What is beauty?
Worldy beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. I grew up in a middle class caucasian setting. Beauty was skinny. Beauty was size 0. Beauty was something almost UNATTAINABLE. No one was ever small enough. The less curves the better. Small girls constantly had the words on their lips, "I'm so fat." In my frustration, and not wanting to feed their attention-seeking mechanism, I would reply, "Dang you are." All jokes aside, I always fought for that too.
Being a year-round athlete and in amazing shape in high school, I realized that no matter how great of shape I was in, my size 10 or 12 would never be a size 0. That was rough as a white girl when the world around me told me beauty was small.
THEN I MOVED TO CHICAGO. I remember when, for the first time, I was the only white girl in a work setting: my summer at Sunshine Cove. For 8 weeks I was the minority. During one of the first weeks, one of the girls started joking about how I was "THICK". THICK?! I thought.... excuse me? See, thick was NOT a compliment in the white world. I took offense. Yet, because of the close community we had created, these beautiful black women explained. Many people in their culture say thick is beautiful. Curves are a good thing, in many cases, a great thing. CULTURE SHOCK. This mindset was opposite of how I had ever thought. My culture told me skin and bones. Now THICK IS IN!? Look at what I had been missing out on!! Well after 5 years of being a part of Sunshine and the South side, African-American culture has been something that I identify with just as much as my white culture.
MY CURVES ARE BEAUTIFUL. I, over the past 5 years, have developed a love for my body. I laughed as I told a friend a few days ago about this mindset change. Never was I self-conscious, I was always a confident young girl, but it is crazy that from culture to culture BEAUTY CHANGES. Even from one person the next beauty is viewed differently. One black man may find a thick girl attractive while another looks to the small girl as perfect. One white girl may find a trim muscular man as perfect while the next sees the husky man with a belly as handsome. Light skin, dark skin. Long hair, short hair. Tall, short. Athletic or not.
Proverbs 31:30 says, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised."
It took a culture change to show me this, but I pray it doesn't take that for every woman and girl out there. MY BEAUTIES: Know that you are gorgeous! I tell you all this daily, but the joy of the Lord and his fingerprint of Himself on you is the most beautiful thing in the world. We are made in His image... Even me and my curves. ;)
This new song by Pro shares my heart even further. Listen to him sharing his heart about the song, and then the song "Beautiful" that follows...
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