I still have a hard time believing it, but I am learning to accept it. Sometimes I can even see myself through my husband’s eyes. Yes, to him I’m the most beautiful creature on the planet.
The more I learn that truth, the more I live it. I know he thinks I’m beautiful no matter how I’m dressed. I am beautiful when my hair dries flat after spending the afternoon at the pool. I’m beautiful when I’m all dolled up for church or some other away-from-home activity. I’m beautiful at bedtime when the makeup comes off and I really have no concern for how I look.
Even so, I enjoy putting the extra effort into acting beautiful for him. I know what outfits he especially likes. I might not put makeup on every day, but I like to make sure my hair looks decent. I don’t dress up every day, but I don’t dress down very often either. I want to look nice for him.
Because he sees me as beautiful, I want to live in a way that fulfills what he already sees. I want to live like I believe him.
Sometimes that’s hard, though. His opinion doesn’t match the world’s. He sees beauty differently because I define beauty in his eyes. But sometimes I get distracted and feel as if I need to fulfill the world’s concept of beautiful. I don’t naturally fit that concept. I’m too short. I’m too pudgy. I’m not built right. I don’t care enough about fashion or the latest styles. Yet I still convince myself that in order to be beautiful for my husband, I must fit the standard definition of beauty. I must turn other heads as well. Not necessarily other men’s heads – I really don’t want to do that. But, I must turn the world’s head.
I have to be reigned back in sometimes. I have to remember who already sees me as beautiful. I don’t have to turn his head. He already sees only me. I don’t have to make myself beautiful for him. I already am. I must simply choose to live out what I already am.
Can you see the spiritual parallels here?
In God’s eyes, I am His child. I already live in that place, and He cannot love me any more than He does now. He loves me to the fullest, and He sees His handiwork in me. When I abide in Him and live in the Spirit, I am simply fulfilling what He already sees.
But as a Christian community, we tend to have a mental image of what a child of God should look like. It’s not that our mental image is wrong. It’s just that sometimes we have a tendency to get distracted from living in the Spirit. We feel we have to check off the list of resemblances to the church’s mentality of our spiritual walk. We need to fit a mold. We feel like we must fit the image of an ideal Christian in order to truly be beautiful to our heavenly Father.
Guess what…we’re already there. When we were ugly and dead, He loved us. He rescued us. He turned us into His children. We’re already there! We don’t have to live up to an image of the perfect Christian. We just have to live out what we already are.
I am beautiful to my beloved. I am loved child of my heavenly Father. I don’t have to become those things. I already am. Today I choose to live in fulfillment of those truths.
Not Quite Ordinary 