Redefining Beautiful : Day Two

Taylor.
One of those girls I am confident could make a conversation with the most awkward person flow like honey. Six months ago, this girl was a friend of a friend, & very quickly became my encouragement & rock when I felt called to begin a small group of girls. When the numbers flickered & failure fought, she was my neck, holding my head above the noise.

Behold a woman of aplomb. I pray her confidence is contagious.

Beautiful.

B. Be.

Be. A verb. To be.

I teach in an urban elementary school resource room. Students as young as kindergarten and as old as sixth grade come in and out of my classroom all day, looking to me for knowledge. I teach them how to form the letters of the alphabet and I teach them how to count and I teach them how to control their emotions and do you know what I really want to teach them? When they are crying because they are “too stupid” to take a standardized test, when they are “too ugly” to talk to the opposite sex, when they are “too weird” to play with the cool kids, I want to pick them up and shake them and as lovingly as I possibly can, I want to shout at them: YOU ARE BELOVED.

“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.”

| Song of Solomon 6:3 |

Sadly, I cannot speak truth into these kids’ lives in the middle of the school day. I cannot pick them up and shake them. For one, I am not strong enough for that sort of thing; also I think that is illegal. But if I could, I would. I would tell each and every student and each and every woman and each and every grandma and daughter and the men and the boys, too. Everyone needs picked up, and shook, and shouted at. You are all beloved and because you are beloved, you are all beautiful.

But of course kids believe that they are not good enough. Not smart enough, cool enough, beautiful enough – because we adults believe that, too.

B. Be. Believe.

Believe lies: 

Be tall, they say. Be skinny, they say.

Be tan. Be stylish. Be smart. Be confident. Be rich. Be famous.

Believe truth:

Be vulnerable. Be real. Be kind. Be faithful.

Be joyful. Be love. Be patient. Be gentle. Be peaceful.

Believe me: 

Be broken, because among all of the lies and the truths and the beauty,

brokenness is the most beautiful of all the beauties in all the world.

At the beginning of the school year I asked my students what they want to be when they grow up. A fifth grade girl (who almost identically resembles Olive in Little Miss Sunshine) told me she wants to be a model. When I ask her why she wants to be a model she looked at me, with the most serious, sad eyes that I have ever seen, and said, “because I want to be beautiful.” (For the sake of privacy, I will call my student Olive.)

Olive has long, tangled hair

and big, thick glasses

and her teeth are crooked

and her clothes are dirty

and her shoes don’t fit

and she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

She is kind to everyone, she smiles at everyone, she wants to please everyone. Last week Olive wrote a note that said “I wish everyone would stop picking on me. I hate my life. I want to kill myself.” Her homeroom teacher found it and confronted her and set her up with a psychologist, and all the while, Olive was still smiling. She is so broken. She is so hurt. She is so real. And she is the most beautiful.

Beautiful is the ray of sunshine beaming from Olive’s face when she wants to take her own life.

Beautiful is the boy with autism who can only communicate through laughs and cries and hugs.

Beautiful is the child who only comes to school to get away from the abuse of being at home.

Beautiful is every boy and every girl and everyone ever who has a heavy and a broken heart, but stays alive and stays beautiful anyway.

Be broken.

B. Be.

Beautiful.