Exquisite Beauty

Declaration 9:  The new creation that I am loves her body as an exquisite gift from her Heavenly Father, to be treated as the vessel for her greatest adventures, her grandest experiences, and her most resplendent worship.  She will care for her body, the temple for the Holy Spirit, as an expression of thankfulness for this gift. 

For beauty is defined by the Author,

and His creation is inherently beautiful.

In a culture so caught up in image, in false beauty, in narrower-than-the-gates-of-Heaven fitness ideals, this declaration smacks of vanity.  Either scope of the pendulous I-want-to-look-good-naked-a-la-fashion-magazine to i-hate-my-body-because-of-what-I-see-in-the-mirror is a form of vanity.  And each mocks a Designer who is perfect in both plan and execution. 

 

 I’ve had women friends tell me that going a day without makeup is torturous; and others who say being photographed without it resembles a boudoir session.   Men who spend hours lifting weights, others who run as though if they stop their demons will catch them.  I’ve heard little girls lament the hue of their skin, little boys undone over the color of their hair.  And I wonder, how must this grieve the Holy Spirit?  What must the Creator think when His creation bewails the beauty intrinsic in His creation, in His palette, His angles or lines, His slopes or curves?  Is He frustrated with our incessant striving for such a fictitious ideal, when He wove individuality and uniqueness into every space of creation?  Particularly when the God who oversaw every detail, each resplendent jewel, of the Temple in which His Spirit would be present, chooses to indwell our frames with His presence.  If Solomon’s temple was the most grand thing humans could build, how much more so must the body of each believer be in the eyes of the Lord if His Holy Spirit takes up residence therein?

Thus, my body, regardless of how I think of it [or how I have treated it] must be more beautiful than the Temple.  More dazzling than the arc of the presence.  More amazing than the holy of holies, because the Spirit of the Lord resides within me; and I am His creation for thus, even more exacting than the human-hewn temple.  And I shall treat it as such.  In its current state: without reaching my ideals, without countless months at the gym, without rigid nutritional makeovers.  Right now.  As I am.  As you are, beloved.
   
Yes, I should fuel my body with the nutrients that were designed for this purpose, not with what’s most convenient.  Yes, I should engage in physical activities that maintain my overall health and mobility.  And yes, I should encourage others to do the same.  But conversely, heeding the colloquialism “everything in moderation” is [mostly] permissible as well.[1]  So a life of rigid abstinence and disciplined striving towards physical perfection is not the most honoring course of action for a believer.  Because they can lead to stringent reliance and blind focus on self; which, because it removes focus from God the Creator, is sinful.

Therefore, in order to honor my maker, I will honor His creation.  Me.  My body.  Not the body gracing the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.  Not the body of my Pilates instructor.  No body that is not mine is something after which I will chase any more.  I will revel in the feats of which it has rendered me capable: bringing two amazing children into the world, and the inevitable changes that came with motherhood; still skiing and summiting five 14ers, in spite of an inherited bum knee; being able to preform, though still hesitant, wrist breaks, because one did and I’ve lost some range of motion because of it.  And I will continue to reach for new ones; but I will not allow any ideal from anywhere to displace my delight in my physical form.  And I beg you not to either.      

As you might know, I was recently involved in an auto accident [seatbelts and booster seats, people!]; and while everyone’s fine, there were a few days there when I didn’t feel fine.  I was chained to my bed or sofa with headaches, hobbled with pain, unable to sleep or move for all the bruises.  My loved ones were forced to give me a wide berth because even their gentlest touches hurt.  I couldn’t go to the gym, couldn’t play with my kids, couldn’t even walk through the grocery store at a normal pace.  It was pretty miserable and lonely.  Not because the people who care about me abandoned me, but because I felt unable to participate in life. 

This isn’t an exercise in self-pity; it was actually revelatory for me.  There are so many people who experience pain or limited mobility or have an illness that prevents them from living the life they expected.  And as cranky as I was after a week, I have the utmost respect for those who endure this battle every day.  My prayers this week are for the people who struggle with pain, with limitations in this physical body, with unseen disabilities, with illness that steals their physical state.  Whether it was self-inflicted; or whether it was inexplicable.  Join me in being mindful and praying for those for whom their physical body feels more like a prison than a gift.  For the Lord is the rescuer of prisoners and the redeemer of the physical, either here or in the time to come.      

 

Visit one of my favorite blogs and activists on this topic: Beauty Redefined to take back the definition of what’s truly beautiful. 

---

[1] See Ecclesiastes.  And note that while “everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial” (1 Corinthians 10:23).  And that there remain certain appetites that are outside the boundary of scripture and should therefore be avoided all together. 

 

Snowflakes and Poems: Who We Are

Declaration 7 [part I]:  The new creation that I am will inhabit her identity.  She will not long for the adventure or husks of others.  She will give others the freedom to do the same: to be whom they were created to be. 

For the Designer is the Greatest Poet, and we are His poetry.

For a very long time, I thought [and was taught] that there is only one way to be a good Christian woman.  I have seen numerous leaders, both national and within the context of my local worship, strive to put forth this ideal.  I have read countless authors, of books and blogs, who aim to provide practical ways to fit our sloppy selves into this mold.   Why?  Because we have this model seemingly preserved for us in Scripture.  She allegedly lurks at the end of Proverbs…or at least, that’s what we’ve been told.  But I am learning that this cookie-cutter image of Christian woman perfection isn’t what we’ve made it.  Lady Wisdom [Sophia, aka: Proverbs 31 woman] is not the sole standard for good Christian girls, nor one for which we should blindly strive.  Instead, she is an inclusion of the feminine in a time when women in cultures outside the nation of Israel were chattel.  God put females in His Word, and thus made their value, their worth to Him, important.  Worth writing down, and preserving for all generations.  So that they might not be ignored or demeaned or seen as less.  Thus, we should not assign to Lady Wisdom a role for which she was not intended: the only way to be an ideal-Christian-woman.    

I’ll confess: I am not a Women’s Ministry kind of gal, for a variety of reasons.  But it was only within the past two years, that I figured out (after two dear and wise mentors told me thus) this is okay.  I hate shopping.  Bores me to tears; except for once or twice a year when the mood strikes.  I’ll take a pedicure, but more often than not my toes are an embarrassment to ideal femininity.  I’d rather hike, snowshoe, ski, camp, dive under the water and get my hair wet than stay prettily coiffed and made-up.  I could spend all day trolling youtube for poets, listening to their lyricism not with my ears, but with the cavity their words carve into my chest.  But I could skip math altogether.  I love to read, would give up days upon days to linger in books; I love the cinema so much that I strove for a year to learn its craft and make it my own.  I write; but you already knew that.  And yes, I'm more than just a little bit of a nerd [to whit, I will now impress you with photos of my homemade Christmas decoration from last year].  

 Get the template here

I could go on and on about who I am; but that is not the purpose.  I don’t need to explore what makes me, me.  I need to be me.  I need to live out loud the poem that God created me to be—not a rerun of one He has already penned.        

God, the Creator of all things, isn’t a one-hit-wonder.  We each are different.  Oh thank God that we are!  And we were created to be thus.  God isn’t a maker of replicates.  He has not been interested in repeating the same creation over and over again since He spoke the myriad of galaxies into existence.  He designs purposefully, with precise intent.  He put you and I right here, for right now.  Not so that we may replay Christian victories of the past, or mimic ages long since gone.  But so that we may be us, in this time, to the glory and delight of our King.    

 And this one here

Consider snowflakes.  Out of the billions that fall from the sky each year, not one—not a solitary one—is identical to another.  If God can take such care in creating a tiny ice sculpture that will melt with the heat of the sun, how much more does He delight in making every person unique from any other?   Each one of us, since time began, is one of His poems.  And as such, not a single one of us is exactly like another.  As the poetry metaphor goes, there are those who are Emerson-esque, or Barrett-Browning, or Coelho, or Bennett, or Shakespeare, or even Cummings.  Some are wild and full of thunderous energy.  Others flow with melody and tenderness.  Still others stumble over the necessity to be known and understood.  And others, stoic and still, can only be appreciated when patiently mined for meaning deep within, by unrelenting love.          

 Finally, this one here

Rejoice in the fact that you are you, and no one else.  That you have your life, not that of another.  In this time, in no other period but this.  You are not called to be anyone other than who you are.  Yes, we are each called into greater Christ-likeness; but that is a Christ-likeness that can only be reflected in you.  You, without whom the world and time would be incomplete.  You, whom God delighted in planning before even the foundations of the world was formed.  You, whom God knows so well that He numbers the hairs on your head and knows what words will spill off your tongue before you speak them.  You, not any other person, alive or dead.  You.    

Though this post appears, at surface, to be aimed only at women, it also has application for Christian men.  We mustn’t assume that there aren’t ideals for men to strive to attain.  What about the chest-thumping leader who is gentle enough to weep at the sight of a newborn while courageous enough to run head-long into fire or war to save those under his care; a man who rises every morning with certainty of what he was called to do, and who tireless provides for his family, even to the detriment of his own well-being.  A man who devoutly captains family devotions as master theologian and prays over his family, out loud and daily, with the finesse of an evangelist.  Lion-slayer, foot-washer, witty apologist, and gentle psalmist, who flays his shield at the onset of danger and every moment of every day delights in the bride of his youth as flowery words pour from his lips lauding her place in his life.  Certainly even this hyperbolic ideal, a case for which could be made using scripture, is not what all men everywhere were designed to be.  And it is a mold into which mortal men will not fit.    

Within the twelve who walked with Jesus, and the women we find attending Him, we are privy to glimpses of separate personalities.  Jesus didn’t laude one over another.  So why do we?

Again, I urge you, be the you God created you to be.  For the glory of His Kingdom, and the delight of His heart.    

*For a practical exercise, check out the fourth paragraph of this article.