Beautiful

I have been called beautiful by four strangers/almost strangers since Tuesday. 

(Before you think this is going to be a totally self-absorbed post, I'll promise you it gets better.)

As any girl can tell you, being called beautiful makes you really *feel* beautiful. It's a wonderful thing to feel beautiful, to feel feminine. I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but I think it makes other things seem beautiful too. 

Now, let's talk for a moment about what "beautiful" is. Every time I've been called beautiful this week, it's when I've been engaging someone wholeheartedly in conversation or serving them. That is what's beautiful to people - seeing other people as humans and loving them. It's not just a pretty face or a good hair day, it's love. Raw love. The kind of love that doesn't rest on infatuation or feelings, but on considering someone else more important than yourself and taking joy in that. Sometimes (actually, a lot of the time), that's not easy or fun, but it is beautiful. That beauty doesn't come from us, though. It can't.  We are naturally sinful, selfish people, and that is not beautiful. Where does beauty come from, then? It comes from Christ. Christ loved people so much that he died to make them alive and reconcile them with God. That is the most beautiful thing I know. When we love other people, we reflect this beauty of Christ, and that's what makes us beautiful. 

That being said, I want to tell people more often that they are beautiful. I don't want to say it just when their clothes look cute or their hair is perfect, I want to say it when they've spent all day on their hands and knees, scrubbing someone's floor; when they're wiping the sweat from their forehead after planting flowers in someone else's garden; when they've just had a conversation with the old woman sitting alone. Those actions are far more beautiful than any outward appearance could ever be because they reflect Christ.