What is Beauty?

Picture provided by: www.theodysseyonline.com/beauty-not-duty

In the dictionary, beauty is defined as a combination of qualities such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.  Another definition goes on to say that beauty is pleasurably exalting to the mind or spirit.  But what is true beauty? Really?

I remember being told once, by someone of great significance to me, that another woman was prettier because her skin was lighter, and she had longer hair.  The only thing I could think to respond with was, "Is it all hers?" (The hair that is).  I tried playing it cool, but inside the way I felt about myself was dying. The death was not a slow and agonizing one.  This one was a swift cut to the throat of my self confidence.

All of the beauty I thought I had slipped away on that day, and even now, almost two years later, I have yet to grasp a healthy grip of the confidence that used to be mine. What in the world was I thinking when I asked that question?  Is she prettier than me?  First of all, it was something I knew I truly didn't want to know the answer to given the source and circumstance.  Sometimes, I feel ignorance is truly bliss.

But was I truly confident in myself, and how God made me if one conversation could break me down so easily? Maybe if it were someone else the statement wouldn't have affected me the way it did.  I began looking at the complexion of my skin as if for the first time. Not that I had never noticed my golden brown tone, I had just never had a problem with it before.

For the first time I saw how dark my complexion was in comparison to a few of my friends.  I began to question if I was as pretty as they were, or just fooling myself.   My thoughts became an obsession of wondering if I was good enough; was my hair long enough, and how much sun could I avoid so my skin would not grow any darker?

Many years ago, when I was in the 10th grade, I remember walking down the hall to my next class and minding my own business.  Without being prompted, some random guy decided to step to me and say, "You look really lopsided.  If only the size of your breast matched with the size of your behind."  I didn't even know the guy's name, and could not remember ever seeing him in the hallway, but it was like what he said brought attention to my lack of awareness that I actually had small breast.

After that I began to watch as seemingly all the girls in my peer group developed and left me in the dust.  Where were my big breast?  Weren't they something I was supposed to have as a girl?  Why was it taking them so long to grow?  My mother always said that the breast I didn't yet have would come full circle and grow to match the size of just about every other woman on her side of the family when I had children.  I was excited to know this, and when I finally had children, was happy to see the evidence.  But just as soon as I decided to ween my children from nursing, my big breast decided to ween themselves from the girth of their size.

I've come to the conclusion that some women (women like me) are beautiful in our own minds until someone comes along and tells us that we are not according to THEIR standard of beauty.  Is a standard of beauty truly based off of what another person thinks, or is it how we should think about ourselves?  When God made man (including woman), He looked at His work, and said it was good.  So, if the Creator can look at His own work and say that how He made us was good, who are we to doubt that?

True beauty comes from within.  When you look in the mirror, it is how you view yourself, flaws and all.  It is how you accept the way God made you, because nobody can do you better than you do yourself.  It is being proud of the person you are and not comparing yourself to others.  Self confidence glows like a guiding light, and it will lead others to view you in the same way, and there is nothing more (humanly) beautiful than that.