This is something I wrote a really long time ago, I can't really remember when... But it's probably one of my favorites. I don't really know what type of writing its classified under, but I used to do alot of writing like this.
Beautiful Courage
It takes more courage to be beautiful than it does to be ugly.
The terms "beautiful" and "ugly" really have nothing to do with physical appearance. Even in this world today they aren't often used to describe how someone looks. If you want to say that someone looks good today, you use words like, "hot", "sexy" or "cute". And the word "ugly" is generally considered offensive, so we resort to milder terms in reference to physical appearance. We will, however, use "ugly" to describe someone's behavior or attitude. But when someone says the words, "beautiful" or "ugly" it generally is referring to something deeper than just someone's face. In relationships a guy doesn't usually call a girl beautiful until the relationship has progressed to a certain point. Is it because her appearance has changed significantly to move from "hot" to "beautiful"? No, she probably looks generally the same as she did when they met. The reason he chooses to call her beautiful now is because he sees in her something deeper than he did before. He is using the term "beautiful" to describe all of her… who she is.
For a female, hearing the world beautiful in relation to her strikes an emotional core deeper than almost anything else can reach. This word, I believe, when used causes us to feel two different emotions at the same time. The first emotion we feel is the classic, warm, fuzzy, love. When we feel loved by someone, it makes us love them more. We feel safe; protected. But the second emotion we feel is fear. Fear that wonders if we will be able to do what it takes to continue earning that title? Or will we fail, fall short and thus be rejected? Essentially, its personal insecurity.
However, often times this insecurity is based on other insecurities. As a general rule, people tend to hide who they really are. Some hide more than others, but all hide. Whether they are hiding their whole personality and conforming to the world around them because they want others to like them or if they are only hiding a little piece of them… a desire, or a preference, they all hide. Most people hide needs. We don't want people to see our needs because we fear they will be viewed as weakness. The deeper the need, the more likely we are to hide it, and the more careful we are about making sure that nobody will ever see that it exists. This is why the most commonly hidden need is the need for love and acceptance. The need to feel loved is the deepest of all needs. But what we fail to realize is that we were created to need. God made our bodies to need food and water. But He also made our spirits to need love. There was a very specific reason for this. If we didn't need love, we wouldn't pursue Him (and all humans are pursuing Him in one form or another, but that's a different discussion for a different time).
But even though we do hide, we don't want to. We want to be able to fully expose ourselves as who we are, completely and be accepted for it. We want people to like us for who we are… not who or what we pretend to be. This is why when someone calls a girl beautiful, she feels fear. The subconscious thought process that goes through her head is something like, "He thinks I'm beautiful the way he sees me now. If I change that, he might not think I'm beautiful anymore. So I should keep putting up this mask so that he'll find me appealing." And so we continue to hide. Hiding causes us to hurt, because when we are accepted for our mask, we feel rejected for who we really are. But, of course, we can't show that hurt, so we hide it too.
Girls fear being called beautiful because they think that they are not. Yes, we will take our physical appearance and criticize it…but its often deeper than that. We could see a twin of us and not think they were not pretty… but the reason we think ourselves to be unappealing is because we see the ugly side of who we are. We see ourselves for our all. We doubt that if somebody else saw and knew everything about who we are, they wouldn't accept us because its not attractive.
This is the part where we become a bit confused. The fact of the matter is, we all have these shortcomings. All of us… not even just females. But we don't understand that they only way we can overcome our faults is to let them come to surface and deal with them. Its like when gold is being purified. You can't see the dirt and imperfection while the gold is solid. But when you melt it down (a painful process I would imagine), the dirt comes to the surface and only when its visible to the world can it be skimmed out. I'm sure so many of you have heard that analogy so many times before. But take a minute and think about it. What is that thing, that sin, that hurt or fear even that you keep buried inside of you? What is that insecurity? What part of you are you hiding? See, we like to go through "selective melting". We only let God melt down and get rid of the stuff we think would be somewhat easy to get rid of. Its like melting only the outer part of a chunk of gold. But the really dirty stuff is down deep. It takes time and perseverance to get rid of that dirt. Because not only is it hidden in a place that we protect the most, but it takes longer to get to the core than it does to get rid of dirt that's buried closer to the surface. It takes more intense heat, more time, more energy and a lot more patience. You have to just stick it out. Determine beforehand that you're gonna stick it out.
In the Bible it talks about us being tested by fire. Whatever survives the fire is quality and is precious.
The thing I've found is this. When you allow yourself to be real… to be completely and wholly you… flaws and all. When you're willing to admit where you fall short, no matter how embarrassing it is, that's when the people that matter most love you the most.
Its sort of like… you have to admit you're ugly before you can become beautiful. Its one of life's many seemingly contradictions. It doesn't make any sense, really. But that's how it is. It's a struggle. I'd love to say there's a cookie cutter answer for everyone to be able to overcome their fear and insecurity… but there's not. Everyone is different… therefore there's a different way that they conquer fear. The one quality that is constant, however, is courage. You gotta be able to not turn back half way through. Sometimes… oftentimes, you're going to come across things in yourself that you didn't even know were there and are usually uglier than you thought could exist. But you gotta work past it and let that surface too.
Now by surface I don't necessarily mean tell everyone about your flaws and say "accept me now." But I do mean that you need to let them come to surface instead of suppressing and hiding them. If you have a good circle of friends (or even just one good friend), someone you know won't leave you no matter what… then you can be more willing or open to literally talk about stuff with them than you would others obviously. The Bible says iron sharpens iron. They're iron, you're iron… let them help you overcome insecurities as you help them too. Sometimes, though, the things that need to surface need to come to surface only between you and God. Those, I think, are some of the hardest times you'll ever go through. But its those times that build your trust and dependence on Him.
That's why it takes more courage to be beautiful than it does to be ugly. To be ugly requires only that you stay the way you are now. To be beautiful requires you to, with the help of Jesus, face yourself, fight yourself, kill yourself and allow Jesus to live through you...
Beautiful Courage
It takes more courage to be beautiful than it does to be ugly.
The terms "beautiful" and "ugly" really have nothing to do with physical appearance. Even in this world today they aren't often used to describe how someone looks. If you want to say that someone looks good today, you use words like, "hot", "sexy" or "cute". And the word "ugly" is generally considered offensive, so we resort to milder terms in reference to physical appearance. We will, however, use "ugly" to describe someone's behavior or attitude. But when someone says the words, "beautiful" or "ugly" it generally is referring to something deeper than just someone's face. In relationships a guy doesn't usually call a girl beautiful until the relationship has progressed to a certain point. Is it because her appearance has changed significantly to move from "hot" to "beautiful"? No, she probably looks generally the same as she did when they met. The reason he chooses to call her beautiful now is because he sees in her something deeper than he did before. He is using the term "beautiful" to describe all of her… who she is.
For a female, hearing the world beautiful in relation to her strikes an emotional core deeper than almost anything else can reach. This word, I believe, when used causes us to feel two different emotions at the same time. The first emotion we feel is the classic, warm, fuzzy, love. When we feel loved by someone, it makes us love them more. We feel safe; protected. But the second emotion we feel is fear. Fear that wonders if we will be able to do what it takes to continue earning that title? Or will we fail, fall short and thus be rejected? Essentially, its personal insecurity.
However, often times this insecurity is based on other insecurities. As a general rule, people tend to hide who they really are. Some hide more than others, but all hide. Whether they are hiding their whole personality and conforming to the world around them because they want others to like them or if they are only hiding a little piece of them… a desire, or a preference, they all hide. Most people hide needs. We don't want people to see our needs because we fear they will be viewed as weakness. The deeper the need, the more likely we are to hide it, and the more careful we are about making sure that nobody will ever see that it exists. This is why the most commonly hidden need is the need for love and acceptance. The need to feel loved is the deepest of all needs. But what we fail to realize is that we were created to need. God made our bodies to need food and water. But He also made our spirits to need love. There was a very specific reason for this. If we didn't need love, we wouldn't pursue Him (and all humans are pursuing Him in one form or another, but that's a different discussion for a different time).
But even though we do hide, we don't want to. We want to be able to fully expose ourselves as who we are, completely and be accepted for it. We want people to like us for who we are… not who or what we pretend to be. This is why when someone calls a girl beautiful, she feels fear. The subconscious thought process that goes through her head is something like, "He thinks I'm beautiful the way he sees me now. If I change that, he might not think I'm beautiful anymore. So I should keep putting up this mask so that he'll find me appealing." And so we continue to hide. Hiding causes us to hurt, because when we are accepted for our mask, we feel rejected for who we really are. But, of course, we can't show that hurt, so we hide it too.
Girls fear being called beautiful because they think that they are not. Yes, we will take our physical appearance and criticize it…but its often deeper than that. We could see a twin of us and not think they were not pretty… but the reason we think ourselves to be unappealing is because we see the ugly side of who we are. We see ourselves for our all. We doubt that if somebody else saw and knew everything about who we are, they wouldn't accept us because its not attractive.
This is the part where we become a bit confused. The fact of the matter is, we all have these shortcomings. All of us… not even just females. But we don't understand that they only way we can overcome our faults is to let them come to surface and deal with them. Its like when gold is being purified. You can't see the dirt and imperfection while the gold is solid. But when you melt it down (a painful process I would imagine), the dirt comes to the surface and only when its visible to the world can it be skimmed out. I'm sure so many of you have heard that analogy so many times before. But take a minute and think about it. What is that thing, that sin, that hurt or fear even that you keep buried inside of you? What is that insecurity? What part of you are you hiding? See, we like to go through "selective melting". We only let God melt down and get rid of the stuff we think would be somewhat easy to get rid of. Its like melting only the outer part of a chunk of gold. But the really dirty stuff is down deep. It takes time and perseverance to get rid of that dirt. Because not only is it hidden in a place that we protect the most, but it takes longer to get to the core than it does to get rid of dirt that's buried closer to the surface. It takes more intense heat, more time, more energy and a lot more patience. You have to just stick it out. Determine beforehand that you're gonna stick it out.
In the Bible it talks about us being tested by fire. Whatever survives the fire is quality and is precious.
The thing I've found is this. When you allow yourself to be real… to be completely and wholly you… flaws and all. When you're willing to admit where you fall short, no matter how embarrassing it is, that's when the people that matter most love you the most.
Its sort of like… you have to admit you're ugly before you can become beautiful. Its one of life's many seemingly contradictions. It doesn't make any sense, really. But that's how it is. It's a struggle. I'd love to say there's a cookie cutter answer for everyone to be able to overcome their fear and insecurity… but there's not. Everyone is different… therefore there's a different way that they conquer fear. The one quality that is constant, however, is courage. You gotta be able to not turn back half way through. Sometimes… oftentimes, you're going to come across things in yourself that you didn't even know were there and are usually uglier than you thought could exist. But you gotta work past it and let that surface too.
Now by surface I don't necessarily mean tell everyone about your flaws and say "accept me now." But I do mean that you need to let them come to surface instead of suppressing and hiding them. If you have a good circle of friends (or even just one good friend), someone you know won't leave you no matter what… then you can be more willing or open to literally talk about stuff with them than you would others obviously. The Bible says iron sharpens iron. They're iron, you're iron… let them help you overcome insecurities as you help them too. Sometimes, though, the things that need to surface need to come to surface only between you and God. Those, I think, are some of the hardest times you'll ever go through. But its those times that build your trust and dependence on Him.
That's why it takes more courage to be beautiful than it does to be ugly. To be ugly requires only that you stay the way you are now. To be beautiful requires you to, with the help of Jesus, face yourself, fight yourself, kill yourself and allow Jesus to live through you...
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