On Beauty

There is a new commercial floating about cyberspace right now.  It's a thing put out by Dove, in which a series of women sit down with a forensic artist.  Each woman describes her own face and the face of another woman, who she has just met, as the artist sketches what he hears her describing.  In each case (at least, in the cases we see in the commercial) the picture of the woman as she describes herself is less lovely than the picture of the woman as others describe her.  The conclusion of the commercial is, "You are more beautiful than you think."

It's made me think about the whole concept of beauty, and measuring up to standards. Let me speak out of my own experiences.

For years, I struggled with the concept of "beauty".  Perhaps I was one of the few women out there who didn't want to be beautiful (although there may be more out there than I know who feel the same way).  I didn't want the attention beauty brings.  It felt dangerous.  I wanted to be invisible.  For years, I tried hard to be invisible.

For years, I struggled with my weight.  I was heavy, way too heavy, unhealthily so.  I lost weight, a lot of it, and suddenly found myself in the "beauty camp", a camp in which I was wretchedly unhappy.   I'm now somewhere in between, not nearly as heavy as I was at my heaviest, but not as thin as I was at my thinnest.  Sometimes that bothers me;  sometimes it's not worth the very hard work it is to maintain that lowest weight, and I find myself drifting closer to acceptance of where I am right now.

For years, I rejected the world's standards of measuring my value by my looks.  I wanted to be known for anything but how I looked.  I wanted to be known as smart, capable, professional, successful.  And I was all those things.

And here's what I've learned in the struggle.

First, like it or not, fight against it or not, the world judges us by how we look.  Period.  I may be more beautiful than what I think, or I may not be, but the fact is that not everyone is beautiful, and in the world, that matters.  Doors opened for me when I was thin that had never been opened before.  People noticed me.  They smiled more.  They were quicker to help.  And I was suddenly viewed with suspicion by those who were heavy.  I was accepted for meeting the standard by those who met the standard, and I was condemned for meeting the standard by those who didn't.

Second, changing the standard of beauty does not really change anything.  I might be successful at changing the standard of beauty to be pleasantly plump and older, with naturally coloured hair and no make-up, but that still leaves some people "in" and some people "out".  Someone, somewhere, won't measure up.

So let's say I can somehow change the standard by which my value is measured from "beauty" to something else.  Maybe the world no longer judges me by how I look, but by what I accomplish.  (Although the world already judges me by what I accomplish.)  What happens to those people who just aren't particularly brave, particularly strong, particularly clever, or particularly accomplished at pretty much anything?  Do they have no value? You see, whenever we set our value by an external standard, there are those that are "in" and those that are "out".  Someone will always not measure up.  Someone will always be "more" and someone will always be "less".  That's the nature of a standard.

The problem is not with the fact that our society measures value by beauty.  The problem isn't the narrow standard of beauty to which we hold.  The solution is not broadening the definition of beauty, or even redefining our measure of success with other attributes.  No, I believe that the problem is, at its root, that we don't believe we have value.  We do not understand our intrinsic worth.  The lie is not that we are not as ugly as we think we are, but that we are not worthy.

We are not worthy unless we are beautiful.
We are not worthy unless we are strong.
We are not worthy unless we are accomplished.
We are not worthy unless we are rich.  Or married.  Or parents.  Or drive a nice car.  Or have a good RRSP.  Or whatever you want to fill in, we are not worthy unless we have that or are that.
We are not worthy.

And that is a lie.

Because we ARE worthy.  We have intrinsic value because we are created in the image of the invisible God, and he has declared that creation "very good".

I am worthy.
I am valued and cherished and loved.  I am precious beyond words.
I am a treasured possession.

What does it really matter if I am more beautiful than I think, or less beautiful than I think?  The King of the Universe loves me, warts and all.  He loves me at my best.  He loves me at my worst.  He loved me at my heaviest.  He loved me at my lightest.  He's particularly fond of me right now.


He is the measure of my value.  Not you.  Not Dove.  Not the world.  Not what I look like.  Not what I accomplish.  He is the measure of my value.

And he says this:

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God"  (1 Peter 2:9-10).

What more could I possibly want?