For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen. // Wisdom 13:5
During chemotherapy, my long, thick hair decided to take an extended sabbatical. Not that I don’t appreciate being bald—oh the hours and money it saves on doing one’s hair! But let’s just say, bald isn’t the most gorgeous look for me.
Chemo doesn’t help aesthetic matters. Your skin falls away from your bones, becoming droopy and ashen. During the hard weeks, the pain twists and contorts your normally sunny disposition. There are any number of chemo-related indignities that are full-out repulsive. That combined with a double mastectomy earlier last summer (I decided to go flat, by the way, and love it! A revelation I’m happy to share), my poor, beautiful body has been under siege. And in such a way that I have to face the naked fact that, well, it’s ugly.
I’ve been thinking a lot about ugliness lately, and why we, especially as women, are so terrified of it. To be repulsed by the ugliness of sin is proper and good, but I wonder about our overwhelming fear of being physically ugly. How much energy is consumed in our lives trying to be beautiful? And what is that anyway?
As our Wisdom author reminds us in today’s First Reading, to know what is truly beautiful we must look to its Source.
What makes me beautiful—hair or no hair, breasts or no breasts—is that the Father created me. In a moment of miraculous wonder and passion, He imagined me, body and soul. He saw me and all of the lives I would touch, all the lives that would touch me, and said to Himself, “I have to have her!” I was brought into being by His great love and am sustained through that same love, created to know, love, and serve Him, and to share in His divine life. That, my sisters, makes me flat-out gorgeous.
I invite you to sit with the stars, the ocean, or some other natural manifestation of God’s beauty and allow the Lord to speak to you of your creation. Then give thanks that you, beautiful you, exist for all eternity.
Liz Kelly Stanchina is a jazz singer who met Jesus in late-night adoration. She is the community leader for women’s formation at the Word on Fire Institute and the author of more than a dozen award-winning books, including Jesus Approaches, Love Like a Saint, and the Blessed is She Advent devotional A Thrill of Hope. She holds advanced degrees in creative writing and Catholic studies. She is trained as a spiritual director, leading retreats and speaking around the world with a particular focus on helping women to flourish in their faith. Visit her website at LizK.org or follow her on Instagram at LizKToday.
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