To be beautiful

Il faut souffrir pour être belle.

I don’t know a lick of French, but according to Frederick Buechner, that phrase translates to “You have to suffer in order to be beautiful.” Oh how true I’m finding that to be.

There’s something about “perfection” that makes us squirm. It’s just not natural to be perfect and human at once (unless you’re Jesus, but, chances are, you’re not). And yet, it seems everyone strives to be perfect anyway, usually in an attempt to appear more attractive to others. In order to be “perfect,” one must wear a mask and hide the true self. After years in disguise, we lose ourselves, all in an attempt to be liked, to be beautiful.

But is beauty in “perfection” or in the breakdown of all the lies we hide behind? I believe true beauty comes from the broken heart exposed. A perfectly symmetrical face is not desirable. One marked with flaws captivates the beholder.

And so it is through suffering that our beauty is made clear. At 11-years-old, I declared myself an atheist. I didn’t see how a God could exist in a world disfigured by divorce, abandonment, and heartbreak. Of course even in my disbelief, I still searched for God. He wasn’t in Sunday School trivia. He wasn’t in the half-hearted sympathy of well-meaning adults. But He was in the convoluted story of a misplaced teenager, blown to the Islands by the winds of chance. An illegal immigrant from Indonesia named Cathy led me to Christ. As far as messy testimonies go, hers took top honors. She showed me that being a Christian (and, I’m now learning, being beautiful) does not mean being perfect. It means being unfinished. It means challenging preconceived beliefs. It means letting go. Cathy used an illustration of a clay heart to make sense of my trials. Your soul is like a clay heart, she explained. God is carving the heart with intricate designs. Each carving pierces your defenses and brings great pain, but in the end these carvings will result in a beautiful work of art.

Let go of the striving, the hiding, the manipulating. "There’s beauty in the breakdown."