Beauty in China

I am about to be honest. I have really been struggling with the meaning of beauty here in China. No, okay. I don’t think it’s just “here in China”. I think it’s just more clearly evident in China. (As are MANY of my deeply rooted sins.)

In China, I am beautiful…and yet…I am not.

My skin is white, my hair is light, I have a nice smile, and I have blue eyes, BUT!!! I am fat.

The deceitful Chinese people will call me “healthy” or “strong”. The friendly Chinese people will tell me I am looking thinner when they see me after a long while. My Chinese friends (usually) just don’t say anything about the matter, but they are always shocked and awed when I climb flights of stairs with no trouble, or tell them I “play” various sports, or tell them that I have been running -- farther than 10 meters. Strangers and students call me fat, in English and Chinese.

I just got back from watching Titanic 3D. Not the proudest movie choice of my life, but a Chinese friend invited me and it offered some wonderfully HUMOROUS Chinese experiences (good laughs,) and provided for a good time with a Chinese friend. (I did cover my eyes and ears in those sinful parts.)

While watching I realized that I was analyzing “Rose.” I began thinking “Maybe if I just dyed my hair her color, penciled-in my eyebrows, figured out how she did her eye make-up, and discovered her waist measurements, I would be counted as beautiful in China AND the States.” 

I figured, if the Chinese people sit here and admire her for her beauty and allurement, maybe I could try harder to make myself look like her. (Someone once…or twice…compared me to Kate Winslet, afterall.)

But when I began pondering the thoughts in my mind I realized: I am more willing to pursue and replicate the image of a person than I am to pursue the process of being refined into the image of the One who has purchased my life with His blood.

I would forsake our “daily” fellowships together in order to burn calories. (I have been doing such things. All, it would seem, to no avail.)

I would forsake eternal and heavenly thoughts for obsessions over what people think of the way I look, the chub on my body, and the make-up painting my eyes.

My mom has seen this coming and has tried to remind me of eternity. She quotes Proverbs 31:29 to me, but I struggle to accept it. Beauty is deceitful, vain, and passing away. Yeah, yeah. But it’s still valued. You’d rather have a beautiful wife who fears the Lord than an ugly one, right? Come on, we all know that there were BEAUTIES in the Bible.

When do you hear that one of the patriarchs (or any Bible male,) loved his wife because of the beauty of her heart rather than the appearance of her face? Is anyone ever quoted as saying, “She may be ugly on the outside, but her heart’s desire is really gorgeous.” Did Pharaoh or Abimelech go for Sarah for something other than her good looks?

Are you horrified and disgusted with my words?

Do they shock you?

I am not shocked by my words, but I am horrified.

I know they aren’t biblical. They are sin FILLED.

I post them here, then, to document my mental transformation and process. I also document them because this is how the Lord is using China to refine and mold me. (Is it too open and honest? Let me know.)

Until a couple weeks ago I didn't realize the issues of beauty I have in my mind. The Lord is using China to show me SO many of the various layers of my sin. I didn’t realize how many horrible things are entangled in my soul. 

(So, He is refining me. PRAISE THE LORD!)