Beautiful to Whom

Lately I've been listening to a lot of Rebecca St. James. I like her stuff because our ranges are similar and I don't have to strain myself at either end of the register when I sing her music.

Some of you know that I had an adjustable gastric band (Lap-Band) surgery in October. It wasn't a matter of my wanting to be thin. It was a matter of wanting to keep my own knees more than 5 years. After Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Physician's Weight Loss, Atkins, the cabbage soup diet - failures one and all - it was time for something drastic. While this isn't as drastic as a gastric bypass, it was surgery and had radically changed my life. I've lost 34 lbs since October, my knees aren't killing me at the end of the day, and my life is different.

I still have 75 lbs to go. I can walk down a flight of stairs without feeling like my knees are going to buckle. And I can cross my legs. I'm wearing makeup again, and I'm doing too much shopping. I probably should find the nearest chapter of Shoes Anonymous and admit that I have a problem before I fall off my new stillettos and break my ankle. And for the first time in a very long time, I feel pretty.

I have to admit that my sudden interest in my own appearance is a bit disconcerting. After all, I'm the one who refuses to color my grey hair as my own feminist protest against the media images that devalue American Woman over the age of 25. And I still refuse to wear makeup if I have to work the 6AM shift because I'm NOT getting up before 5AM just to paint myself. That's just silly.

But what really bothers me about this obsession with whether or not that gloss actually makes my lips plumper is the possibility that it is distracting me from the transformation that God wants. He wants me to be beautiful but being beautiful to God is something that happens on the inside.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2
1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.


In verse 1, he talks about us offering up our physical selves as an act of worship to God. But in verse 2, he tells the Roman believers that they are to allow themselves to have their minds transformed by God.

We are not to spend our time making us look like the world (conforming), but we are to give ourselves over to the spiritual disciplines that change us into something completely new (transforming our minds).

O Lord, transform me into anything but a typical person. Make me pleasing in your eyes.


Mirror by Rebecca St. James

May the words of my mouth please You, dear God
May the thoughts of my heart say to You
That all that I desire is to be with You forever
Lord I pray, I pray that You
-
Take me, make me
Beautiful to you
Create me so I mirror you
Take me, make me
An Image of you
Cause Lord I want to mirror you.