Defining Beauty

Why can’t beautiful include me?

Our American culture constantly pushes us to be thinner, to have thicker hair, bigger eyes, straighter teeth, a smaller nose because that’s the standard of beauty we are all supposed to want.

But why can’t my thicker body, shorter stature, and medium-sized nose be beautiful? Why do I listen to a culture that tells me I need to be thinner? Why can’t the definition of beautiful be me too?

I have been given my body as a gift, and I’ll have it the rest of my life. Why should I dislike it? Contempt for my own body only breeds when I am comparing it against someone else’s.

It’s so tempting to compare myself against all the billboards, the advertisements and signs at the mall. The media invites me to compare myself to the Hollywood actresses and music stars I see on magazines and TV. They try to make me feel like I am missing something and I am simply not enough without…their latest product.

But if my beauty always depends on the latest product or what kind of women I compare myself to –then I am always and forever chasing to be beautiful but never quite attaining it.

What if I already am beautiful? God, with more power and authority than culture has declared that the definition of beauty does include me. So with the writer of Psalm 139:14, I too will “praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”