Beautiful

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Most of us have been conditioned to accept certain standards of beauty. If God sees beauty in our brokenness, then what do we see beauty in? Do we see beauty in creation? Do we see beauty in destruction? Do we see beauty in our pain? Do we see beauty in sickness and death? What if our life story was weaved with a colorful collection of our successes and failures sown together with our joy and pain? What if our weakness makes us beautiful? Our need for a savior and our inability to save ourselves made us God’s most beautiful creation. We are beautiful because we are flawed. We are beautiful because of our imperfections.

Broken

Most of us may not realize that we are all broken. We all have scars. We have open wounds and sore spots. We have calluses. We have areas of our lives that did not heal properly. We have issues, but these are the things that make us beautiful. These are the things that shape and mold us. These are the things that strengthen us. We are all beautifully broken.

There is a method of mending in Japanese culture called “Kintsugi.” It is related to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which calls for seeing beauty in the flawed or imperfect. The repair method was also born from the Japanese feeling of mottainai, which expresses regret when something is wasted. Our scars are not wasted. Our wounds are not in vain. Our brokenness has a purpose, and our purpose is beautiful.

Glory

“A woman in her glory, a woman of beauty, is a woman who is not striving to become beautiful or worthy or enough. She knows in her quiet center where God dwells that he find her beautiful, has deemed her worthy, and in him, she is enough."- John Eldredge
 

You are enough. I don't know when we stop believing those words. I don't know if somehow we forgot that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. Maybe we got lost in the weight we gained. Maybe we got lost in the dreams we forgot. Maybe we got lost in all the titles. Maybe we got lost when we changed our name. Maybe we got lost when the plans changed. We are enough. We are beautiful just the way we are. We are worthy. We are glorious. We are his creation. We are his glory.