What kind of woman are you? Do you like to be a person who builds up people and things? Would you qualify yourself as an activist? If so, what type of activist would you be? Do you support entertainment, the arts, academics, athletics, advancements in humanitarian aid? What is it that takes up the most area in your heart? What issues in life make your heart tick?
Is it an unflinching desire to right wrongs, or maybe a strong longing to share the good that you have received with others so that they might move along and experience significant progress in their life?
Well, let me just say that for me, righting wrongs is definitely what makes my heart flourish with ideas and strategies and just pure joy. I don’t want anything else but what will build up others (and myself) in what is good, what is of God.
But you have your own desires. Maybe you share the same goals I do, but you have a different way of going about making them reality. That is wonderful!
Do you realize that having hearts that want so much for the world around us is a beautiful thing? Do you recognize the internal beauty God has so specifically placed in you? Do you understand that the very things you live to do and hope most to see are the very things that God has given you to contribute to the world–that is, beauty?
You might not think you’re very beautiful–especially when you look inside. You may be discouraged by the damages you’ve incurred to your heart and try desperately to keep its burdened-form hidden from view. But, do you realize that these are the very parts of you that hold your only chance for real whole-person beauty? This is not to say that if you hold them in forever that you will never be beautiful, but you will certainly not reach your full potential of recognizable and effectual beauty.
You see, our beauty is supposed to accomplish something. Like a great piece of art, it is supposed to point to some great truth: to enlighten the heart as it looks through the eyes and listens through the ears and smells through the nose and comprehends through the touch. Real and striking beauty is supposed to do something to us; to awaken something within–to stimulate desire. But, where we often get bogged down is when we look at ourselves and decide that we are not worthy of stimulating desire. We think that we should be bringing desire back to ourselves if we were really beautiful.
What we don’t realize is that real beauty is a thing too big to be focused around one person, if that person is someone other than Christ. Yet, surprisingly, if that beauty is centered around Christ, it includes everyone else who beholds and draws near to Him–everyone who holds Him in their hearts.
This may explain why the condition of our heart’s does not matter so much as the Conditioner of our hearts. If He is there, we can be assured that beauty is sure to emanate from Him and out of us. This is beauty–knowing Christ and making Him known through every part of who we are.
We must realize the extent to which God wants to be involved in who we are and what has happened to us. We must realize that our relationship with Him is the ultimate definition of who we are. The condition of our connection with Him reveals more of who we are than anything else. If we want to be freed from the sin-filled, brokenness-occupied self-definitions we have, let us reach out to God. He alone transcends what we see of ourselves yet extends Himself into it at the same time. He makes something new of who we are simply because He’s involved at our core.
The very parts of ourselves that we have most despised can become a part of our beauty–they may even become the most stunning part of us. Why? Because beauty cannot be separated from God. What is not beautiful about us are the parts of us that still witness to our separation from and opposition to Christ; not the parts that have been ruined by what others have done to us or said about us. But something that belongs to God, while at the same time belonging to us, is something that is now capable of God-filled beauty: revealing light, demonstrating exquisite form and offering awe-inspiring revelation. That is what beauty is all about.
This is what our lives can be, my sisters. This is what our hearts ache to be! We are already candidates for incredible beauty–the matter yet to be decided is whether we will recognize God as the One who brings out beauty in us. Will we let God show us what beauty looks like? Will we let our hearts be transformed?
I think we can each say yes. I think we can afford whatever it requires. I think we can consent to the invitation with fear still lurking in our hearts. I don’t think we have to know we are beautiful to take the plunge, neither must we be convinced that we are significant enough to attempt such a thing, we need only hope that we could be beautiful and trust that God does think we are significant enough to receive His grace.
If you can hope and trust these things, you can come and see how God makes radiant a woman in His care. You will learn to love the Lord your God with longing and delight–simply because You have seen Him with all the hidden places of your heart.
Beauty & the Beast of Burden 