That thing called beauty

Are any of you women out there completely happy with the way you look?

I doubt it.

None of us can live up to the image of perfect beauty that we are bombarded with every single day, can we? That image that often is not even real – that has been retouched and edited.

So most of us end up feeling dissatisfied with our appearance. We wonder how anyone could love us when we look like this.

I say women, but I’m sure many men can identify with this too. Men have become more conscious of their appearance, as they are targeted by the advertising industry too. Men are expected to be beautiful – a certain kind of beautiful – too.

And most of them fall short.

Dark am I, yet lovely,
daughters of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon.
Do not stare at me because I am dark,
because I am darkened by the sun.
My mother’s sons were angry with me
and made me take care of the vineyards;
my own vineyard I had to neglect.
Tell me, you whom I love,
where you graze your flock
and where you rest your sheep at midday.
Why should I be like a veiled woman
beside the flocks of your friends?  Song of Songs 1:5-7 (NIV)

The young woman in Song of Songs knows that she is not the typical kind of beauty expected in her day. She is not fair-skinned like the other beauties, but her skin is weather-beaten. How she looks is a result of how she has lived and she will not be ashamed of that.

I like the idea that our appearance reflects our life. That you can read someone’s story in how they look. It reminds me of the Beautiful South song ‘Prettiest Eyes’ – where he talks about ‘these crows feet sitting  on the prettiest eyes’ and can remember how and when each one appeared –

Line one is the time
That you, you first stayed over at mine
And we drank our first bottle of wine
And we cried

If we fall in love with someone, we see the beauty in every imperfection, because each flaw makes them unique. This young woman knows this. She knows that she is loved.

Dark am I, yet lovely

She is not going to put up with being stared at and judged for being who she is. She is not going to hide away and hope that no one notices her. She is not going to be ashamed and wear a veil, or observe the one she loves from a distance.

Her love has made her bold.

Love can do that, can’t it? Feeling loved can make us bold. It makes us feel more beautiful.

Those of us that are fortunate enough to have been loved in that way should never take that for granted.

Let’s face it. None of us are beautiful. Not by media standards anyway. And yet it is true, isn’t it, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and when we love someone, they are beautiful to us. The most beautiful person in the world. However they feel about themselves.

Love, don’t ever change the way you are
You light the sky just like a star
I don’t care what you see
You’re beautiful to me  Olly Murs – Beautiful to me

I know it’s hard, but we should never hide who we are. We should never feel ashamed of how we look. We should never hide our true colours.

But I see your true colours
Shining through
I see your true colours
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let them show
Your true colours
True colours are beautiful
Like a rainbow  Cyndi Lauper – True Colours