beautifully broken

dear rory,

beauty.

that word brings so many images into my mind. ladybugs, mountains, gandalf’s horse shadowfax, the grand canyon, the color blue, a feathered arrow, queen esther, sparkling eyes, crystal chandeliers, natalie portman, chocolate (don’t look at me like that… it’s beautiful… in a way), caves full of diamonds, peaceful streams, long dark hair, gold lockets, old barns, and weeping willows are just a few.

what exactly is beauty?

according to the oxford dictionary, beauty is “a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight”.

in other words, beauty is something that you see on the outside. it is appealing and charming and much sought after.

but wait a minute. is that really all beauty is?

I have a confession: I often get caught up with outward beauty. I want to know what the latest style is, where that person got her scarf, how that lady did her make-up, when I can get my next hair-cut, why I can’t be as beautiful as that person over there, and, in fact, is it really too much to just ask to be the most beautiful person in the world?

however, over the past few years, God has been trying to teach me what true beauty is. He is patient with me and gives me little reminders time and time again.

for instance:

I remember a few years ago, while my family and I were on vacation, we went to a church service at a place called the Tabernacle. it was the children’s night to get up on stage and perform the Bible verses and songs they had been learning in Sunday School.

the third grade group climbed (some of them trudging… looking extremely uncomfortable in their church clothes…. probably wishing they had never been born… inwardly shaking their fists at their parents for making them do this) up onto the stage. you could immediately pick out which kids were the “cool” ones. they were the children who were doing their best not to stick to the program. the ones who were trying to trip the kid next to them. the ones who had their hands in their pockets with their heads thrown back proudly as if to say, “I am not associated with these other losers.”

I watched from my seat as the children lined up. parents darted up the aisles to snap a picture of their precious angels and some of the little girls waved and smiled and twirled their pig-tails. most of the boys just looked uncomfortable. and most of the teachers looked frazzled.

the music started, and the children began to sing the song they had been practicing at Sunday school. only three-quarters of the group were half-heartedly doing the hand motions, a few bold ones decided to go for the more attention-grabbing “everyone look how obnoxious I am” style of exaggerating every movement and over-annunciating every word, and the rest of them refused to sing or do any hand motions at all.

I had seen this kind of service hundreds of times. it was more like a show than church. a show that I could fall asleep while watching.

but as I settled back into the pew, I noticed one child in particular. it was a little boy. he was sitting in a wheel chair and tubes were attached to different parts of him. (I didn’t look too closely to see what those tubes were attached to because I get queasy with tubes and needles and blood and bandages and… well, for the sake of time, let’s just say I get queasy around a lot of things.) I noticed his arms were hanging somewhat limply and his head kind of rolled from side to side. his eyes were big, and his face was shaped a little differently from everyone else’s. obviously, he had some sort of physical disability, and it appeared that he may have had a mental one as well.

I pitied him. he wasn’t what one would consider beautiful. in fact, the world would despise him. he was weak and broken and ugly. he sat there unable to take care of himself. unable and incapable of doing so many things.

but he was capable of singing. or trying to sing.

and so he sang.

and his arm that still functioned relatively well swayed with the music and laboriously did every hand motion it could. the other arm lay uselessly on the wheel chair, but I could see that his hand was flinching as if trying to join the other.

he kept singing and dancing throughout the entire song. easily at first. working harder to keep up his energy by the end.

this child wasn’t looking at the other children to see if they thought he was cool. he wasn’t wishing he had worn his other shirt. he wasn’t hoping the song would hurry up and end so that he could go do whatever he wanted. this child was praising God. and he was using every ounce of strength he had to do it.

as tears filled my eyes watching him, I couldn’t help but imagine that God was looking down on this child and asking me quietly, “isn’t he beautiful?”

and I couldn’t help but think that he was.

when I think of that boy now, I remember that “charm is deceitful and beauty is vain” [Prov. 31:30]. I remember that outward beauty is not everything.

guess what? people grow old, their hair falls out, their teeth decay, fashions change, mountains crumble, ladybugs get stuck between the screen and the window pane and shrivel up, chocolate goes bad, weeping willows get cut down, “the grass will wither and the flower will fade away“ [James 1:11], etc.

a heart that loves the Lord and wants to follow Him always, a heart that only cares what He will think, a heart that wants to know Him better, a heart that is anxious to please Him and not “aesthetic senses”, a heart that is willing to praise Him with all the strength it can muster… now that is a beautiful thing.

I still enjoy outwardly beautiful things. God created us to enjoy them. but something I am learning, is that God often creates beautiful things out of what man would deem unbeautiful. out of hearts. out of sinners. out of dust. out of that child in the wheel chair.

God is so good.

love,
muffin