Beauty's Only Skin Deep?


I have an older brother and friend who do not at all share my healthy lifestyle subscription.  My brother says the things I eat aren’t ‘real people’s food” and my friend often jokes that the healthy eating lifestyle is a “new aged model of starvation”.  Between us, it’s a joke, but after having my makeup done and really taking a close look at myself it makes me think of not only what a difference a little eye shadow can make, but more so how many people daily are literally dying to be beautiful.
            Most every part of my body has been affected by illness in the last 9 years, taking me to a place where I have often found it difficult to identify myself.  For years, Grave’s Eye Disease caused bulging in my once gorgeous eyes.  The death of my thyroid caused significant weight gain, until I reached a point where my body could no longer be considered my own.  I felt trapped in someone else’s body.
            For years, I looked at favorite photos saying, “I just really want my eyes back”.  One week from today, I will “celebrate” the 3-month anniversary of having undergone 3-Wall Orbital Decompression surgery on both of my eyes.  This means that my eyes were cut open at the lid and in the outer corners, my eyeball moved aside to remove fat tissue from behind.  The 3 walls of bone surrounding my eye socket (the brow bone being the only one excluded) were all surgically trimmed down to provide more orbital-skeletal space for my eyes to settle back into the socket.  This surgery affected everything in my eyes and face – tissue, muscle, bone, skin and nerves.  I came through my surgery beautifully under the care of one of the world’s premier Ophthalmologic Surgeons.  Yet the weight of the alternative does not escape me.  Even aside from the obvious blindness so much could have come out of that surgery – permanent facial numbness, nerve pain lasting the rest of my life, muscle damage causing facial distortion – dozens of things, but none of them could reach me.  I was, and still am, protected by God.
Despite my surgeries amazing outcome, it was not without complication and throughout this journey, I have prayed that I look as beautiful on the outside as I imagine myself inside my mind.  Even now, I sit on the phone with a friend speaking about how beautiful and strong her niece believes me to be having endured all that I have.  I have realized that I am exactly who I envision myself to be.

I have always considered myself a realist, sometimes exposing truths too bluntly, and I can tell you that I have always believed clichés to be excuses.  My thoughts:
  • ‘Size doesn’t matter’ = ‘I’m not ready to accept my shortcomings.  If I was taller I wouldn’t need to convince myself size doesn’t matter’
  • ‘You’re only as old as you feel’ = I know that I am engaging in activities that are not age appropriate’. 
  • ‘Beauty’s only skin deep = ‘I’m ugly but I’m a good person’
So, the question becomes, is beauty really only skin deep, or is there more to it?  Proverbs 23:7 says, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”.  If you think yourself a winner, your actions will lend themselves to exhibiting the behaviors of a victor.  In that same fashion, if you believe yourself to be beautiful – you probably are…to someone.  Even though clichés are excuses there is one truth I have always believed in – there is someone for everyone.  Beauty, in its truest form, is not defined by what we see in magazines and on television but how we internalize what we receive and how we allow information to manifest itself in our lives.  I have a friend who I have heard referred to as ugly, having to defend their beauty.  Whether that friend has ever been referred to in person, I am not certain, but if so, they have not allowed the ignorance of others to affect their view of self.
The entire time I was sick I was never without admirers and men who called me beautiful, but I couldn’t hear it.  I couldn’t hear it because I felt as though physically I had been stripped of everything I was.  All the things about me that I myself had always considered the most beautiful parts had been stolen by illness…until I decided to take them back.  Until that one day that I decided to truly look at myself, flaws and all and realize that my beauty is my own and no matter what I endure, it belongs to me.  Beauty is more than skin deep, it’s mental.  So the next time you question your worth or beauty, remember what Descartes once said, “Cogito ergo sum”, or in English, “I think, therefore I am”…then take your beauty back!



Follow Me as I Follow God
@RevealingRuth

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