Stories of Christian Life: Short Stories

Beauty is Pain

( Warning: There will be mention of Suicidal, Bulimia/Anorexia, cutting, and negativity)

Beauty is a word that can mean something different for so many people. I have seen commercials, TikTok videos, ads promoting all kinds of beauty. Some girls have this beauty where they get all the attention they want, all the boys fall for them. They have the perfect body, hair, eyes, skin, weight, everything! It’s just perfect! A dream come true for a man, a dream come true for the world. I only wish to have that perfect beauty in me.

    Looking at myself in the mirror, all I see is just nothing but ugliness. This makes me wonder so many things. Why do guys like me? Why do people love me the way I look? Why do they get jealous of seeing me? Why do they say I’m pretty? What do they see in me?! Cause I don’t see any beauty in me, all I see is a blank paper of emptiness and nothing. When I look in the mirror, I see a girl who has hair on her arms and legs. I have a stomach that looks like I’m pregnant when I’m not. I just have a big stomach and I have rolls too. I’m short and all those perfect girls are tall! I have lots of bumps on my face! I LOOK LIKE I’M CHUBBY AND TOO WIDE!!

I should start shaving all my hair away from my body and should start exercising, but it will take forever. Hmmm, maybe I should stop eating. If I stop eating, it will decrease my fatness and chubbiness, and I’ll be skinny like all those girls. How about plastic surgery? That will be great too, but that will cost a lot of money. Maybe if I “borrow” my parent's money, I’ll be able to get it!

Dear ladies, warriors, and beauties of God,
    We live in a society where we want to look pretty and perfect. We see girls in commercials, in videos, all the time where it only shows a beautiful woman with the perfect body. It feeds us this false idea, but we need to learn that they are full of lies. They don’t show what’s the truth behind those videos.

God is a magnificent creator and the way He created you shows how much He loves you and how much beauty He sees in you. The way you are now is the way God wants you to stay and accept His creation, but since we live in a world where people want perfection, we get influenced and we end up changing everything, from top to bottom.

You started to hate yourself; you want to change your look to fit in, you start to say negative and critical things to yourself. You hate how your wide and not skinny, you hate that you have a deeper or high voice, you hate that you’re tall or short, you think to yourself that you look plain and empty without makeup but when you wear makeup, you’ll say to yourself “I’m uglier with makeup” So many girls and boys too, are tired to look at themselves in the mirror and see nothing but ugliness. So much pain inside that there's a moment where they start to have choices like plastic surgery, stop eating or vomiting all the food, cutting themselves, or worst ending their life.

You may have been told by your friends or family to change your look, change this or that, or why do you dress like this, why do you sound like a man, why do you look older/young? Maybe there was one point where you were thinking to yourself, “ Will a man/wife love me for how I am?” Ladies and gentleman too, I have two examples that I heard from others and their great examples;

Example #1:
    You’re an artist and you have just created a lovely artwork that it took you days to make it. You published to share your creation with everyone then suddenly, everyone hates it. People started to download the drawing to reimagine it or to change it. How would you feel?
    The feeling you will feel is the same way how God feels. When you start to hate yourself or even judge yourself, you will do anything you can to change yourself. Why would you change an artist's work?

Example #2:
    A butterfly is a beautiful creation of God, but the butterflies don't know how beautiful they are, the beauty they carry in them.
    Same as you and me, we carry this beauty inside, the beauty of Christ. Why would you say you're ugly when there's beauty inside you?

    You will see girls in commercials with a lovely body, the beauty all girls want, but do they have the beauty inside? You may not have the same appearance as the girls in the commercials or videos, but you have the beauty inside of you. God created you just the way you are and if no one wants to see it, then it’s them, but what God sees in you, He sees a princess/prince. Don’t get fooled by the world, for the beauty the world is looking for is a beauty of pain. Your beauty is not pain, but healthy from God.

“The one who acquires good sense loves himself; one who safeguards understanding finds success”
           
Proverbs 19:8

If you trust your friends, family, or anyone you know, please seek help if you ever thought of cutting, suicidal thoughts, or even hating yourself. For we are children of God and as a family, we help each other.