What is beautiful?

Disclaimer: The following is about my experience of brokenness and pain, not my theology. This is not a reflection on faith, belief, or religion. It is only a humble attempt at sharing my experience.

What is beautiful? A friend on Twitter told me that I am “beautiful inside and out.” I don’t believe that on the inside or the outside. I do believe that I have internal scars that wounds that are so deep and painful that I’ll never be able to fully share them with anyone. The pain has led me to make choices that abuse my body by over eating and not taking care of myself physically. I look at myself on the inside and outside and see sorrow and the legacy of sorrow.

What is beautiful is the way my body, mind, and my spirit keep going in spite of the torment. My body is so strong and most people will never know what it has carried me through. It has fought off attackers, withstood being homeless, and granted me a storage space for my emotions. My spirit is equally amazing in that somehow it keeps going and loving and seeking no matter how much it hurts.

What is beautiful is not my inside or my outside but the way I’ve taken my pain and learned to see into other’s agony with it. I can then extend the hand of compassion to them in the way I wish someone had extended it to me. Beauty is also in the way I’ve built relationships and loved people even though my inner voice says “keep them away.”

This beauty isn’t me. I’m not the beautiful one. The only way I can make sense of it is to believe it has been God that has held all my parts together and breathed the will to love into my actions. I keep loving and reaching out because I hope someday that beauty might reach back into me and heal my insides and outsides too.

I don’t believe I’m beautiful but I hope someday I might be.