What Defines Beautiful to You?

What Defines Beautiful to You?

“So if my beauty starts to fade
Well I've been held in a thousand ways
If my hearts looks broken in
Then I've been brave enough to live”

Velveteen (lyrics by Krista Wells)

We all want to be around the beautiful people. You know who they are. The ones that just seem to glow. The ones whose words we all hang on and that have what some may call the “it factor”*. The Wise Geek describes this phrase here: “In the past the “it factor” might have been defined as someone with je ne sais quoi, or the indefinable something that makes someone special.”

 I don’t mean the movie stars that think they have all political clout and knowledge and I hate to think of how many people follow them blindly. But the people among us who are the real deal. They’ve suffered pain, lost children and loved ones, had health issues and yet they take a licking and keep on ticking as was once said of a Timex watch. They are ageless, timeless, they have a beauty that is indescribable.

Tenacity can make someone beautiful. I’ve seen people with halting steps, pain in their body, yet love and joy on their faces as they go about doing good for others. Mother Teresa and Corrie Ten Boom come to my mind as I write. Their inner beauty showed forth as they poured out their lives for others daily. A friend of mine, Patricia Keough-Wilson wrote a study on women like this and she titled it, “The Call of the Ageless God on Aging Women.” It embodies one type of the beauty I’m writing about.

I’ve seen Moms who do without or take second jobs to give special things to their kids, (Regina, I’m thinking of you; working an extra job to give Aubrey a wonderful baby shower) or perhaps to give them the necessities of life as many single moms do. I’ve seen grandparents give up their lives for their grandchildren; I’ve seen dads work a job and come home and homeschool a child as Bill did when we first homeschooled Shiloh. I see people who retire and then work comparable to a full-time job volunteering or helping with the elderly. These are beautiful things before the Lord. And me. 

Music is beautiful to me, words are beautiful to me if given from a heart of tenderness and love. The oceans and mountains of the world sing of the beauty and majesty of the God who created them. Peace, quiet, innocence, purity, so many words describe beauty and are things I want my thoughts to linger on today.

Phil. 4:4-8  "Be cheerful with joyous celebration in every season of life.  Let joy overflow, for you are united with the Anointed One!  Let gentleness be seen in every relationship, for our Lord is ever near.

Don't be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing.  Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude.  Tell Him every detail of your life,  then God's wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ.   So keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind.  And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising Him always." THE PASSION TRANSLATION

I want to leave you with some quotes that inspire me and are beautiful to me:

My favorite quote by Corrie is: “There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.”

This is what I want to be:

“I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.” ― Mother Teresa

Donna Collins Tinsley

*https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-it-factor.htm