Cultivate inner beauty
The gentle, gracious kind
That God delights in.
1 Peter 3:4
My friend Steena is “face blind” which means she has extreme difficulty identifying faces. (Prosopagnosia is the medical term.) Steena sees beauty differently than the average person. Her “face blindness” helps her to see inner beauty clearly. Outward appearance in not important to Steena compared to recognizing internal depth, strength, and dignity.
God also evaluates beauty differently than we do. “Men and women look at the face: God looks into the heart” (1Samuel 16:7). God delights in gracious and gentle inner beauty (1 Peter 3:4). Although it takes time and effort to cultivate this type of beauty, everyone has an equal opportunity to be astonishingly beautiful.
“Our physical being is gradually decaying, yet our spiritual being is being renewed day after day …. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever” (2 Corinthians 4:16 & 18).
Beauty that is eternal is not physical.
I want to be astonishingly beautiful! Don’t we all? In our culture we as women are taught to unveil our bodies’ to be beautiful. But the Lord wants us to unveil His love. He is the creator of amazing beauty that comes from Him and it is cultivated from the inside out.
“Charm is deceitful and beauty if fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is worthy of praise!”
Interesting post- I like the idea and while I wouldn’t *want* face blindness, it might be fun to try for a period of time and see how different the world is. When I am dealing with people and espcially my children I try to look at them and see them as the Lord sees them. I sometimes even try to look at myself and see myself the way the Lord sees me(that one is much harder for some reason).
I appreciate your comments on my blog- I will talk to my doctor about some of the medications you mentioned. I am ready to take control of my life and make a good effort in figuring out my pain.
I also love your blog- a breath of fresh air. Keep it up. :o)
I’ve never heard of that, but what a neat illustration of how God actually uses a trial to create a blessing of seeing true beauty. I am so glad that my outer man doesn’t determine my real worth.
I loved reading your words about Steena, and God’s delighting in inner beauty. I’m so thankful that God caused your paths to cross and then somewhere along the way He allowed me to get in on the gift of knowing the real beauty of you both.
You won ad space on Allied Moms!!! I need you to e-mail me your button with the dimensions of 150×150 ASAP. =) Congrats!!
I love this so much, and I miss and love you more. thank you for being real.
I love how you said that by recognizing beauty the way Steena does “everyone has an equal opportunity to be astonishingly beautiful.” That is so great! I want to recognize that kind of beauty in everyone but I don’t always succeed. I would like to more and more with God’s help though. Thanks for the post!