“I’m too short. I’m too fat. I wish my eyes were blue. I wish I was more buff. I hate my thighs…” Words like this constantly run through our heads: “I am not sexy enough. I am not beautiful enough.”
We see movies and magazine ads, and everyone seems to look perfect. The women are perfectly thin, with the perfect hair, and the men are perfectly toned, perfectly dressed. (Never mind that these people are usually Photoshopped, caked in makeup, and perfectly lit under artificial lights.) We measure our self-worth against those standards of perfection and find ourselves falling short time and again. We strive to attain physical perfection, and we worry that no one will find us attractive unless we match society’s standard of beauty.
But what is beauty, really? How do you define it? It’s the quality of being physically attractive. Have you ever heard the saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?” That means that the definition of beauty is up to you, me, and every individual. Beauty really has no definition at all.
Beauty isn’t a 5’6” platinum blonde woman with a size 0 waist. Beauty isn’t a 6’2” dark haired, muscle-bound athlete.
So why do we put so much energy into something that cannot even be truly defined? Why does outer beauty consume us? Why do we get depressed, feel insecure, or a sense of shame over our physical appearance? Why is our culture so obsessed with beauty when it is only truly up to the individual eye of the beholder?
I want to introduce a new concept that we never hear about in the world of supermodels and bodybuilders: There is no such thing as a truly ugly person. God does not create ugly stuff, only beauty. Therefore, there must be beauty in everything he has created, even you.
You are not ugly.
You are not unattractive.
You are not repulsive.
You are beautiful.
You may not be someone’s type. One person may not consider you someone he or she personally finds attractive. But that does not mean that you are not attractive or beautiful/handsome at all. You are beautiful to someone. There is no such thing as truly ugly because God formed every person’s flesh, and he designed him or her exactly the way he wanted them. He designed all different shapes, sizes, colors, and textures, and all are beautiful to him.
There is no such thing as ugly when we are speaking of HaShem’s artwork. You are his beautiful masterpiece.
