Some years back I was reading through a book on beauty.  On the porch of a family vacation, my mom and I sat by side-by-side, her with Oprah’s latest scoop, and me working through, Do You Think I’m Beautiful, by Angela Thomas.

“Seems neat that your generation uses that word,” my mom said, catching-me off guard.

“My generation...yours didn’t?”

“No…well, at least my piece of my generation didn’t. I was made fun of when I was young; a boy called me “homely” once.  From that point on, I decided beauty was given to some and not others. And I was a not other.”  

I was heartbroken.  And didn’t know what to say back to my beautiful mother.

A few years later I know a  little more, but am still far from grasping beauties complexities.

The dictionary refers to beauty with words like harmony and elegance, simplicity and brilliance—perceived in their whole as something beautiful.  True beauty is delicate, lasting and far more than meets the eye.  And it doesn’t come from being perpetually skinny or sexy.  It’s transcendent, delighting senses and revealing things spiritual and captivating to my soul (physically, emotionally, morally, cognitively…).  True beauty awakens me to God, connecting me to His lasting work in my soul.  And when I realize God is fascinated by my beauty—by the beauty of Himself imaged in me, I become fascinated by Him.  Mutually fascinated by my Beloved. 

Our final destiny as Christians involves the purest of ecstasies.  “A joy so glorious that it cannot be described” Peter said[1].  The beatific vision[2].  A day is coming when will stand face-to-face with Christ Jesus, Himself, our souls actually looking at God.  And God is the most beautiful Being.  And we are God’s kin.  Logic deduces, then, that functioning as God’s child, obeying the tides of His masterful Creation, images the divine.  Documents Divinity’s beauty to the world. 

Desires and ideals that fall elsewhere from the canopy of God’s beauty will never live-up.  While true beauty bridges a beauty beyond—connects God’s ways to mine, and mine to His—Christ in me, my only hope of glory[3].  And to imitate Christ[4], I am learning, is to believe this.  To walk in a manner believing utmost Worth resides in me—utmost Beauty in my inmost being.