What Makes Us Beautiful
Oh death, we have felt your sting
Oh darkness, we’re weary of your wings
But deep down we know
That we are called child
Oh, beneath these chains our hearts are still wild.
—John Lucas, “Let the (Filthy) Dance with the (Righteous)”
I’ve learned to pay attention to what the Spirit might be saying when things occur in threes. For example, a certain Bible verse may come up three times from three different sources in a week, or I might hear the same song three times in three very different places. Maybe it’s coincidence, but as three is the Trinitarian number, I’ve chosen to receive three-happenings as little elbow nudges from God that essentially communicate, “Lean in. Listen up. I’m speaking.” I’d like to share my most recent three occurrence with you here, simply to invite you to lean in and pay attention to what the Spirit may be saying in your own life—essentially, to trust that the Spirit does, in fact, speak tenderly and personally, even when we don’t feel we deserve it or have done anything to be particularly deserving of a message from On High. I know I haven’t.
As I’ve shared previously, I am at the tail end of a long season spent wrestling in the darkness of depression. This year has been one in which I’ve been forced to accept my limitations, to ask for help, to admit that I cannot hold it all together and that I am so tired of trying. In all honesty, much of this year has felt like a waste. It has felt like depression has robbed me of my energy, joy, willpower, and creativity. I know that in God’s economy, nothing is wasted, but that knowledge hasn’t kept me from tiptoeing into my corners of shame and curling up with my arms around my knees, hoping for someone else to turn the lights on because I cannot see in the dark. All of this wrestling has pushed a whole herd of insecurities to the surface, like an undesired game of whack-a-mole in which I’ve tried to keep ugly things hidden under the surface but they just keep popping up. One of those insecurities has been around my appearance. Feeling unlovely inside has left me feeling very unlovely outside. Although it’s a lie, I have been operating under the belief that my suffering has diminished me on every level—until recently.
It was on one of those unlovely-feeling days that the first ‘three’ occurred. I had just participated in the joys of walking through a TSA line in my bare feet at the airport and was sitting on the recovery bench, shoving toiletries back into my bag and tying my shoes. My heart was heavy that day. Something (Someone?) prompted me to ask myself the question: What would I most want to hear from a stranger right now? The answer came immediately: “You’re beautiful.” Out of nowhere, I admitted to myself, I would most want a stranger to come up to me and say, “You’re beautiful.” My insecure heart ached at the thought. Just as I was about to stand up and join Drew at our boarding gate, a gentleman with the bearing and kindness of Mr. Rogers rounded the corner and headed towards me, his TSA uniform shirt tucked in to belted pants pulled a little higher than is cool right now. I averted my gaze, but he approached me and said, “Pretty hair!” with a smile that could have melted ice. At a loss for words, I eked out a small “Thank you” in response to his kindness. “Have a wonderful day,” he said, with a knowing nod and smile, before turning and walking away as if he had just completed his mission. “Thank you, thank you, thank you” I whispered to the God who sent an elderly angel gentlemen disguised as a TSA agent to speak directly to the wound in me.
The second ‘three’ happened a few weeks later, when I was accompanying a friend to her birthday celebration. She walks with the assistance of a cane, which meant that our going was slow as we walked towards the restaurant doors. I didn’t mind, but our slower pace did mean that I had ample time to see myself reflected in the darkened windows of the restaurant. I didn’t like what I saw, so I looked away and tried to focus on my friend. The moment we sat down at our table, a woman walked up to me and said, “Excuse me, I just had to tell you—I love your dress!” “Thank you so much, that’s so kind of you,” I said with a bewildered smile. How was this happening again? I couldn’t have guessed that when I was looking into the mirrored windows of that restaurant, someone with a kinder gaze than mine was looking back. As we smiled at each other in a moment of joyful connection, she continued—as if she couldn’t help herself: “You are just so pretty!” “Wow,” I said—at this point completely baffled—“Thank you. This really means so much to me.” With one more beaming smile, she turned to leave. Okay, God, I thought. I see what you’re doing. This sheer grace from a stranger who went out of her way to bless me meant even more to me because she had a different skin color than my own. If I were her, I would have found it difficult to walk up to a white lady and just shower her with love. What she gave me that day remains precious to me. “I see you,” she told me without telling me. What a gift it is to be seen, even and especially when we don’t like what we see.
The third ‘three’ occurred this week, which is why I am writing this piece even though I feel hesitant to share it. If you are familiar with depression, then you know that the cloud of depression is often a silencer—keeping us quiet as we wait for the light. But sometimes, the light finds us, piercing through the fog and guiding us home. I was sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for a friend and working on slides for an upcoming workshop. While walking to my table, I had noticed the woman sitting at the table next to mine. Always curious to read the title when someone has brought a book with them, I surreptitiously scanned the title of her textbook and determined she was studying to become a therapist. “Get it, girl,” I said encouragingly in my mind, though I wish I had said it aloud. I was about a third of the way through my crumbling frosted cookie—purchased in defiance of the voice inside that told me to watch it on my calorie intake—when I turned and noticed that the studious woman was now standing at my table, waiting to talk to me. “Excuse me,” she began. An irrational anxiety arose in me that I had somehow offended her, just by my cookie-eating existence. “Can I say something? I just had to tell you, you are so beautiful!” My jaw dropped. When getting dressed that day, I had frowned at myself in the mirror, unhappy with my waistline and thinking my shirt looked a little frumpy. “I noticed you as you came in,” she continued, “and you just look so put together and nice.” As I stared up at her in amazement, she concluded, “Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that!” At that moment, I was filled with joy—a sensation from which I had been estranged, now handed to me like a gift from heaven or a frosted sugar cookie. “Can I hug you?” I said, with tears in my eyes. “Yes,” she said, somewhat startled but I figured since she initiated this interaction, she could handle it. As we held each other in what can only be described as a bear hug, I mumbled into her hair, “Thank you. I really, really needed to hear that. God bless you.” As we pulled away she looked into my eyes and said, “Amen! We really need Jesus, don’t we?” “We do,” I said, as she picked up her bag with a final smile and left the coffee shop. I really needed Jesus this week, and he showed up at the coffee shop in the form of a brave, beautiful therapist in training.
When I was processing these things with Drew on a walk later that evening, I actually heard myself saying aloud, “I just find it really hard to believe that my suffering is somehow making me more beautiful, and that complete strangers can see it.” Without missing a beat, he quipped, “Isn’t that what you’ve been writing about lately?” “Well, yes,” I replied, thinking of the article I had just written about the beauty to be found in suffering. “But it’s harder to believe it for myself than for others.” It is true that the most exquisitely beautiful people I know are the ones who have experienced immense suffering, yet still call Jesus their Lord, Savior, and Friend. They shine with an inner radiance that can only be won through wrestling—with pain, with darkness, with unanswered prayers, grief, and injustice. They are who I want to be when I grow up.
Friends, I have done nothing to elicit the kindness of strangers—angels, really—God’s messengers. The only thing that has changed about me this year is that I have grown older, gained a few pounds and a few grey hairs. And I have spent a good many days in the dark, praying for the light. According to our culture, these ingredients are not what make someone beautiful. But we serve a God who beautifies those buffeted by the storms of this life. Perhaps it is only through such tempering tempests that we have the chance to emerge as gold, made lovely through suffering. And so it is that we are able to proclaim with Job, “But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). So take heart, dear one. If you feel a little lost or are in the midst of a storm right now, please know and trust that you are indeed seen by the adoring gaze of Heaven. In your need for Jesus, you are deeply loved by Jesus. And though I don’t fully understand how, somehow, some way, our suffering makes us beautiful—just like our Savior.
Amen, and may it be so.
Going Deeper: Listen to “More and More Beautiful” by Skye Peterson.
I wish, I wish that I was told that
Life doesn't get easier as it goes
But the older I get, the more I know
Days get richer and deeper
And more and more beautiful