Becoming Beautiful: Less Than Flawless

It's a little known fact that society holds women to impossible standards. Just kidding, everyone knows that. In fact, wherever and whenever you find yourself reading this, there is probably something readily accessible that will remind you of this harsh fact. Do you have social media accounts? If so, you've undoubtedly noticed that a girl laden in makeup gets infinitely more attention on social media than a "regular" girl. Do you have television? It seems like even commercial for Hardee's hamburgers have to tie in unrealistic portrayals of what a women should look like. A girl can't even catch a break at the super market- she gets stared down by intimidating glances from airbrushed models while she waits to check out. We even get glances from our peers and random strangers on a daily basis if the way we look doesn't please someone else.

A friend of mine (let's call her Heather) once asked me if she should wear a dress to an event. She even sent me a picture of  her in the dress along with her question. She looked beautiful. I told her of course she should. Her reason for asking? A girl that would be attending the event who has a reputation for being mean had the same dress and Heather was afraid of being talked about by that mean girl and her friends, Regina George and Karen Smith.

It's really hard to remember that we are important too when you see impossibly tan girls with pearly white teeth, perfectly styled hair, manicures, and outfits that look like they were hand-selected by a Vogue fashion consultant. There is one crucial thing that we must remember, however. We are so important that someone died for us.

Did you know that the Bible actually talks about Jesus' appearance? Isaiah 53:2 says this:

 "He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him,

 and no beauty that we should desire Him." 

Yet even though He wasn't physically attractive, Christ was the most beautiful person who ever walked this Earth. Truthfully, the only beautiful thing about us is Christ in us. 

Audrey Hepburn once said that happy girls are the prettiest. If happy girls are the prettiest, then girls who find their joy in Christ must be simply radiant. Psalm 139:14 says, "I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." You see, when God made us, He made no mistakes. When we accepted God's gift of salvation, we became beautiful through Christ and only through Him. There is no standard that the world can create that will take away from the beauty Christ puts in us. We can, however, take away from our beauty with the things we add to our lives.

If you read much Dr. Seuss as a child, you probably know that Yertle the Turtle was king of the pond. He lived on a stone, but wasn't happy with his view so he made other turtles stack up on top of each other so he could stand on top of all of them and look over all he was king of. Some people are that way about appearance. They either so unhappy with how they look or they are so happy with how they look that they have to bring in others to make themselves feel better. It often starts simply enough. They merely pull in a few others to reaffirm their attractiveness. After a while, it isn't enough to simply reaffirm each other- they move on to judging others based on their appearance. This girl is too manly. That girl is chubby. This girl dresses poorly. Another girl is too pale. 

When people get to this point, other people begin to notice. It won't be long before they fall like Yertle the Turtle did once people finally had enough. When we base everything on comparisons, we all fall. 

The problem is that we get caught up in horizontal comparisons. We are looking all around us instead of setting our gaze on things above. Time spent comparing ourselves to those around us is time wasted. The only person we should be comparing ourselves to is Christ.

When we try to fit the world's beauty standards, we will never measure up. When we try to become more like Christ, we have a better chance. We will never be just like Him, but when our soul desire is to have a heart that looks like His, a beautiful light will shine through our lives. Trying to be like Him is a life long journey where He guides us and gives us strength every step of the way. Trying to fit the world's beauty standards is like running back to back timed marathons for the rest of your life with no relief. When you finally finish one, you are already behind on another. 

When the only beauty standard we are trying to live up to is the one set by Christ, we will still be less than flawless but we certainly have a better chance of becoming beautiful. We are beautiful when we stop working on our outside and let Him shape our hearts.

Cloud by Day and Fire by Night

Here's that crayon art. Please, no need for applause.

I'm not okay right now. Is it okay if I say that? You see, my grandfather has Leukemia and he doesn't have long. I always knew a day like this would come, but I hid it away in the back of my mind. Now, what was once nothing more to me than a preview for a scary movie I'd see on television and never watch is my reality.

I know a lot of people who have been through unimaginable tragedies lately. They've lost children, parents, siblings, and more. Sometimes everything seems dark. I haven't even lost my grandfather yet and I already know that.

When you're on a cruise,  there's something called a muster drill. This is the time when you are told what to do in case the ship starts sinking. They give you a life jacket with a whistle and a water-activated light. Sometimes life feels like you've been tossed into a roaring sea on a moonless night with no life jacket, let alone a whistle or a water-activated light: life has no muster drill.

I feel like I'm walking through the valley of the shadow of death- just not mine. It's almost worse than the fear of my own death, if I'm honest. If I were the one that was sick, I'd have the peace of knowing that I was headed to the arms of Jesus when all was said and done. The illness would last for a while, but something greater than I could ever imagine would be waiting on the other side. It isn't like that when someone you love is dying. I know that my grandfather is going to be with the Lord when he dies. I know he will be okay.

I'm not okay- not right now- at least. The thought of losing him is unbearable. People have told me he is a great man and I know he is. I know that my life would likely be drastically different if it weren't for him. I can't stand the thought that someday I'll walk into my grandparent's house and no one will be sitting in his recliner. One second I'll be perfectly fine and the very next one I'm in tears just trying to hold it together and trying to be strong. Most everyone has been through either what I'm going through or something worse. I wish that the here and now was a memory and not reality.

All isn't lost. The other night I was working on a crayon melting craft with lots of blues and white. Inexplicably, I decided to flip my canvas upside down and start melting reds and oranges in the other direction. God put Exodus 13:21 on my heart:

 "And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night."

 I really needed that. I feel like God wants to lead me out of the darkness I'm living in. He wants to lead me out of sadness, hurt, and growing bitterness. I just have to let Him. You see, we can't guide ourselves through the times in life when the cities of our lives are being dissolved to rubble by an earthquake we never could have anticipated. If I try to guide myself right now I'll just walk around in circles in the dark. 

-Caitlin

When Christian Community Hurts Others

As Christians, we live in an age where the idea of community is pushed above all else. We must get "plugged in"somewhere and find that group of people that we can "do life with". (The more terminology you know, the hipper you are.) Of course, having fellowship within the body of Christ is important and it is something that we can't neglect. There is, however, a point where we take it too far. There is, believe it or not, such a thing as too much community. Now, before you go grab your posse, arm yourselves with pitchforks and torches, and descend upon my apartment, hear me out for a second...

I was busily doing work on campus when a girl and a guy sat down next to me. They seemed just like any other girl and guy. They talked about average college things like how bad our food is and how crowded parking is. Eventually, the conversation lead to the girl uttering thins statement, "My heart yearns for community." With the suddenly elevated language, I immediately picked up on what was happening: they'd flipped the Christian switch. 

The girl began to talk about how her current rooming situation wasn't ideal. Two roommates were "so strong in their faith" while the other roommate wasn't a believer at all. She talked about how being around this roommate exhausted her. Was the roommate mean? No. Was she combative? No. Was she difficult? No. On the contrary, she was described as being a very sweet girl. She was unbearable simply for not being a Christian. This made her a leech sucking the lifeblood straight from her roommate's body. 

I couldn't even believe what I was hearing. The lost roommate is a burden? Wow. What about her soul? What about the fact God loves her just as much as He loves her saved roommates? I couldn't help being outraged and thinking, "What if someone who is lost is hearing this very loud conversation?" If I were a lost person and heard people talking this way, I would run from Christianity as fast as possible. At what point did lost people become a parasite?

We've got a problem here. We've let ourselves pull away into a little Christian bubble. We only talk about Christian things. We only listen to Christian music. We only watch movies with Kirk Cameron in them. (Unless the movie is obviously a Christian allegory. We're all over that.) We read whatever we want to, but our favorite books (the Bible not included) are by Tolkien and Lewis. We attend all the right events, know all the right words, and have just the right bumper stickers or magnets on our cars.

We consider occasionally moving our Bible study to Starbucks evangelizing. We go on prayer walks in communities, but never speak to the people living there. We sit in our pews or our Sunday School rooms behind our nice, big church doors and talk about what we want to do for the world around us. We dream up all these ideas. We send boxes all over the world once a year. All of these things are great, but the truth is, they're so simple. It is so easy to do all these things in our bubble, all together and never separating lest we be swept away by a secular storm.

If this is how we live our lives, we're living them wrong. God called us to be in the world, but not of the world. The key to this is actually being in the world. We can't pull away and have our own little group. We can't give the rest of the world a "You can't sit with us" vibe. We also can't give them a "You can't sit with us unless you become like us" vibe. We are supposed to welcome people and accept them into our lives just as they are. That's what Jesus did.

We all know how people reacted when Jesus went to Zacchaeus' house. They were appalled, but Jesus didn't care. Zacchaeus wanted to see the Lord. We never know what lost person around us has a soul that is dying to see God and to experience His love. Sadly, sometimes they don't. Sometimes we Christians are warm, bubbly, and the epitome of loving when with our fellow believers, but walking into that exact building is like walking into a meat locker for a nonbeliever. Are we really seeing these people? Are we really seeing the lost people we encounter day to day? Or are we just dreaming of the big picture across the country of across the world?

That lost person sitting on the other side of the room or on the other side of your apartment wall has a soul equally as precious as yours. They may not have an End It sticker on the back of their car, have a tattoo in Greek or Hebrew, or own every Rend Collective album. That's perfectly okay. They don't need you looking down on their lost state. They need your love. They need you to take the time to sit with them, listen to them, and let them know they are special. They need a friend who shows them that not all Christians are stuck up and unrelatable. Show them the love that Christ has shown you.