What is beauty?

Beauty.

What is it?

I found this cheap necklace at Claires when I was about twelve and even though it leaves a green ring around my neck every time I wear it, I cannot toss it out because I fell in love with its definition of beauty:

"The quality present in a person or thing that gives intense pleasure to the mind."

Intense pleasure to the mind. Not the eye. I love that.

Because beauty cannot be put into a box. It is embodied... not just a body. 

Being beautiful is all about playing up and becoming more of what YOU already are...

It is something altogether different from being "pretty."

Pretty is all about playing up and becoming more of what they tell you that you should be, what is trendy. "They" being the magazines, music videos, celebs, etc. in society who tell you how to look.

 

But often that image they present is unattainable and distorted.  

They. Limit. Beauty.

But, I believe, every single person is beautiful. Truly.

I realized this last year at a retreat where we sang "You're Beautiful" by Phil Wickham over and over again.

The lyrics talk about how nature like the stars and sunrise all proclaim to God: "you're beautiful." And then it hit me that all of God's creation declares that He is beautiful, including people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this:

Colossians 1:16 says

for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see--such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

Genesis 1:27 talks about how people are made in God's image... How incredibly offensive that must be for us to call His creation, in particular one of his people that carry His image, anything less than beautiful.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.

Granted, there are times like now when I have a mountain range of zits on my face, I'm in need of a haircut and my finger nail polish is chipped that I feel like today may not be my "own time" ;) BUTTTTTTT, all in all, God made each and every one of us beautiful.

And we should rest in that. On good days... and bad days.

He does.

Even when we/others don't. 

Beauty is so much bigger and fuller and deeper than being "merely pretty:"

I hope instead of trying to fulfill society's limited scope of "pretty," that you aim to own what God gave you - and embrace it because...

So today - and everyday - I hope you know that you are