Imperishable Beauty

I, like every girl that I know, desire to be noticed and seen as beautiful. I spend up to hours each day staring at myself in the mirror wishing the bags under my eyes weren't so big, my eyes worked perfectly together and my teeth actually straight. When I finish defining my eyes with eyeliner and straightening my bangs to create the perfect contrast with my curly hair, then I feel slightly more confident to go out and face the world of perfection and comparison. But there is always a prettier girl out there that I compare myself to. A girl who has less frizz in her hair and a smile that could be on a dental commercial. It makes me sick. Then again, it's not like I want my smile to be on TV anyways, I just want people to look at me and say, "wow, what a beautiful girl".


For one thing, the comparison game is a trap in which you will always lose. Us humans live and breathe comparison. We look at other people's looks, their relationships, their stuff, etc. And we always want what others have. Or we look at what others don't have to make ourselves feel better. That's such crap though and it's never enough, we continue to do it over and over again. How insecure are we with ourselves and how cruel are we to use comparison to feed our own prideful hearts. Pride is not a beautiful thing and the highs we live off of when we feel better because of comparison never lasts.
For another, being beautiful is so much more in definition that the world offers. I've had to rethink what I understand that word to mean and a verse that's given me a broader definition is 1 Peter 3:4


Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.


I think of being beautiful as the outward adorning when in reality it goes deeper. I'm not even saying that looks don't matter from the outside. I still want to look in the mirror every morning and think, "wow what a beautiful girl". But there is a greater depth of beauty found in a pure heart. A heart that beholds a 'gentle and quiet spirit'. It has to do with character, with grace, and with love that overflows from a person because Jesus is alive in them. This is the kind of beautiful I want to be. I desire a pure heart- one that is made up of kindness, sincerity, selflessness, generosity, and a quiet confidence in it's sole identity in the most beautiful Jesus Christ.


I want to be beautiful. To feel beautiful on the outside and emulate beauty from the inside. I want the imperishable beauty that only comes from Jesus Christ who is continually making my spirit to look more like him- the most beautiful one.