You Are Beautiful, Day 24

Special needs children and disabled people are among the most beautiful people among us. While they don’t always fit the cliché description of physical beauty, anyone who has gotten a hug from someone with Down syndrome or who has seen the smile of someone with severe cerebral palsy will tell you that there are few things more beautiful than the innocent, pure love that is expressed by those whom society too often casts aside.

            God has blessed our Earth with tons of beauty. From sunsets, to waterfalls, to mountaintops, he has blessed us with abundant pleasure. But there’s a certain level of beauty that we are able to enjoy from each other that outshines even the most charming landscapes on Earth. As St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, God is the ultimate definition of positive expression. As such, there is nothing more beautiful than God, and since He declares that human beings were created in his likeness, there is nothing more beautiful than human beings.

            We can feel that in our nature. But God didn’t specify that skinny blonde women or tall, dark, handsome men were made most in his image. No, we are all born in his image. And what matters to God is the same as what should matter to us: Above all else, love.

            At last year’s Values Voters Summit, Senator Rick Santorum gave a remarkable testimony about his daughter, Bella, who is four years old and has Trisomy 18. The Senator told the crowd that of all of his seven children, she has taught them the most. She was always smiling, always loving, and had an innocent nature that was impossible to change.

            “She is pure love,” Santorum said. “While some in society would call her disabled, she is the most able among us and she is the center of our family.”

            Senator Santorum was exactly right. Too often, members of our society believe that disabled people are a dispensable part of our community. Of all babies that are prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome, only 10% are given the chance to live. Outside of the womb, there are many people who think that special education funding is a waste, that there is no real place in society for special needs people. Even the most well-meaning people in the world often believe that while we should love disabled people, they have little to offer the world.

            As usual, society’s view is a bit warped from God’s view. Not only does God say that we are made in his image, he says that we are formed in the womb as part of His divine plan, with hope and a future. God doesn’t make mistakes. The fact that God has a plan for each of us is not reliant on our ability to see that plan, and his plan for disabled people is most definitely not reliant on society’s ability to fathom the plan.

            When I was a little kid, disabled people scared me. There was a self conscious fear that I would do something wrong around them to cause an outburst or a scene, and there was a deeper fear that they would do something to make me uncomfortable. Luckily, this fear was diminished during my U-12 season of AAU basketball.

            The new star player for our team had an older brother who suffered from severe cerebral palsy. He was confined to a wheel chair and was unable to talk at all. While many of his communicative skills were lacking, you could look into his eyes and see his loving soul. While Michael could speak no words through his mouth, his eyes were full of pure love whenever he looked at his mother, father, or brothers. When my team would win a game, he was always at the center of the celebration. Whenever any of us 12-year-olds would walk past him, we’d always say hello and give him a tap on the arm. His face would light up every single time. While most of us thought of ourselves as too cool to walk next to our mothers in the grocery store, no one was above being nice to Michael. He enjoyed the basketball games as much as any other family members, and would even let out an occasional snort or laugh while the opposing team was shooting free throws.

            When Michael passed away in 2006, none of us felt as though we lost someone who was any less a person than any of us. No, we felt as though we lost a close friend – a member of our extended family. All along, we never viewed Michael based on what he was unable to do. Rather, we loved Michael because of what he could do: Laugh, smile, and love. Michael was beautiful.

            God had a plan for Michael. Michael’s disabilities didn’t inhibit his ability to teach us and to impact our lives. No, Michael was able to express more to his family and friends than any of us could ever dream to express. While Michael’s physical ailments prevented him from standing, nothing prevented his soul from living out his Earthly life to the fullest.

            As is the case with any premature death, Michael’s passing caused me to ask God our simplest and most frequent question: “Why?”

            The answer to the question could be found in the way Michael lived. If I were God, I would probably make each person look very similar, each of us fitting the physical descriptions of beauty that we are accustomed to.

            But Michael’s life -and the lives of millions of disabled people across the world - show why playing Supreme Ruler of the Universe is far above my pay grade. God understands this universe a lot better than any of us do. And if it were left to us, our superficial plans and our physical definitions of beauty would be the driving force in our world. But God knows what he is doing. He knows that the beauty in each of us lies not in our hair color, eye color, or the length of our legs. More than anywhere else, beauty lies in our souls.

            As Senator Santorum points out, those who society calls “disabled” have the easiest ability to see the beauty in God’s Earth and have the best ability to find love in the world around them. If the rest of us are lucky, we can find that beauty and love, too. It starts by looking at them.

Chris Crawford is a junior at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. studying Political Science. He is in love with the pro-life cause, and can often be found energizing his peers to be similarly in love with and excited about it. He blogs at Catholic Branches.

You Are Beautiful, Day 23

A Beauty Protest

I had a really bad habit of putting myself down about my appearance, and when we were first married my husband noticed this.  His response to me doing this was to go on protest.  He wouldn’t stop saying “I’m on strike,” until I admitted I was beautiful and stop complaining that my skin was bad or I was too tall or I didn’t like that mole on my right ear.  I distinctly remember him standing on top of our bed repeating over and over in protest that I was beautiful and just to accept it.

My husband is right.  He, in his own ridiculousness, was trying to tell me that I was being completely unreasonable.  I am beautiful.  I’m not trying to say that in a vain way, but in the fact that I am a child of God and God’s children are all beautiful.  It’s so easy to pick ourselves apart, because the world constantly throws false images of beauty at us.

My husband also was able to see the bigger picture, as God sees me as, a whole picture.  Instead of being the girl who has a zit on her chin, I am the girl who has a passion for helping others, who loves her small children with everything she’s got, who’s not afraid to dance in the kitchen or stand up for what she believes is truth.  This is who God sees me as and thankfully this is who my husband sees me as, beautiful in and out.

We are beautiful for more reasons than that which is skin deep. We need to believe in ourselves that we are truly beautiful because we are God’s unique creations thru and thru.  While not everyone has a husband protesting for their beauty we do have the fact that God doesn’t make ugly girls.  Maybe we aren’t what Hollywood throws us as beautiful, but each of us is a woman, a being that has the ability to receive and bear fruit in more ways than one, which is something holy, and that is beautiful in itself.  

Kiera Kurak blogs at Contranaut Girl, and is a member of CathSorority.

You Are Beautiful, Day 22

Beauty through God's Eyes

There's a joke I know, and lately it's been stuck in my head. It's a sign of the situation I'm in that it gets less funny and more relevant as the days go by, but I can't get it out of my head. The joke goes like this:

What's the difference between a junkie and a thief?

A junkie will steal your wallet and then help you look for it.

Addiction is a hell of a thing. 

It chews a person up, consumes everything about them that makes them who they were, and leaves you with this husk of jitters, theft, and lies. I have seen addiction swallow people I knew - slowly destroying everything that I liked about the person. And I have seen what it does to the families of people who are addicts. There is no doubt, addiction is ugly, and it makes everything it touches ugly, too.

I will not deny, it is incredibly painful and indescribably difficult to watch somebody you love disappear into an addiction, but what about when you meet someone who is already an addict? What about when somebody who is beloved by the people you love, somebody you want to love, somebody you ought to love - - just isn't there anymore?

This is something I've been struggling with lately. 

Sarah* is a part of my extended family now. She has been an addict for close to nine years, and I only met her two years ago. Members of her immediate family tell stories, they talk about her dreams and hopes, but the Sarah I know bears no resemblance to the girl they remember. 

She is a pile of hollow-eyed mumbles who falls asleep at the dinner table, a constant victim who always has a novel-long story about how they wound up in this mess and why they need twenty bucks from you. You have to watch your purse around her, and you never let her borrow anything. She tells lies upon lies upon lies, refuses to take responsibility for her actions, and seems to be emotionally stalled out at about the age she started using.

She is not so much a person as she is a walking addiction. I imagine it like the scene from The Shining, Sarah turning to her mother, crooking her finger and saying, "Sarah isn't here right now."

But the people I love love Sarah, and God loves Sarah. Deep down inside, under layers of deception, self-loathing, and fear, I have to believe that there is good. My faith informs me that every human being is made in the image and likeness of God, and that every human being has infinite value and worth. This much I know.  But I seem to hit a wall when it comes to remembering that Sarah is made in the image and likeness of God. Sarah has infinite value and worth.

Yes, Jesus loved and healed and welcomed prostitutes, tax collectors, and lepers - and so of course He would welcome this mumbling, gaunt wreck of a person into His arms. He would hug her and kiss her face and tell her how very much He loved her. In order for me to see Sarah as she really is, I have to try to see her as God sees her. I have to cobble together a real person from the stories her family tells, and the trophies on the wall in her parents' den. For her sake and for my sake, I must strive to see her as a full human being, and not as a walking addiction.

And here's the part of Christianity that gets uncomfortable, and this is the part of love that isn't all sunshine & roses. Sarah is beautiful. And the fact that I can't see it is my problem, not hers.  If I am truly striving to live my life in imitation of Christ, I must keep this intrinsic beauty in the front of my mind - even when we all know she's using, even when she steals from us and pawns it so she can score, even when she lies, denies, and makes excuses. 

This doesn't mean that we don't hold her accountable, or that we don't allow her to face the consequences of her actions. It doesn't mean that we rescue her, or (ever) give her a key to our house. But it does mean that we seek to love her as Christ loves her. It means I have to break down the wall I have built between us, I have to see her as the radiant soul, the irreplaceable person for whom Christ died.

Because He didn't just die for upstanding people who drive sedans and mow their lawn. He didn't say, "This is the cup of my blood, shed for you and some of the other decent people" - he died for junkies, too.

Sarah is made in the image and likeness of God, and so she shines with the beauty of His handiwork. Through the dirty fingernails, the sunken eyes, the sores on her face, Sarah's beauty radiates. It's up to me to find a way to see it.

Kate is sinner who eats too many carbs and curses too much, and is very glad that she might someday get to heaven anyway. She lives with her husband in Arizona, and they are expecting their first child in December. She blogs at Imperfect Kate.

You Are Beautiful, Day 21

How to make sure your daughters know they’re beautiful:

by, someone who has no experience having daughters, but a lot of experience having great parents.

Honestly- so I’m hoping they’re going to be the bigger person here and not say they told me so- looking back, a lot of things that my parents did that annoyed me to no end are the things that made me confident in who I am today. 

I have no idea if my parents did all of this on purpose, or if some things they did without thinking just worked out well, but I do know that they’re things I’m going to be doing on purpose. 

What have most of these posts focused on? That beauty is love, beauty is confidence in yourself, beauty is knowing that you are loved and can love, beauty is knowing that you are loved by God. This is so true, and so beautiful- but how, how, can we make sure that we pass these truths on to our friends and family? How do we make sure that someday, our children know it?

So many people are wounded today because, growing up, they were never told or taught that they were beautiful, or were even told that they weren’t. While I can’t say I thought I was pretty every waking moment of my life, or that I’ve never wanted to change anything about my body, I can say that I really always was able to know- not necessarily feel, but know- that no matter what, I was beautiful. Even if I hadn’t showered in a few days because the shower’s solar heater had kicked it, and I had just spent five hours hiking up a volcano in the pitch black and was covered in dirt and sweat, I was beautiful. Actually, especially because I could be gross, dirty, tired, sweaty, and smelly on a mountaintop in Guatemala, happy and having just accomplished something brand new. That’s how my parents raised me, and this is more or less, I think, how they did it:

-For the love of God, tell your daughters they’re beautiful! But not only that they’re beautiful.

I’m lucky enough to have family members who did tell me that I was beautiful, or that I was pretty, etc, when I was little. There’s a problem with this though: girls are under so much pressure to be physically beautiful that hearing this can make them want to seek out that same reinforcement more and more. Am I pretty? Do I look good? What if I do this? Am I pretty now? Or am I prettier like this? The physical is emphasized too much in our society. It shouldn’t be completely ignored, and hearing that they’re beautiful is important for little girls. But always, always, make sure they know that they are more than just pretty. Ask a little girl: what book are you reading? What’s your favorite game to play? What’s your favorite movie? Ask her to draw a picture with you and say “Wow, you’re a great artist!” 

And don’t tell your daughters they look beautiful just when they actually look pretty- if I was little and ran up to my dad on the beach with a seaweed wig on my head and sand-mud warpaint all over me and said “DADDY DON’T I LOOK PRETTY?” he would’ve said “You’re beautiful!” or, “You’re the prettiest sad monster ever.” Make sure beautiful means more than just the mirror: strong is beautiful, smart is beautiful, stubborn can be beautiful. So show that, always.

-Teach them modesty- for the right reasons, in the right ways. But also how to not wear a potato sack, and like clothes for the sake of feeling good and having fun with them.

My parents had rules on rules on rules about what we could and couldn’t wear, or it felt like it at the time. Some of them I hated. Some of them were just fine. All of them boiled down to something very simple: respect for yourself, and respect for the situation you’re in. For example:

There were most definitely clothes that I would never be allowed out of my house in. Granted, in middle and high school this didn’t always mean I never wore them- I wasn’t above the occasional “change-for-the-dance-at-a-friend’s-house” routine- but today when I look at myself in the mirror going out the door, if I think “I would never have been allowed out of the house wearing this,” 99.9% of the time, I find myself turning around to change. (Exception: Sometimes, during finals, leggings and a giant sweatshirt just have to happen. I’m sorry, world, but finals are different.)

However, having basic rules and standards of decency doesn’t mean decide what your kids will wear and tell them what to do. It means if your daughter wants to read The Babysitters Club and draw her style inspiration from Claudia Kishi because the author gives her really good adjectives like “sophisticated” and “funky”, and because she would always do cool things like wear crazy colors and homemade accessories.... Tell her she looks good when she matches a shoulder sash/belt/thing she made out of multicolored fabric with her pink shorts overalls at the family reunion. My mom did. (it was the 90s... I was young, people. Single-digit ages. And I looked darn good.) If I wanted to get that Old Navy dress in a bight purple that made me feel pretty my mom hated, but it was otherwise a fine dress, she let me go ahead and feel pretty in a purple that hurt her eyes. I learned that yes, clothes are important for outwardly showing the kind of person you are, so you should be careful in how you present yourself- but also that you can and should have fun with what you wear and do things that make you feel confident!

When I was older, maybe later elementary school, or preteen, I remember one day while my family was at the Jersey Shore in the summer. We were walking on the boardwalk, and we went by one of those gangs of young teen girls who hang out on malls, beaches, and boardwalks waiting for a gang of teen boys to come talk to them. I distinctly remember my dad saying to me, “you know, you don’t have to wear that much makeup or that little clothing to make boys like you. You’re beautiful anyway.” I don’t know if he remembers saying that to me, but I do remember that a few years later, mid-high school, that moment popped into my head while I was getting ready to go hang out on the boardwalk with my cousins. I ended up changing what I had originally put on, because he was right. The little things you do to reinforce this all make a big difference- what was probably just a passing comment by my dad is something that I still remember today. So make sure the little things you say are things that will build your daughters up and reinforce what you want them to believe about their beauty and worth, not undermine it. 

-Let them be kids, for Pete’s sake. And sometimes, that means make them be kids.

I REALLY WANTED to wear makeup to school in fourth grade. Like, I really wanted to. Because I.... wanted to.... because.... for some reason... I even had a really, really high quality makeup kit that I got off the rack next to the squirt guns at Richdales.

Yeah um, Mom... thank you for not actually letting me go out with that heinous makeup job on. Yes, I really did want to wear it, but not because I liked makeup, or was even remotely good at using it. I just wanted to feel “like a grown-up” because, clearly, in fourth grade you’re totally almost a grownup. Not. 

I can give absolutely zero parenting tips on how to say no to kids without them being very difficult about it, other than “have kids less stubborn than I am.” But I can tell you that there’s an immense pressure on girls especially to grow up way, way too fast, and even though I complained at the time, my parents refusing to let me act more grown up until I was actually ready made sure that I was comfortable with who I am and what I was doing, not just doing something because other people were doing it or it was cool. This example may sound like it has nothing to do with beauty other than the makeup example, but it’s about creating confidence to make your own choices and decisions and be secure in them, and that is a beautiful thing. (This confidence will also give you the ability to say “excuse me, no, you know what? I am beautiful” if anyone tries to tell you otherwise.)

Make sure your daughters read!

I love, and have always loved, reading. I feel like this saved my parents a lot of headaches when I was little, because apparently, parents worry a lot about the messages their daughters pick up from seemingly harmless kids’ shows. I know this must be true, because the mom blog I read for recipes says so. I honestly have no idea what kids watch on Disney Channel now, but we had Hannah Montana, iCarly, and the first seasons of that show with Selena Gomez on it and something about magic. Hannah Montana is engaged now, so that shows how far out of it I am when it comes to Disney channel... It is true though that these shows all had, and newer ones still have, one main character who is the ideal that girls feel like they’re supposed to be like- yes, in personality, but especially in looks and mannerisms.

A book is different. Yes, you know what characters look like, but you get to shape them in your mind and fill out the unknowns however you want. Huge benefits in imagination abilities aside, reading lets you create a world that you are comfortable in. A little girl might still want to model herself after a character in a book (see Claudia Kishi and strange funky clothes example above) but in a book, there is much more than physical appearance to aspire to. 

There are tens of other things my parents did to make sure I grew up confident and beautiful, but I probably don’t even know what half of them are. I just hope someday I can do enough of them to ensure that my daughters can be loving, beautiful women, and secure and confident enough to recognize that in themselves and show it to others. If they’re anywhere near as stubborn as I was about it, though, my parents might actually get some cause to say “I told you so.”

Patty is a junior at George Washington University studying International Affairs in Washington D.C. She doesn't blog, but is a wonderful writer and maintains the tumblr for Made In His Image.

You Are Beautiful, Day 20

“You are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can’t bring you down” – Christina Aguilera

I’m sure many, if not all of you, are familiar with the above lyric to the song You are Beautiful that came out in 2008. I’ve heard that song numerous times, but the actual words just don’t sync in.

I grew up in an emotionally abusive household. My father was continually negative about himself and others. It didn’t take long for my mother to adopt that way of thinking either. Growing up, I had no idea what it meant to have a positive self image, as it was a foreign concept to me. When I was younger, there were several times that I was told I “looked too fat” in that outfit, or “you’re never going to amount to anything”, or “singing isn’t very hard. You should be more like your [younger] sister and play an instrument”. This type of “affirmation” didn’t bode well for my self image. Not only was I not pretty enough for my own parents, but it didn’t matter what I did as I wasn’t good enough either.

School didn’t help much either. I was always the one without a date. No date to the prom. No dates to any dances. Nothing. I felt as though something was seriously wrong with me. I remember back when I was a freshman in high school, getting some attention from a neighbor boy. He was a year older than I was and I had known him for several years as his mother was my babysitter. I loved the attention and felt that I needed to do whatever it was that he wanted in order to keep that attention. Except, that ended in disaster and I was raped.

All of those events, and more, compounded together to create this very negative, ‘unbeautiful’ person. To this day, I still fight myself with body image. I have come a long way, but I have found solace in God. I am reassured of His love for me through scripture and through others. It’s so easy, especially for us women, to get caught up in what others think and what they say; in how others look and how you don’t look like them. None of use are perfect – only God is. We are made in HIS image and HIS likeness. God doesn’t make junk and we are made just the way we are because HE made us. He doesn’t make junk. That doesn’t mean that we are not to care for our bodies – we are after all temples of the Holy Spirit.

God is life. God is love. God is beautiful. When we have God within us, there is nothing more beautiful on earth. The more we seek Him, the more beautiful we become. We are in our bodies for just a short time – its our souls that matter the most.

Tina is a single, 30-something young adult who blogs over at Consecrated Wanderer. A cradle Catholic, Tina has been active in her Church for over half her life. Tina is an avid lover of photography, her cat Gallie, and of course Jesus!

You Are Beautiful, Day 19

Julie blogs at The Corner With a View, and is a member of CathSorority.

You Are Beautiful, Day 18

(Today's post is a note I was given permission to use by my friend Patty, which she wrote after our Newman Center's women's retreat last October.)

Apparently, this week is "Love Your Body" week, immediately following the GW Newman Center's women's retreat- either a total coincidence or a sneaky plan by our campus minister. So, this weekend found me in a beach house in Delaware with several amazing women and my long-missed Atlantic Ocean. A picture can never do it justice, and neither can words, but a sunrise over the ocean is amazing. The sky is painted with color, the waves are crashing, the sun is blinding on the horizon, and after a clear night the only clouds hang low over the rising sun, illuminated by it. We're a loud group, I'll admit it, but the sunrise left us silent. There wasnt's a word any of us could add that would make the sight any more breathtaking than it already was.



These sights- a sunrise, a waterfall, the view from a mountaintop- are incredible. They leave us in awe, and we often feel so small next to the glory of creation. How can we ever compare? Really, though, the beauty we have as women is all that and more. Although next to something as beautiful as a sunrise or even just next to a model out of a magazine, we might feel less than perfect, there is nothing more beautiful than woman.

I've used this quote in a note before, and read it to more than a few of you, but it describes it perfectly: even though we might feel our beauty overshadowed by all kinds of other things, nothing can compare to it.

Nothing on earth can compare to the beauty of women. Such a statement may seem an exaggeration to some, but it is easy enough to prove: when was the last time you heard of someone who was addicted to looking at oline pictures of sunsets? Could you imagine if guys in your school chuckled in glee as they sent pictures of waterfalls and flamingoes to each other's cell phones? Despite how beautiful these other created things are, jsut the thought of comparing them to the allure of a woman is absurd.

(Jason Evert, Theology of His/Her Body)

So, in this week dedicated to it, and in every week, love your body. See your beauty, love your strangth. Love your heart, your soul, your infinite potential, love yourself.
You are more beautiful than a thousand sunsets. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14)

You, reading this, are in the sunrise of your life- whether you are nine or ninety-two. Every day is another sunrise. Good things happen, and bad things happen, and the world turns, and the sun rises again. There is beauty in our strength: in every day we get up when we're just too tired, or we don't want to face the world, and just not having to wake up seems like the most comfortable option. Each one of these is a new beginning, another sunrise in our lives. We have an infinite capacity for new beginnings, for a fresh start and the creation of new life. Every single one is beautiful, more beautiful than a thousand sunsets, or sunrises.

"I am beautiful because I love," said an apparition of Mary at Medjugorie. As women, we are gifted with an endless power to love and give of ourselves. Love is beautiful. I count my mother and grandmothers among the most beautiful women I know, not just because they're pretty (although they are that) but because everything they do is done with a kindness, strength, and purpose of love that sets them apart.
Yes, sometimes we build up walls to keep out love, or fear bringing down walls we have up "for protection" and becoming vulnerable. If love is beauty, does this make us ugly, then? Never! Someimes, though, the walls we try to hide behind end up hiding out own beauty from us. No matter how tough you are, never forget to look at yourself and uncover your inner beauty.


Your beauty doesn't come from your waistline, your skin, or if your hair can stay smooth on a rainy day. It comes from your love, your strength, the sum of the small moments on your life that make you who you are. We're constantly bombarded with messages that we need to be just a little bit more this or a litle bit more that: thinner, curvier, thinner but curvier at the same time, tanner, taller, whatever. This is not what defines our beauty, or defines us. You're not the product of the things society judges you by, but the sum of all the small moments that we almost forget. You're the way the sun hits your face when you sit at your favorite thinking spot, the time your little brother said you're not thaaaat bad, the love God had for you on your birthday, and every day. You're the time you finished with a personal best in that race or nailed your choir solo after ages of practice. These are the things that make you beautiful: all the seemingly tiny things that show how you were made in the image and likeness of love.

So love.

Love youself, your heart, your soul, your body. Know that you are beautiful, more beautiful than any other thing on this earth. Love is beautiful, and we are beautiful when we love.

So love, beautiful.

Patty is a junior at George Washington University studying International Affairs in Washington D.C. She doesn't blog, but is a wonderful writer and maintains the tumblr for Made In His Image.