All of us, especially women, ache to see beauty and ache to be beautiful. We long to possess the kind of beauty that will send a knight galloping off to slay a dragon. As children we dress up as princesses. As teenagers we dream of romance. And yet, almost without fail, the reality of the world dims our dreams and we “grow up,” leaving behind the visions of our childhood and our early ideals of beauty, love, and “happily ever after.” 

Have you ever thought that these desires are God-given, because He is wooing you for a greater romance than you’ve ever dared to dream of? This longing for beauty is linked to a longing for meaning and eternity, and these longings ultimately lead to God. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” 

Our longing for beauty and fulfillment can only be fulfilled in knowing God. Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” 

God is beauty and He wants you to know His beauty and reflect that beauty to the world. God has made you with a unique beauty and a unique way of appreciating beauty. Even if you're not an artist or a musician, you still have God’s beauty to reflect to the world around you in the form of love (which could be shown in service, relationships, mothering, etc.). We find great fulfillment when we find and live out the specific beauty He’s put in us.

When we look to the world’s approval, we head down a slippery slope. Every time I (inevitably) gain weight on furlough and return to Fiji feeling down about the scale, my Fijian “aunties” glow with pride and tell me I’ve “grown fat,” (their view of beauty). You can never please everyone! Have you ever met anyone lacking external beauty (as culture defines it), who is simply radiant from within? The confidence of knowing who you are in Christ is true beauty.

Today, turn to your True Love as the source and the fulfillment of your greatest longings for love and beauty. He will (literally) slay the dragon for you!