You hardly hear someone say, she is "full of beauty" or she is intentional about her beauty. If someone says, I am intentional about my beauty that would mean to me that she puts on make-up and actually showers and gets out of 2 day-old-yoga pants before she graces society. It's funny that my brain automatically goes to appearance but I think we are trained at an early age to spot beauty.
But I am have been chewing on a different idea about beauty the last couple of days that has got me thinking. When I went on a retreat with some of my girls and we defined our purpose mine was to:
Influence and empower others to confidently BE and LIVE out who God created them to be. Creating a culture of wholeness and confidence in Christ. The word Wholeness is something that has been said over and over again with my KHOP workout girls. Fitness and looking a certain way is not what creates wholeness it is just one avenue of the mind, heart, soul.
If I were to ask any one of you if you were beautiful, you would most likely say no. (Unless you have been told that all your life.) Most of us don't have the frame, face, profile, hair, lips, etc... that would be "qualified" as beautiful. We would all be quick to point out something in our appearance that is not worthy of the "beauty" title. But what if we thought of beauty as something that we intentionally create everyday? What if everyday we purposefully pursue beauty. What if we were INTENTIONAL about being beautiful?
"When we find our voice in life, what brings us passion, joy, and life, and choose to create our lives around those things, we create beauty. Not just for us, but on purpose, we create truth and beauty for those around us. If God is LOVE, and we realize that,"our lives are to REFLECT the nature and essence of God, then we choose to expand those things that REFLECT the heart and character of God. When we choose to create as an ACT of LOVE, we join forces with the creator and become givers of life."
What if the things we were passionate about, the things we dreamed about, were a direct reflection of love? Not just love for ourselves, but we created it to affect others. So others could look at us and see true beauty. No matter what our appearance looked like on the outside, but when they spent anytime with us, listened to our conversations, saw what we were passion about, they couldn't help but say, SHE IS BEAUTIFUL, SHE EXUDES TRUE BEAUTY. Not because she turns heads in a swimsuit but because her life is about OTHERS. Because she creates and reflects what she is passionate about. She pursues this with her whole heart. She is a life-giver. She is INTENTIONAL about what she pursues, what shes goes after, and what she creates.
Erwin McManus says, "Our lives are our most significant work of art."
How can we be intentional about making our lives express true beauty?
It doesn't just happen. We have to be purposeful about it. Here are some questions a friend posed to me about leading an intentional life:
1. Why do you work where you work? Was it by "accident" or just bc "life?"
2. Who are your friends and why? Are they challenging you and helping you live a life of beauty or do they suck the beauty out of you? Surround yourself with life/beauty givers?
3. Where do you invest your time, money? why?
4. What defines your thoughts, words, and actions?
Seems like a great concept...but what does this mean for us, who have jobs or who are moms who work from home, or creative types, or dreamers, or designers....this means we pursue what we love....we dream....we take risks....we create....we reflect that which is good and beautiful. When people leave our presence they feel like they have been filled with life and beauty. We can do this in our homes, in our office, in our errands, in our passions, in our menial mundane tasks and in our Big dreamy projects!
Be intentionally BEAUTIFUL....