pew behind me? So, after I read all the above scriptures, He hits me with the big, fat, KO sucker punch with Colossians 3:1 – 3, which says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Reminding me to look to God for the ways in which my thinking needs to be renewed and I praise God that daily He reminds me of these scriptures and His lessons. I wrote 1Peter on my bathroom mirror so that every time I look in it and think unkind things against God’s Holy vessel, I am challenged. Well, these are my challenges and I have recently discovered that I am not alone in these struggles. I want to continue to pursue God’s perspective on all kinds of things. Isn’t that our goal always, to be more like God, to have our minds renewed constantly in that of Christ Jesus’?