Broken Beauty

We all long to be beautiful.
We love beauty.
We want to be seen and known for beauty.
And we want to be loved.

It is our very core, for God created it that way.
But sin, loneliness, rejection, words mar our image of beauty and because it so much a part of our creation, we grasp, we search, we long for it.  And we cover.   Trying to hide the pain and shame inside with beauty outside or what we view beauty to be...

One day I was sitting in a hairdresser's shop waiting for my lady to get her hair finished, so I had a few moments and I began to see the 'world' around me.  I saw shampoos, hair care, people wanting their hair done to perfection, and the ladies doing it all.  I saw the fake, red coloured hair and the silver that pierced someone's body, and my heart ached...

My heart ached for what may be the stories beneath it all....
I ached because I, too, know the longing and reaching for beauty and perfection.  It's branded on our souls and yet seems so elusive.

Do we pierce our bodies to take away from the pain that pierces our hearts?
Is the colouring of our hair, trying to colour differently the pain that lies beneath?
And do the shoulders exposed tell us of a message that our souls have been exposed and been found wanting?

Does it all tell us of a deeper message that we hear ringing in our minds?  Does it point to something that we all long for?

I want to be found beautiful.
I long to be truly known for who I am.

But I feel as if I am lacking, found wanting.
And so... there's paint.  there's colour.  there's a piercing.  We dress accordingly.  We even smile.  All the while the ache lies deep within.  The lies we believe pierce our hearts and lodge within our thoughts.  Squishing out the true Truth.  God's Truth.

I am not enough...
I am too much...
Someone took advantage of my beauty.  Therefore it must be wrong...
I am not lovable...
I burned the beans, forgot to do...
We yell...

And the lies take root...

What is beauty?  true beauty?  Who gives definition to beauty?

Is it not the One who created it?  The Father who enjoys beauty and graced our world with it?

He created beauty and perfection.  The Garden of Eden is expression to that.  All flowers, animals, trees, fowl, everything was created perfectly and beautifully.  The fish have always caused me to marvel... talk about creativity!  flat ones, long ones, ugly ones :) pointed nose ones, gray ones, colourful ones, and all in the water where few men get to see them; unless you go to an aquarium or go scuba diving.  God LOVES BEAUTY and splashes in places least expected.  Beauty is sometimes in a place where it needs to be sought out and looked for.

The snowflakes, the crystal glow of trees on a winter morning, the sunrises and sunsets are all expressions of beauty.

And man.  Woman.  God said it is good.  Very good!  If we look at creation and see the beauty, would God create us as man and woman any less beautiful?  A child less perfect?

No.
I believe we are created beautifully and perfectly.  What changed all of that?  What causes us to believe differently?

Adam and Eve ate fruit from a tree that God had said would open their eyes to know good and evil.  They made a choice and that choice forever opened our eyes and hearts to know good and evil.  To not only know perfection and beauty, but evil and ugly.

Today choices are being made.  We make choices that affect us and others.  Others make choices that affect us.  We hurt.  We ache.  We believe something other than God's original intent for us.  We believe lies, just like Eve believed a lie in the garden.

And we hide.  We make fig leaves to cover our shame.

And God comes.  In the cool of the evening.  And asks us why we are hiding?
God sees. He knows.
He cares. And most of all HE LOVES. US. STILL.
He wants us.
He wants to redeem and remind us we are His.

So the choices are still before us today... believe the serpent of lies or God.  Believe the words that beat in your mind or the words of God's Truth.  Sin destroyed perfect beauty.  God now takes broken pieces and creates a mosaic of beauty.  He takes the messy and holds it gently in His hand and breathes His breath of Life once more on it and it becomes living once again.

I need to believe it...

Some days are easier to believe the truth of God and other days, like the last several ones, are a fight.  "Lord, show me.  Help me to believe You."
It's been a struggle to believe that I am worth something and that others like me...  To believe that I have something valuable to offer and that others even want it (like this blog).  To believe I am beautiful.

We all have words to put in the blank.  Words that may mirror mine or another voice that resounds in your mind.

But the GREAT NEWS is, that God wants to redeem it all.  HE LOVES US!!  GOD WANTS US!  HE WANTS US TO ENJOY HIM - HE ENJOYS US!

Let's say these words for each other.  Carrying each other to the throne of the Father, when we have a hard time believing them for ourselves.  Repeat them yourself.  FIGHT WITH THIS GREATER TRUTH.   This truth that trumps the reality of our lives and the story that is ours.

For some of us we have heard words that hurt.
Others have had physical pain.
It is true.  It is real.  But the greater reality and Truth is - Jesus and His Words.
I have called you by name.  You are mine.  Isaiah 43:1  Belonging.
I died for you.  John 3:16  Redemption.
I have loved you with an everlasting love.  Jeremiah 31:3    Love.
We're engraved on the palm of His hand.  Isaiah 49:15-16  We matter.

Jesus and His love for each of us, even in those hard moments.

Jesus knows pain.  the pain of rejection. denial. of beatings and mockery.  of scorning and being misunderstood.  In the midst of all hard, He loved.  He forgave.

Is less required of us?  We who want to be filled with His Spirit?
No.  It's not.

And isn't that beauty?  True beauty?  Paradoxal beauty?

I wonder if beauty doesn't look differently.  Different than what we think.  Perfection was marred in the garden.  Perfection is tainted on this side of heaven.  Perfection is Heaven.
We get glimpses of this perfect beauty in a sunrise or the unfolding beauty in a flower, but it is only a moment and then it passes.  Wrong choices have forever marred the unbroken beauty here on earth.  Jesus now creates beauty out of broken things.  He takes our pieces that we bring to Him and makes all things new.  Beauty out of ashes.  Redemption.

It's a miracle.  And Jesus is still in the miracle business of redemption.

Beauty is the broken pot that has been touched with His grace and put back together.
Or the marred piece of body that He has touched and said, "Be whole."  Redemption.
The forgiveness offered to one who has done the hurt.

It's the broken body of Jesus that offers us eternal life.
It's when we bring our brokenness to Jesus for redemption, that we find life.

Broken pieces in the hand of God = BEAUTY.

Beauty restored.
Beauty defined.

A choosing to believe....

And isn't beauty found in a heart that is at rest.  Rest from striving.  Rest from comparison.  Rest in the love of the Father who loves us so much!

A heart that hears the Father and sometimes needs to choose to believe the love He has for her.

You are loved. My friends.  We are loved.

(This is a piece of my heart... that longs to believe more fully my worth and beauty in Jesus definition; and I ache for all of us, because we have been marred and we need Jesus.)

I wish you Jesus. And may you see yourself through His eyes...  Beautiful and loved.