Beautiful
I read a quote awhile ago that says, "Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open."
So this is what has been disturbing me. This is me being split open and honest and telling you what I've been warring with, what I've kept quiet about for awhile now.
I don't feel beautiful.
Like deep down in that unshakeable place in your soul where, as a woman, you should feel beautiful--I just don't.
LET'S BE CLEAR: I don't hate myself by any means. Life is too short to hate yourself.
I just don't feel
lovely
captivating
worthy
interesting
intriguing
...beautiful.
all of those things that I think women want to feel.
I'm not even sure why, I just don't. I'm frustrated, and I've been trying really hard to figure it out.
Girls have "fat days" or days where they just don't feel beautiful, I get that. That's a real thing-ask any woman you know!
But this hasn't been about fat days or my physical appearance. This hasn't been a day or week for me; this has been a season for me, and it's been really painful. I've warred with it silently because, what do your friends lovingly do when you try to explain that you don't feel beautiful? They tell you that you are, which isn't really helpful to me, as grateful as I am for them trying to encourage me. I'm surrounded with incredible people who tell me often that I'm beautiful, so it's not like I'm not hearing it. That isn't meant to sound conceited, so please don't read it that way. But what it is, is that when they're repeating it over and over and I don't feel it, it sort of makes me feel worse. Like I feel guilty for not believing what other people see....What's wrong with me that I can't see what they see? I'm so hard on myself about it. It's a stupid, vicious cycle.
I'm less bothered by not feeling beautiful as I am bothered with trying to figure out why I don't feel beautiful. Nothing's happened that should make me feel that way; no one has told me I'm ugly or that I need to lose weight or anything like that.
And I'm a firm believer that beauty runs deeper than physical appearances. I could write a whole other blog about that. This isn't just about my physical appearance, even though that is always part of my struggle. The number on the scale is always in the back of my mind. I could curl my hair and paint my nails every day, but I don't think that will help. Maybe I'll feel prettier if I lose 15 pounds or curl my hair and paint my nails every day and always dress up. But I don't think that will help my overall struggle with feeling holistically beautiful. Some of the most beautiful people I know aren't some of the most attractive people I know, and some of the most attractive people I know are some of the least beautiful; there's a difference in being attractive and being beautiful.
I'm not saying I think I'm a terrible person or that I have an ugly soul.
I just don't feel beautiful.
I've prayed so hard about it. I've asked Jesus to show me how I'm beautiful, begging to really feel it. I've been going back and forth between prayer and telling myself to try and get over it.
A few Sundays ago at church, we sang a song I've sang a million times that says "You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me." And about the second time through the song I just stopped singing and stood there. I think Jesus is sneaky, and it's not a coincidence that those words were in that song when I've been struggling so much with not feeling those words...lovely, worthy. It was supposed to be a song about God, but I think that was God telling me "You are lovely, worthy, wonderful. You are everything I made you to be. Why are you letting your fickle mind interfere with living within the promise of what I say you are?" But I still wasn't convinced, I still didn't feel it.
A few Thursdays ago with a group of friends, we talked about the sermon from that Sunday. We talked about ways that God is good, whether it's the people he has brought into our life or situations where doors closed that turned out to be good endings and led us different places. It was a good talk. It was really encouraging. I know that God is good, no matter what. It's something I've chosen to believe even when I don't understand it....even when I don't feel it.
So here's what I've decided: Believing I'm beautiful is a choice. Just like choosing to love your spouse even when you don't always "feel it" and when it's not easy, choosing to do homework instead of watching Netflix, choosing to believe in Jesus even when it doesn't make sense. Choosing to feel beautiful is a choice I have to make, even if I have to choose it every day. I can choose to believe how I feel or choose to believe what I know. One of my friends recently said that we have to live by what we know because our feelings are circumstantial. They're fleeting. I don't know about you, but my feelings change a lot. If I lived by what I felt, I would have a lot more depressed, not-feeling-beautiful days than beautiful days. Just like I believe joy is different than happiness, I believe knowing I'm beautiful and feeling beautiful aren't always the same thing.
I'm convinced that part of choosing to feel beautiful includes choosing beautiful ways of living. I think Jesus is beautiful, and if I'm made in his image and if I love like he does then I have that beauty in me, and I can reveal that beauty in the things around me. I think speaking life into people and using encouraging words is beautiful, and I can do that all day long because I love words-especially words that bring life and are spoken with purpose. I believe choosing good instead of evil is beautiful, and I hope I choose good over and over and over again. I believe being warm and welcoming and hospitable are all beautiful things, and I choose to be those things because I feel this desire to make people feel noticed and loved and important. I think honesty, like the raw kind of honesty and how my heart just bled all over this blog for you to read, I think that is beautiful and I choose honesty instead of hiding. Those are the kinds of beautiful that you know even when you don't feel.
I want to be the kind of beautiful that is at peace and leaves other people feeling at peace when they're around me, not leave people feeling uneasy because I'm always striving and I'm never enough and I'm always warring with myself.
Truthfully, I felt so awkward about writing this post, because I don't want people to think it's for attention or pity, and I don't want a lot of people telling me I'm beautiful after they read this. But I knew I should write it because I know I'm not the only one out there who doesn't feel beautiful. And because it's consumed my thoughts for a long time now and I wanted to be set free from it.
I hope that this blog post sets you free from whatever it is you are trying so hard to feel and pushes you to trust in what you know.
This doesn't have to end at beauty--whatever you're struggling with that you don't feel-strong enough, brave enough, good enough, qualified enough, equipped enough-you have to choose to believe that you are, even when you don't feel it.
So no, I don't feel beautiful. Maybe I will tomorrow, or the next day, or a month from now. Who knows. If I don't feel beautiful, it doesn't mean that I'm not. It just means that I don't feel it, and I refuse to let my feelings overpower what I know deep down in my bones. I know that I'm beautiful because I choose beautiful things and try to unveil beauty wherever I go, and because Jesus made me in his image and he can't make ugly things, so I'm going to choose to believe that.
Maybe this blog didn't make any sense to you. Maybe you think you have to feel something to truly know it. That's ok; whatever helps you sleep at night. This is just a revelation that I've come to that maybe someone else needed to hear.
I don't want this post to be depressing. I want it to be hopeful! Thank you for reading something I was really scared to share. I hope you found some truth in it. I hope you found some permission here.
May you, in that unshakeable place in your soul, believe that you are every kind of enough that you need to be. May you choose to believe what you know and not what you feel, and may you choose to even when you don't want to. May you find a certain kind of freedom in that place of knowing that runs deeper than feeling.
So this is what has been disturbing me. This is me being split open and honest and telling you what I've been warring with, what I've kept quiet about for awhile now.
I don't feel beautiful.
Like deep down in that unshakeable place in your soul where, as a woman, you should feel beautiful--I just don't.
LET'S BE CLEAR: I don't hate myself by any means. Life is too short to hate yourself.
I just don't feel
lovely
captivating
worthy
interesting
intriguing
...beautiful.
all of those things that I think women want to feel.
I'm not even sure why, I just don't. I'm frustrated, and I've been trying really hard to figure it out.
Girls have "fat days" or days where they just don't feel beautiful, I get that. That's a real thing-ask any woman you know!
But this hasn't been about fat days or my physical appearance. This hasn't been a day or week for me; this has been a season for me, and it's been really painful. I've warred with it silently because, what do your friends lovingly do when you try to explain that you don't feel beautiful? They tell you that you are, which isn't really helpful to me, as grateful as I am for them trying to encourage me. I'm surrounded with incredible people who tell me often that I'm beautiful, so it's not like I'm not hearing it. That isn't meant to sound conceited, so please don't read it that way. But what it is, is that when they're repeating it over and over and I don't feel it, it sort of makes me feel worse. Like I feel guilty for not believing what other people see....What's wrong with me that I can't see what they see? I'm so hard on myself about it. It's a stupid, vicious cycle.
I'm less bothered by not feeling beautiful as I am bothered with trying to figure out why I don't feel beautiful. Nothing's happened that should make me feel that way; no one has told me I'm ugly or that I need to lose weight or anything like that.
And I'm a firm believer that beauty runs deeper than physical appearances. I could write a whole other blog about that. This isn't just about my physical appearance, even though that is always part of my struggle. The number on the scale is always in the back of my mind. I could curl my hair and paint my nails every day, but I don't think that will help. Maybe I'll feel prettier if I lose 15 pounds or curl my hair and paint my nails every day and always dress up. But I don't think that will help my overall struggle with feeling holistically beautiful. Some of the most beautiful people I know aren't some of the most attractive people I know, and some of the most attractive people I know are some of the least beautiful; there's a difference in being attractive and being beautiful.
I'm not saying I think I'm a terrible person or that I have an ugly soul.
I just don't feel beautiful.
I've prayed so hard about it. I've asked Jesus to show me how I'm beautiful, begging to really feel it. I've been going back and forth between prayer and telling myself to try and get over it.
A few Sundays ago at church, we sang a song I've sang a million times that says "You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me." And about the second time through the song I just stopped singing and stood there. I think Jesus is sneaky, and it's not a coincidence that those words were in that song when I've been struggling so much with not feeling those words...lovely, worthy. It was supposed to be a song about God, but I think that was God telling me "You are lovely, worthy, wonderful. You are everything I made you to be. Why are you letting your fickle mind interfere with living within the promise of what I say you are?" But I still wasn't convinced, I still didn't feel it.
A book I'm reading talks about unveiling beauty and I like what it has to say about it.
"Beauty is a quality of the soul that expresses itself in the visible world. You can see it. You can touch it. You are drawn to it. Beauty illuminates....Beauty flows from a heart that is alive."
I have this desire that's always alive in me, always stirring, that makes me want to make the things around me beautiful. I'm forever picking up trash, I put pretty pillows on my couches, I want to have a garden so I can make it pretty for other people to see. I appreciate beauty wherever I see it, I take lots of pictures, I sit by the lake on a Sunday afternoon because I can't stand to be inside when it's so beautiful outside. I think part of why I've been so bothered by not feeling beautiful is that I'm able to find beauty in all these different things, so why can't I find it in myself? And if I can't find it in myself, how I am supposed to make the things around me beautiful, or make the people around me feel beautiful?
A few Thursdays ago with a group of friends, we talked about the sermon from that Sunday. We talked about ways that God is good, whether it's the people he has brought into our life or situations where doors closed that turned out to be good endings and led us different places. It was a good talk. It was really encouraging. I know that God is good, no matter what. It's something I've chosen to believe even when I don't understand it....even when I don't feel it.
So here's what I've decided: Believing I'm beautiful is a choice. Just like choosing to love your spouse even when you don't always "feel it" and when it's not easy, choosing to do homework instead of watching Netflix, choosing to believe in Jesus even when it doesn't make sense. Choosing to feel beautiful is a choice I have to make, even if I have to choose it every day. I can choose to believe how I feel or choose to believe what I know. One of my friends recently said that we have to live by what we know because our feelings are circumstantial. They're fleeting. I don't know about you, but my feelings change a lot. If I lived by what I felt, I would have a lot more depressed, not-feeling-beautiful days than beautiful days. Just like I believe joy is different than happiness, I believe knowing I'm beautiful and feeling beautiful aren't always the same thing.
I'm convinced that part of choosing to feel beautiful includes choosing beautiful ways of living. I think Jesus is beautiful, and if I'm made in his image and if I love like he does then I have that beauty in me, and I can reveal that beauty in the things around me. I think speaking life into people and using encouraging words is beautiful, and I can do that all day long because I love words-especially words that bring life and are spoken with purpose. I believe choosing good instead of evil is beautiful, and I hope I choose good over and over and over again. I believe being warm and welcoming and hospitable are all beautiful things, and I choose to be those things because I feel this desire to make people feel noticed and loved and important. I think honesty, like the raw kind of honesty and how my heart just bled all over this blog for you to read, I think that is beautiful and I choose honesty instead of hiding. Those are the kinds of beautiful that you know even when you don't feel.
I want to be the kind of beautiful that is at peace and leaves other people feeling at peace when they're around me, not leave people feeling uneasy because I'm always striving and I'm never enough and I'm always warring with myself.
Truthfully, I felt so awkward about writing this post, because I don't want people to think it's for attention or pity, and I don't want a lot of people telling me I'm beautiful after they read this. But I knew I should write it because I know I'm not the only one out there who doesn't feel beautiful. And because it's consumed my thoughts for a long time now and I wanted to be set free from it.
I hope that this blog post sets you free from whatever it is you are trying so hard to feel and pushes you to trust in what you know.
This doesn't have to end at beauty--whatever you're struggling with that you don't feel-strong enough, brave enough, good enough, qualified enough, equipped enough-you have to choose to believe that you are, even when you don't feel it.
So no, I don't feel beautiful. Maybe I will tomorrow, or the next day, or a month from now. Who knows. If I don't feel beautiful, it doesn't mean that I'm not. It just means that I don't feel it, and I refuse to let my feelings overpower what I know deep down in my bones. I know that I'm beautiful because I choose beautiful things and try to unveil beauty wherever I go, and because Jesus made me in his image and he can't make ugly things, so I'm going to choose to believe that.
Maybe this blog didn't make any sense to you. Maybe you think you have to feel something to truly know it. That's ok; whatever helps you sleep at night. This is just a revelation that I've come to that maybe someone else needed to hear.
I don't want this post to be depressing. I want it to be hopeful! Thank you for reading something I was really scared to share. I hope you found some truth in it. I hope you found some permission here.
May you, in that unshakeable place in your soul, believe that you are every kind of enough that you need to be. May you choose to believe what you know and not what you feel, and may you choose to even when you don't want to. May you find a certain kind of freedom in that place of knowing that runs deeper than feeling.
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