Do you know what beauty truly is? I am guessing you don’t. Sorry, sis.
I recently deleted my instagram for a while after some encouragement from my boyfriend and a few close friends who were unaware they had just pushed me to make that tiny jump (it felt a lot bigger than a tiny jump). Not only that, but I cut my workout routine down and stopped calorie counting.
Why was this recommended to me by those who know me and love me the best?
My loving loving boyfriend saw me comparing my current physicality to a beauty standard (or a few different physical beauty standards) that I could never meet. He saw me in moments of swirling insecurity over my own little frame, flesh, and cute lil imperfections. He saw me looking at the famous/loved/adored moms of instagram with their perfect homes and skinny tummies. Then, he saw my biggest fear become not being worthy, beautiful, and lovable as a mom because I would’t be skinny enough.
My friends echoed these same temptations and tendencies.
We see, over and over, what beauty “should be”. We see over and over that beauty is, quite frankly, a woman with no stomach fat whatsoever, a cute little nose (which I do not have), slender arms, slender and toned legs, a cute round butt, forever-curled hair, skin that looks like someone just fondant-ed it on, etc. Doesn’t matter if you are a 22 year old or a 38 year old with 4 kids.
And I cannot live up to it.
So, I am not beautiful.
And if I won’t be beautiful as a new mom or a not so new mom, I won’t be lovable.
Basically, I am not worth anyone’s attention, effort, wealth, or affection. Beautiful people receive that. I do not match that definition given to us by the blogger moms and social media influencers.
This, friends, was my mental reality living in the world of instagram.
And those closest to me saw it, saw the lies, and over time spoke over me so that I knew I was only trapped as long as I let myself be.
And man, freeing myself of the constant inundation of images of skinny moms and magnolia homes (Joanna Gaines, people) I worry less about being a skinny mom, because I am no longer looking for my worth to come from little square images on a screen and how mine stack up to those women who are the “most loved” by the world with the most likes and most money thrown at their beauty.
Good Lord. (He is good.)
This all begs the question, friends, what is beauty?
If those around me and my smokin boyfriend think I am beautiful and think that those little things (like a lil stomach fat, or a nose that isn’t dainty and pointed, or arms that would receive a descriptor of “jacked” rather than “slender”) actually make me beautiful… what is beauty?
Because it seems like I must not know what it is at all.
Do you? Do you know what beauty truly is?
Because if we are comparing ourselves to false beauty, we are sure to drive ourselves crazy.
Beauty is an in-depth view and encounter with REALITY.
You hear that? Reality.
Reality: Things as they should be.
So we encounter true beauty when we encounter reality as God created it to be.
(This is where I will gently ask the your precious soul if you use makeup to cover up what should be, or workout so much that you are morphing your body into something it shouldn’t be (like if you lose your period etc. due to overexercising), or if your house is a little too perfectly put together to cover up life as it should be, or if you are manipulating some aspect of your life and changing it entirely from the way it was intended to be. None of these things are bad, but be honest with yourself. I do it. I doubt I am alone.)
But there’s more....
Beauty is comprised of both (1) order and (2) surprise.
Order is when a thing is as it is supposed to be or does what it is supposed to do. Order is expressed in things like regularity, proportion, symmetry, definiteness, and things fitting together the way they are supposed to.
Surprise is something we experience when encountering something new, marvelous, wonderful, and unusual. It captures our attention.
When we are surprised by beauty, we should be able to perfect the art of seeing unfamiliar depths in something familiar. There is a newness to the reality in front of you, and you can take delight in the inexhaustible richness of the beauty there no matter how many times you gaze upon it or hear it.
Surprise without order is simply an indulgence of the senses, trying to create feeling and pleasure. However, order without surprise becomes mundane and meaningless. A monotonous and predictable life.
This is what our entertainment (instagram, magazines, Pinterest, rom coms, porn) is. It is either the same old predictable thing, or something that shocks us into feeling an intense emotion without any substance to it.
Does this sound familiar?
To me, it sounds like the culture that often lives in the instagram and facebook blogger mom world. It sounds like the culture I tried to live, and all the while it was literally crushing my true identity by crushing my true beauty. It tried to dress me in its facade of what it decided beauty should be.
That sounds harsh, and it might be. I in no way think that social media, makeup, working out, or being naturally skinny is from the Devil, so Karen, don’t try to pin me into that hole. (There’s no Karen. I made that up.)
What I am saying, is that my view of what beauty TRULY is has been distorted. I have been brainwashed to believe it is something replicable, predictable, perfect, unsurprising, flawless... just like the poster, just like the Pinterest photo, just like the magazine model.
But beauty is something existing as it should be, and none of those things are necessarily as they should be. They are often without surprise, depth, and trueness.
Do you know what beauty is? Do you really know it? Do you live like it?
Oh fearsome, beautiful woman. Do you let society shape your view of what is beautiful? Or is it shaped by how God meant for it to be?
Are you how God meant for you to be?
Or are you trying to change how God meant for you to be so you can measure up to society’s fake standards?
I know my answer was the latter. And so, I am breaking out, making changes, and proclaiming bold things. I love you all, and I truly believe you are so so beautiful. And guess what, I think I am too.
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