Beauty, Behold
So, I am held in bondage and chains over an issue that has taxed me and haunted me for years. Exterior beauty. I know the roots of my problems go much deeper, but for years pieces of my life have been stolen from me, and I've lived less than what God has laid before me because of my obsessions and addictions.
I heard a sermon Sunday about what beauty really is, and since then, my thoughts have been focused a lot on "what does God really think beauty is?" "What is real beauty?" The sermon talked about how our culture has done such a wonderful job of portraying beauty as an exlusively exterior trait, that in reality, is unattainable, and I have experienced that over the years. I've been extremely thin and also chubby, but never have I been satisfied with my exterior.
But God looks elsewhere. So, I hope, over the next while, to explore what God sees as beautiful, because I not only want to see His beauty in me, but I want to see it in others, too. Beauty is so much deeper than the skin, I know it is, but I can't see past the first layer.....in myself, and often in others. Which makes me very sad.
I remember a quote someone said to me a little while back. "Everyone is naked underneath their clothes." All these fads, false fronts, disguises we all put on......mean nothing in the end. It doesn't add beauty. It adds luster, pizzaze, and social acceptability. Now, I don't have it all figured out, and I'm certainly not trying to judge physically attractive people or people who like to wear dressy clothes. I'm just trying to see beyond that right now. To learn how the inner beauty works its way out.
Tonight, I went to a Mercy Me/Audio A concert (which was awesome, by the way), and a guy named Phil Wickham opened for the bands. He had one song that stuck out in particular to me, and it was called "Divine Romance." The second line:
"The richness of Your beauty's all I see." God, let me see!
Lord, please teach me what beauty really is, according to You and Your word and not the ways of the world. Show me how to see Your beauty in the natural, physical, and spiritual, in the complexities and simplicities of life. Show me what this means, and why this is important for me to see. And if you desire, help me eventually show this beauty to others in a way that will encourage them and also bring glory to You.
I heard a sermon Sunday about what beauty really is, and since then, my thoughts have been focused a lot on "what does God really think beauty is?" "What is real beauty?" The sermon talked about how our culture has done such a wonderful job of portraying beauty as an exlusively exterior trait, that in reality, is unattainable, and I have experienced that over the years. I've been extremely thin and also chubby, but never have I been satisfied with my exterior.
But God looks elsewhere. So, I hope, over the next while, to explore what God sees as beautiful, because I not only want to see His beauty in me, but I want to see it in others, too. Beauty is so much deeper than the skin, I know it is, but I can't see past the first layer.....in myself, and often in others. Which makes me very sad.
I remember a quote someone said to me a little while back. "Everyone is naked underneath their clothes." All these fads, false fronts, disguises we all put on......mean nothing in the end. It doesn't add beauty. It adds luster, pizzaze, and social acceptability. Now, I don't have it all figured out, and I'm certainly not trying to judge physically attractive people or people who like to wear dressy clothes. I'm just trying to see beyond that right now. To learn how the inner beauty works its way out.
Tonight, I went to a Mercy Me/Audio A concert (which was awesome, by the way), and a guy named Phil Wickham opened for the bands. He had one song that stuck out in particular to me, and it was called "Divine Romance." The second line:
"The richness of Your beauty's all I see." God, let me see!
Lord, please teach me what beauty really is, according to You and Your word and not the ways of the world. Show me how to see Your beauty in the natural, physical, and spiritual, in the complexities and simplicities of life. Show me what this means, and why this is important for me to see. And if you desire, help me eventually show this beauty to others in a way that will encourage them and also bring glory to You.
