For so long after George’s porn struggle came to the surface I wondered if it was possible for me to be the most beautiful woman to him. It was so hard for me to come to terms with the fact that he saw other women and thought they were more beautiful than me. Underneath of my insecurity to be the most beautiful woman in the world to my husband … there was truth. There are two ways our beauty can please our husbands. We can please his lust or his purity of heart.
His lust is all physical and sexual. It’s doing things in bed that we see in porn films. It’s objectifying ourselves. Dressing in a way that turns heads, so that our husbands see us as a trophy. There’s a part of every man that is tempted to lust (women have it too). This part of a man is the part we want to please that will make us feel like we never measure up. It’s a part of him that will always make us feel inadequate, used, and unloved, no matter how much his eyes drool over us. It’s the same feeling a porn star has. A little power by using her looks to draw the attention of men, but eventually the power fades and he moves on to someone else. Lust doesn’t love. It doesn’t stick around to hold you when you’re crying.
Love does. Love doesn’t see a wife as a trophy. Love sees a wife as a treasure. And there’s another part of our husbands that we can rest in and feel beautiful. When we seek to please his purity of heart, we please the part of him that reflects God, not the devil. See what I’m saying here? Lust is the part of our husbands that reflects sin and the absence of God, purity is the part of our husbands that reflects God. Underneath of our selfish desire to be the most physically appealing woman in the world, there is a true desire to be the most beautiful woman in the world to our husband.
What is beauty?
Let’s start with what beauty is not. These are most likely lies that have been put in our heads from the world. Beauty is not about the number on the scale. It’s not about how many organic foods you eat in relation to how many french fries you eat. It’s not how clean your house is or how well you can sew. It’s not the size of your bust, waist, or hips. It’s not how flat your stomach is or how vibrant your hair color shines. It’s not about gray hairs, wrinkles, or a great tan.
So, what is it? The dictionary defines beauty as physical or inner qualities that satisfy the mind. Okay, so there is a surfacey kind of beauty. We all know what that is and generally it depends on the world’s latest view. There’s also a physical beauty defined by God, but how can we even begin to know what that looks like when we are so tainted by the world? We think God does a fine job with sunsets, but not ourselves.
Beauty is you.
There is a such thing as physical beauty, and you are your own unique version of that. There are people who are more aesthetically beautiful than us depending on our own ideas of what that means, but so what? You are beautiful. You are beauty. Yes, physically. No matter what size jeans you are, what the scale says, or what you look like without concealer and hair dye … you are beautiful, just like the sunsets.
Beyond your physical beauty that is unique to only you, there is another beauty, a beauty that Peter describes in 1 Peter 3. Isn’t it funny that Peter describes the incorruptible beauty of a woman within a paragraph about the conduct of a wife? He says not to let your adornment be merely external, but to let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. This is precious in God’s sight. Incorruptible beauty is eternal. It’s precious in God’s sight. It is a reflection of Jesus Christ Himself.
That is beautiful, isn’t it? You were created to be your own unique reflection of Jesus, and I am created to be my own reflection. Who are you? What do you do in your life to reflect Jesus? Who is your hidden person and how do you live?
That is incorruptible beauty. Beauty that never fades. Beauty that is so much more lasting than physical beauty. But please don’t forget your physical beauty. Don’t compare yourself to others. We compare ourselves to others so much that we forget who we are. Rediscover who you are in Christ and live that out in your life. Live transparently, without so many masks. Be real. Show the world that flaws aren’t something to hide, they are something to boast about. Like Paul says in Corinthians 11:30, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” Why? So that Christ’s power may rest on you, because his power is made perfect in your weaknesses. Stop seeking a worldly perfection you will never attain, and instead, boast of your flaws so that Jesus Christ’s power will rest on you.
Find rest in His power and love. You don’t have to strive. You are a ten in His book, because you are the only you in the world. You are a ten. We have a thing with comparing ourselves to others in this world. Well, if no other woman in the world existed … you wouldn’t have any worldly standards to base your worth and beauty off of … and you’d find yourself a ten. So be the only woman you were created to be. Be the ten that you are, regardless of how much you exercise or what the scale says.
Ask God who you are. Who He wants you to be. And how you can live out your unique reflection of Jesus. You are beautiful because you are you. Your husbands lust will not understand the truth of this kind of beauty, but his purity of heart will. Love will understand. You can be beautiful to your husband. You can be the most beautiful woman in your husband’s world. But first … you both need to rethink how you see beauty and discover the truth about incorruptible beauty. You need to see beauty without comparison and find that every person on this earth is beautiful, most beautiful, in their own unique ways.
