What IS beauty, anyway?

We live in a world that is both beautiful and hideous.  We live in a society that is focused on selling us the idea that we can be “beautiful” if we will simply purchase and use certain products, starve our bodies into becoming a specific size and/or shape, and hide anything about ourselves that could possibly be perceived as a defect or an imperfection.  To me, these impossible standards of beauty are part of why our world is hideous.

Perfection is impossible…and if it were possible, it would be boring!  The iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford once told about a conversation she had with her mother in the very early days of her modeling journey about whether or not to remove her famous mole.  Her mother offered the insight that the mole made her face unique and memorable, and if she removed this unusual feature, all that would be left would be a scar.  

How many of us, in our efforts to fit into some arbitrary definition of beauty, have at some point or other, obliterated the very characteristics that make us identifiable and unique?  I am all in favor of beauty measures that help us to feel better about ourselves, that enhance the qualities and features that we like in both face and figure, and especially those that make us healthy and strong.  But I think the days of torturing ourselves and fighting against our looks need to be over.

God made us in His Image.  He made us beautiful.  At the end of His creative work, He declared all of it, including and especially humankind, very good.  Who are we to say otherwise?