It was supposed to be a challenge, to make people think about what true beauty really is. Beauty is the essence of self. It doesn't restrain or conform. Where Bekah and I were constrained and unnatural, Grace was free, and she was truly beautiful.
I don't know what most people thought of us. Some people said it was a good idea, anyway, and we did win the costume contest at Fall Fest. But I hope it was more than that. In a culture where surface beauty is overwhelmingly present, I hope we stood out as a protest. I'm sick of seeing girls and women everywhere place value on themselves only for how they look. I can't keep watching other people and myself stifle parts of ourselves for the sake of what we perceive as beauty. I want to live in a world where we value thoughts and words and faith and actions and questions and truth and community. I want us to stop trying to use our looks to gain power while pretending that our very souls aren't shrinking inside us. I want us to embrace our whole selves, flaws and all. What if we believed that imperfections can be beautiful too? We are all so very human, after all, but we are made in the image of God and nothing can be more beautiful than that.
So I will search for Inner Beauty every day. It's a journey, like almost everything in life that's worth searching for. I am going to try so hard to believe that true beauty is the most powerful thing. It's what you feel when you look at someone who is so flamboyantly themself...you just have to smile, because you see their raw and measureless beauty. And that is worth so much more than a mask of artificial beauty.
