Something Beautiful

Beauty inspires me. It is wonderful and captivating and bewildering. I see it in the small things, a simple look, a smile, in the landscape and even sometimes in my studies. But it is also the bigger things: the view of the Downs, the contrast of a tough man made structure against the softness of a blue sky littered with fluffy white clouds (I was thinking of how the Eiffel Tower looked against the skyline on my trip to Paris). It fills me with a magical sense of awe and wonderment. How can things which appear so simple and small capture my heart so completely?

To me they are all little love letters. Small notes to give me inspiration and remind me that my God loves me. They are there to lift my spirits when I am feeling low and they are there to keep me smiling when I am happy.

But to me, beauty can also be heartbreaking. It can seem like something totally unobtainable, something that will always be just beyond my reach. I think that this is what giving up make up for lent helped me to realise. It made me realise the value of beauty. It changed my definition of it.

I used to see beauty as something that wearing make up created. Without make up, beauty no longer existed. Without make up, beauty was wiped away and stripped from me.

But I have realised that beauty holds a much truer, deeper value. It is something that comes from the heart of a person more than anything else. It is shown in how you treat others and how you treat yourself. It is the values you hold and the relationships you have. Beauty already exists in every single person. It is not something you simply erase and it is not something you can create, because beauty already exists. Every heart aches for beauty. To be seen as beautiful, to behold beauty. It is at the very core of our being.

Beauty is more than skin deep.Yes, I love make up. Possibly even more than before. But I do not need it to feel beautiful. I no longer need to hide behind it. I no longer need it to feel adequate. I use it because I WANT to. Not because I NEED to. No woman should feel that they need make up to look beautiful. No woman should feel that without it they are inadequate, because this is so wrong and not what God says at all. He made us in his image. He made us perfectly. He therefore, made us to be beautiful. Make up does not create this beauty, it merely enhances it, and sometimes it can even conceal it.

So what is most beautiful to me?

• A heart given entirely to God. When I see people who have a heart for God, worshipping Him with everything they have, giving everything, my heart sings and I am filled with joy.
• Love. This is clichéd I know... but it is true. Love is one of the most beautiful emotions I have ever experienced. It is also the most painful. But as I said, beauty can be a heart breaker as well as a healer.