The Comparison Epidemic

        After a long night of restless thinking I decided to write a more vulnerable post. The temptation of comparison is almost constantly knocking on my brain and sending piles of hate mail to my heart. Comparison is the kind of evil torture that you can’t escape because it is literally everywhere. The porn addict can throw away his computer and the person who eats too many donuts can start shopping at a health store, but what can the person who is never satisfied in their own body do? There is always someone more beautiful. Whether it’s someone with a more delightful personality, with more talent, more hipster pictures on instagram, more ambition or more enthusiasm, there is always someone with more. They are the someone’s who remind us of the lack we believe to be living with. But, through this vicious habit, I have begun to think more deeply into what beauty is…

   Beauty  noun:  

1.       a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that is pleasing.

     This definition produced in me a revelation that I believe will change my life. It does not say that pleases men, or pleases woman, pleases vogue magazine, pleases facebook, pleases those random people you are sure were judging you at the mall.  You see, even as the world tries to define it,  beauty is subjective. In Asia there are woman buying soap to lighten their skin, in America there are woman spending hours under harmful rays to darken their skin. In Europe there are woman throwing up every meal to get rid of the roles on their tummies, in Africa there are woman begging for food so they can finally have a full tummy... 

I can buy the most in style clothes, have an awesome hair cut and wear the perfect make up, and I will still never be satisfied. Even if I did manage to look just like the girls on the t.v  it still wouldn’t be enough, because the honest truth is

 I will NEVER be beautiful, until I believe I am.

 American culture has defined beauty, as something that has to be worked for, something that has to be put on. I absolutely refuse to believe that this is the extent of what we were supposed to know as human beauty. I have a complex body. My legs can dance, my arms can embrace, my hands can create, my eyes can see, my lips shape words that inspire and my mind can change the world… isn’t that beautiful enough?

Our bodies are the homes that hold our soul… that, is beauty.

I hate to seem dramatic, but beauty is either spiritual and deeper than we think, or it is completely unattainable and fake. Don't get me wrong, I believe that attraction is very real and not a bad thing. I for one am attracted to bearded mountain men, and am more attracted to myself when my hair is curled, but letting those things shape my idea of beauty is ridiculous. Just look at it this way... if physical attractiveness determined whether or not someone was beautiful, some people would never have a chance. Is the woman who has battled cancer and stayed courageous for her family less beautiful than the one who spends an excess amount of time keeping their hair perfectly manicured? Does the woman who uses every face product known to man, have more beauty than the woman whose face is riddled with scars due to abuse? Here's the kicker, how about those people who are born with a mental disability that deforms the way they look. Who has the right to say that they are not beautiful? Who gave them that power?... The answer, is me. Every time I compare myself to someone else and say that I am not beautiful , because I don't look like them, I am feeding more and more fire into a lie that is TORMENTING woman, around the globe. An epidemic that is so viscous, aggressive and life threatening, yet sneaks in as subtle as a glance in the mirror. I am creating my own worst enemy, and starting today, I am NO longer a slave to an idol that is not even real. Beauty is not something that can be achieved, it is something that NEEDS to be UNLOCKED. I have learned that beauty is in every heart. It is in our DNA. There is a Great Creator, who breathed beauty into every stroke of our being and is longing for the day that we realize that being beautiful is not something we get, it's something we are. 

You are beautiful, because you are altogether lovely and pleasing to the one who created you.

Stained Glass Me

    
          Stained glass windows, though beautiful and inspiring, 

never start as so.  These works of art that line the walls of 

ancient cathedrals, were once just piles of broken glass. This 

is me in an object. A stained glass window thoughtfully 

crafted by an artist of superior skill. An artist so incredible, 

innovative and magnificent, He could see a mastepiece in a 

shattered mess. These pieces could never spring from the 

ground to make themselves beautiful. They needed that 

gentle, detailed hand to place each piece wih startegy and 

purpose creating a picture, or destiny if you will, better than 

that shattered pile ever imagined. " To all who mourn in 

Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes." Though I 

saw myelf as just a useless pile of sharp, bitter, waste, He has 

taken every trial, pain, sin and shame, and made something 

that catches the eye. Something that displays the redemptive 

heart of the artist. Each piece is still 100% me, now with 

100% Him. My brokeness a beacon of light, radiating the 

color of His love.