Miracles Happen Every Day – Just Believe!
Scripture:
1 Peter 3:3-4 (NIV): “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”
Devotion:
For many, Valentine’s Day is an annual reminder that so many of our societal values are displaced. Beauty comes in very specific, very limiting forms – forms that the commercial sector likes to convince us can be purchased in stores and applied to our skin. Happiness (or worthiness of happiness) is conflated with romantic partnership, with radical self-love being written off as painstaking, tedious, laborious, lonely. Valentine’s Day runs parallel to Black History Month, during which Black aesthetics are pushed into the mainstream – and Lent, during which individual and communal fasting is undertaken in remembrance of Jesus’s own self-abandonment. In other words, February is probably the easiest month in which to fall into stressful self-consciousness, fuss over outward appearances, and fixate on what is lacking. More than usual, we might find ourselves asking: How do I look to the people around me? Is feeling beautiful and confident as difficult a process for everyone else as it is for me? Am I – and will I ever be – good enough? These questions are both natural and excruciatingly human, but with God’s guidance, they are also quite easy to answer.
When God formed us in the womb, he was not so much concerned about the genetic code that determined our physical appearances as he was about the strength, light, and orientation of our souls. Standards of attractiveness vary drastically with every history and culture – every one of which God has witnessed from above – yet these standards have never barred anyone’s access to God’s loving embrace and the hope of salvation. Romantic partnership is one manifestation of God’s love, but so is loving oneself. Imagine if the call to “love our neighbors as ourselves” was premised on the idea that we did not fundamentally like ourselves; how much more war and strife would we be facing today? God has proven across time and space that the adornments of the world are unreliable and inconsequential. What is considered pretty today might be considered “weird” in a decade; what sparkles and shines today may lose its luster as early as tomorrow. When we leave this earth, we will be stripped bare of all that the world told us was “beautiful” and “ugly” about ourselves, leaving only our souls. And when we finally present our souls before God, we should strive to show something that was handled with gentleness and care. We should look back on lives that made God known not through loud proclamations, but through the love that poured out and beamed from our insides outward. Let us all commit to making this February – and every month hereafter – a time of self-awareness without self-ridicule, and a season of stepping back from the buzz of earthly narratives to give our souls the “beauty treatment” they deserve.
Prayer:
Loving Father, from the moment you created my inmost being – from the moment you began knitting me in my mother’s womb – I have been your handiwork. Thank you for crafting me intentionally in your image. My body – while not perfectly adherent to the ever-elusive standards set by the world – is able to do the work of your earthly ministry. As an act of loving and nurturing the body you gave me, help me to consume only those things that give you glory. My heart, though broken and rebroken, has been mended back together to form a most stunning mosaic of your grace and mercy. The radiant light of your spirit reaches and illuminates the darkest crevasses of my soul, so that even my sorrow is painted in warm, orange and yellow hues of joy. In those seasons when my self-perception falls short of my true identity as beautifully formed after your own heart, I pray that you lend me patience and redirection. Open my heart, O God, so that I may admire the strokes and flourishes of artistic genius that you have worked into every aspect of my life, every day of my life.
Reflections:
When you look in the mirror, do you see someone who is beautifully and wonderfully made, or do you instinctually begin to criticize yourself? What positive affirmations work best for you to counter and combat self-criticisms? What are your favorite aspects of yourself, and what sorts of quick and easy practices can you incorporate into your daily routine to nurture and accentuate those aspects?