Redefining Beautiful : Day One

Define beautiful, dictionary dearest.

beautiful adjective 1 : having qualities of beauty : exciting aesthetic pleasure

2 : generally pleasing : excellent

Synonyms : aesthetic, attractive, beauteous, bonny, comely, cute, drop-dead, fair, fetching, good, good-looking, goodly, gorgeous, handsome, knockout, likely, lovely, lovesome, pretty, ravishing, seemly, sightly, stunning, taking, well-favored

Antonyms : grotesque, hideous, homely, ill-favored, plain, ugly, unaesthetic, unattractive, unbeautiful, uncomely, uncute, unhandsome, unlovely, unpleasing, unpretty, unsightly

Apparently, an explanation is in order.

Synonym discussion : beautiful applies to whatever excites the keenest of pleasure to the senses & stirs emotion through the senses. Lovely is close to beautiful but applies to a narrower range of emotional excitation in suggesting the graceful, delicate, or exquisite. Handsome suggests aesthetic pleasure due to proportion, symmetry, or elegance. Pretty often applies to superficial or insubstantial attractiveness. Comely is like handsome in suggesting what is coolly approved rather than emotionally responded to. Fair suggests beauty because of purity, flawlessness, or freshness. 

Ignorance rings the doorbell.

I exchange words with the mirror. We part ways after an opening scene of unkind & all too familiar words. All originality that may have once struck me with surprise have dissipated, leaving scarring words to tend to unhealed wounds. But, yet, I come back to the battle grounds every morning, hoping to find something pretty, handsome, fair, or whatever you'd like to call it. I'll call it loved.

I want to love myself but my eyes cheat on my stomach with my mind, teaming up to leave me feeling like the girl on the before pictures in the diet commercials. I know it's not that bad & I know that I am being tangled in another web of trickery, but the heart & the head aren't always on the same side.

I tell you this to tell you that today God entered the battle grounds. Half way through painting my cheeks a shade of pretty, He spoke with such clarity the words echoed.

Weight does not define beauty.



It's time to redefine.
Because beautiful is not what we call it anymore. We are so far off the path, sisterlove, that I truly believe if beautiful was standing right before our eyes in a tee shirt that read 'beautiful', we still would not see the connection.

Beautiful is not based on a scale.
Beautiful is not based on a shade of bronze.
Beautiful is not based on how closely you resemble a celebrity.

So when we weed out everything beauty is not, what's left to be considered beautiful? What's left to be called lovely? Most importantly, what do you want to be defined as?


There's a twist in our story.
Because beautiful we know isn't the beautiful God calls beloved. The beautiful we know has been tampered with, alongside our hearts, twisting into a warped, meaningless, vein term.

& to yearn for beauty isn't something to be ashamed of, darling.

Never meant to be as we've taken it, yet with more meaning than we give the nine letter word credit for.

This is a reintroduction. Let me take you by the hand, & lead you back to your reflection. Because the mirrors been smudged, so it's no wonder you couldn't see with clarity before. Open your heart & your head to the here & now, a redefining point, in which we begin to respond to the name God has been calling after us, as we ourselves were unaware we were the one's he was speaking to.

Beloved is you. You are beloved. & you are beautiful.

Today is day one of eleven days for the head & the heart to recollect it's own definition of truth, reevaluating what beauty the king is enthralled with. Behind each day, a letter. Behind each letter in the nine letter word, a face. Name. An heiress to the kingdom, who doesn't always get it, but who's caught wind of something, empowering her to speak over the lie-covered skin.



I hope you find yourself.