Photo by: Kayla Lynn

I don’t know about you but often the world tells me my beauty comes from my physical. It can be exhausting trying to keep up with the strict regimens of diet, exercise and having a completely stocked closet of beautiful clothes.  Not to mention all the money I spend on hair, makeup, skincare and body upkeep.  It can be exhausting.  God convicted me a few years back on how much time and money I spent on all these items.

God revealed to me that my beauty does not come from outward adornments.

I Peter 3:3-4

^“3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornments, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. ⁴ Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

I don’t know about you but reading this made feel a whole lot of burden release off my shoulders.  The whole pressure to be a certain weight and look a certain way, completely diminished.

Now let’s go back to the scripture Song of Solomon 4: 7 ” O my love you are altogether beautiful and fair. There is no flaw IN you”.  I looked up the definition of “in”;

1. on the inside, within
2. located or situated within, inner, internal

It’s not that all the things I was focusing my attention on were bad things, it was my heart towards them. I thought I had to keep up with all these things to be beautiful, but he said no my love you are already beautiful just as you are.  No makeup, skincare, hair product etc.. will ever make you beautiful.  You are already are beautiful.

After this realization, I gave these things to God. I surrendered them and ask him how I should view these things in my life.  More on this in the future, but let’s get back to the scripture.

God didn’t say “O my love you are altogether beautiful and fair. There is no flaw ON you.  He said there is no flaw IN you.  If beauty was only external like we use the word in our culture on a day to day basis he wouldn’t have said in he would have said on.

If you google the word ” beauty” you will see that more often than not it is being used to describe external beauty.  Look at magazines, newspapers, and books and see how people use the word beautiful.  I believe our vanity has given a new definition of the word beauty that it was never intended to be.

Photo by: La Caravan

I have even heard parents say things like I don’t call my daughter beautiful because I don’t want her to believe she is only beautiful, she is also smart, has a great heart and is a good person.  It saddens me that because we don’t understand the definition of beauty, we are taking the gift away from our children to be told they are beautiful.  God intended for his daughters to be told they are beautiful.  He tells us in scripture over and over again that we are his precious beautiful daughters.  I mean as a woman I love the being called beautiful, there is something deep and soothing about being called beautiful.  Being called “Hot” or “Sexy” or “Pretty” or whatever other trendy words that are used to describe external beauty, it doesn’t do it for me. If I am being truly honest it kind of annoys me.  But I know its got nothing to do with me and all to do with the person saying it to me.

It has taken me 40 years to understand that my beauty does not come from my external.  In my past I don’t ever recall someone telling me I was beautiful on the inside, it was always external beauty.  I am sure someone could have complimented me on internal beauty back then, but I just don’t remember because back then I only valued compliments of my external beauty.

Nowadays I try not to judge people for seeing my beauty that way, again it took me 40 years to figure it out on my own. I know they are only trying to compliment me.  My biggest compliment that I would love to hear from anyone is how a message or post on the blog helped them to see beauty in a different light. Beauty as it was always intended.  I hope to sow a seed in people’s heart to help to get the world back to the true definition of beauty.  Are you with me?

Love in abundance,

Jamie

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