Pretty Woman

We sing a lot of songs about how God is beautiful. And how do I know that He is beautiful? Because He made men and women in His image, and women are absolutely beautiful. And that's how I know that God is beautiful.

It's crazy that most girls don't think that they are beautiful. And no matter how many times you tell a girl that she is especially stunning, she still has her doubts. I've heard husbands say that they have to tell their wife "I love you" several times a day and yet it's never enough to resolve their wife's insecurities on the matter. I read that women not only need to know intellectually that they are loved but that they need to feel loved. And if a woman doesn't feel loved then she will begin to self-destruct and then all hell breaks loose. In short, a woman who doesn't feel loved doesn't feel like a woman. And it all comes back to beauty. A woman's worth is tethered to her beauty. If a woman doesn't feel loved then she doesn't feel beautiful. And if she doesn't feel beautiful then she feels worthless. Beauty is of utmost importance to the psyche of women. That's why they are constantly swapping lines like "Ahh, you look so cute! I love your hair!" One girl told me that girls will settle for trying to be sexy if they feel like they can't be beautiful. The difference being that beauty is holistic while "sexy" is only external. And so they settle for a shell of true beauty. A mask.

Anyway, I can't help but see the parallels between us and God. It seems that most of us are very insecure about how God feels about us. His Word tells us over and over that He loves us, and that He demonstrated His love toward us. We know intellectually that He loves us and yet we don't feel it most of the time. So we doubt our God-given identity and we feel worthless. So what does it take to feel loved? To feel priceless?

Sometimes, I think that God feels obligated to love me, because He loves everybody. And so there is a part of me that doesn't feel very special if He loves everybody. Maybe, that's the struggle for women. Maybe, that's why they try to find unhealthy validation from guys. After all, it's the idiosyncracies in our identity that are longing to be recognized and appreciated. That's not always pride, we just want to feel known. Even though God sees women as beautiful, they struggle to feel uniquely beautiful. It's like their dad telling them that they are beautiful, for some reason it's not enough. They want a second opinion. So life becomes an endless beauty pageant with countless judges.

So, what exactly is beauty? Why is each and every iridescent sunset so beautiful? What makes the crooning of a violin so beautiful? Why is the poutpouri of Christmas beautiful? There is something that beauty does to our hearts that is difficult to articulate, you just know it when you experience it. It brushes past the senses like a ghost slipping through walls. And perhaps that is why so many women don't feel beautiful, because they aren't quite sure what it really is. But maybe, true beauty is simply a window to God. Wherever we see beauty we see a hue of God. God is not insecure about His beauty, He invented beauty, He defines beauty. And so the more we become like Him then the more beautiful we are. The Bible refers to the beauty of God's holiness. Holiness is awe-inspiring. So if we are resembling that holiness of God then we can also be completely secure in His beauty. And I believe that each and every person exposes a unique angle on God's beauty. We are not the same, and yet we all reflect different sides of the same prism.

With that said, men are wired to appreciate beauty and women want to know that they are beautiful. What a glorious design! But there is a chasm of difference between a woman allowing a man to appreciate her beauty vs. allowing a man to define her beauty. That is God's role, He is the aficionado, the appraiser. A mere man is never to be put in the place of God, in the place of Judge. What's more, I am convinced that only men who have tasted the beauty of God can truly savor the beauty of a woman of God. Godless men know nothing of divine beauty.