I think it was on Montreal’s St. Catherine Street in one of the many trendy boutiques. Surrounded by images of what the world says is beautiful I realized that I really didn’t find that attractive. Could it be that my concept of beauty is actually changing? I spend a lot of time telling the girls I work with that God thinks they are beautiful… regardless of what the world says about them… and I’ve always firmly believed that… but could it be that God is teaching me to see beauty in the way He does. As I thought about it I realized that the people in my life I would refer to as beautiful are not necessarily ones that the world would crown the most physically attractive. Generally it is more something in their spirit that attracts me… a quality that you can’t quite but your finger on but shines through brightly and draws you towards that person. Could it be that I’m actually beginning to see the Spirit of God in people as beauty?
As much as I’d like to stand before you today and tell you that I have been converted… and that I am completely unaffected by the world’s messed-up standards of beauty… that would be a lie. I am simply someone who is unwilling to accept the lie that the right clothes and the right make-up will make me beautiful. How that gets lived out in day to day life is more difficult. It is still hard for me to look in the mirror and call myself beautiful. The closest I get is to remind myself that while I think I look horrible that day, God finds me breath-taking. So I’m praying that God continues to do whatever it is He’s doing with my concepts of beauty because I’d really like to see myself (and others) with His eyes. It’s interesting that it’s so much easier for me to see beauty in others than it is in myself.
