Becoming Beautiful

On a cultural scale, I was a pretty young bride.

At age 24, it was easy to look nice. My skin and weight and hair were all relatively pliant to whatever beauty treatments I experimented on them. I had no health issues and no fears of the inevitable ageing process. On our honeymoon cruise, I ate and ate to my heart's content knowing that I could easily lose whatever weight I gained.

Time has done quite a number on me since then.

My weight fluctuates, sometimes beyond my control. My hair thins just a little more with every new chemical process I let it go through. My face is showing fine lines, and scars take much longer to heal than they used to.

And I thank God every day that I have a husband who looks at me and loves me for things that are more than skin deep.

Because when the standards are timeless ones, then it is possible to become more and more beautiful as the years go by.

No matter the amount of age-defying beauty products I use, it's not possible to actually defy the effects of time. There's no magic potion to immunize us from getting and looking older.

But there's beauty of the other kind.

Because, no matter what life throws at you, kindness and understanding never go out of style. Selfless love and a positive spirit can brighten any relationship through thick and thin. Unlike the money and time I spend putting on make-up that I will inevitably take off, any efforts invested in developing a strong and beautiful character don't just wash away.

I still want to look pretty.

I think I always will.

But it's comforting to know whenever I look in the mirror and see my flaws, whenever I realize that all that pile of skincare product won't exactly make me look like the vibrant models on the billboards, that there is a way to keep becoming more beautiful, that there's a kind of beauty that becomes only better with time.

It's the kind of beauty that comes from bearing the Fruit of the Spirit. It's the kind of beauty that's found in a Proverbs 31 woman.

I'm never going to be perfect on this side of heaven, but I am heartened that there is a beauty standard that I can keep striving for regardless of how long I have to scroll down the drop down menu to get to my birth year. I find encouragement and hope in the knowledge that, wrinkles or not, a daughter of the King can keep getting prettier as the years go by.

Because becoming more beautiful is always possible, when it's in the places that count.