You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.
But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your unfaithfulness on any passerby;
your beauty became his.
Ezekiel 16
There is a sad tale about beauty. It seems to me that there are so many stories of beauty ending in tragedy. I cannot be so shallow when talking about beauty as to merely limit such a weighty thing to physical thing to that which is seen. Beauty is defined as giving "intense deep satisfaction". We long for beauty. Life is empty without beauty. Life violently waits, groans and joyously celebrates in proclamation the experience of that which is beautiful. Have you ever met a person you didn't like sunsets? Who has gazed into the endless universe and see the countless stars outside our own atmosphere and not marveled at its splendor.
The passage above made me think of a connection I had not before (but I absolutely should have). Beauty and holiness. More specifically our beauty is holy to God. Just like holiness beauty is craved and feared. Just like holiness it strikes awe in our hearts. Just like holiness, beauty is given.
All world is not beautiful. We are not completely filled with only that which is deeply satisfying. We have venom in our lips and open graves for throats. We have malice in our hearts and envy for eyes. Yet when God, who is holy, gives to us meaning, weight and value, something new is happening. We are being filled with beauty, the pure reflection of the nature of a holy God rich in mercy and power. Surely, we all bear his likeness and his image on our souls. The ability to become one with someone, the ability to worship and give of ones self. There is beauty and weight and a certain amount of glory in every person, and it is given. All beauty in us is from without. Beauty is given. Beauty is given, but it is not to be owned.
When that which was given is then attributed as earned it is robbed from the giver. Beauty is a gift. It is God's, it belongs to nobody else. When is taken and denied as a gift it is lost. If beauty gives deep meaning and satisfaction, then when it is taken as our own it's full meaning cannot be known, it's deep purpose cannot be achieved. Guard your beauty. Do not try and hide it or keep it silent. It is not in the nature of beauty to ever be anonymous. But do no pretend that you have made yourself beautiful or that you can improve that beauty. It is a gift. Do not let it become his.
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