What is Beauty?

Asking someone "what is beauty?" seems like an easily answerable question. Most people probably go to the physical characteristics they find attractive, others may take about a person's personality, they're character traits, etc...

What do we think is beauty within ourselves?

When  you really have to answer that question for yourself you may be surprised at the process and what you thought you thought beauty was.

I want to warn you before you continue reading that I am going to be real, raw and transparent in this blog, so, continue on at your own risk :) 

My journey in defining my own beauty and my own perspective on beauty started a little more than two years ago.

First, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and like anyone else, they are words you never think you'll hear and then they become scary words. Many thoughts race through your mind...what's next, what will I have to endure, how bad will it really be, etc...But nothing can prepare you for the journey you will walk but God can sustain you and walk with you in a way no one else can even when they are in with you 100% and trying to be 100% supportive, they still don't know the depths of your journey.

I ended up having to have a double mastectomy and chose immediate reconstruction surgery called DIEP surgery. Truthfully, up until the surgery I thought "they're only boobs who cares I want the cancer out" and that was truth and I did want the cancer out. A lot of people tried encouraging me before surgery "you'll have such a flat stomach,  you'll look amazing, etc..." And, that was the mindset I entered my day of surgery with.

After surgery...What is beauty?

Here I was, best way I can describe it, butchered up. Things looked horrible, the pain was horrible. I could do absolutely nothing for myself. My amazing daughter-in-law, Erica, had to dry me off after showers because I couldn't, I couldn't be alone for a month. I could shuffle around the house after awhile but couldn't even open the refrigerator door on my own. 

I came home with six drains coming out of my body. My husband and my very good friend and also a nurse, Gretchen, would empty the drains as I sat there completely exposed. Again, what is beauty?

I went to the doctor's office and they finally took out the drains, I could shower without drains, I was the most excited I had been in quite some time. My husband was back to work, I sent him a text telling him how excited I was to shower without drains but I also added "but I still look like I got hit by a Mack truck." The picture in the mirror was not a pretty one. As you hear so many people say lightly "the struggle is real" THIS STRUGGLE WAS REAL. 

My husband, who is an amazing, incredible, loving supportive man who just wanted his wife to be well and grow old with him was supportive of any treatment decision I made. Remember I said I sent a text (we have iphones) so I saw the dots of him responding to my "mack truck" comment, then I saw the dots disappear, then come back up, then they went away again, this happened 7 or 8 times then finally a text came through telling me how beautiful I was to him and always would be. The thought he put into that response and knowing it was important to him that he respond in full support and with compassion meant more to me than any words he could have said.

There were many times in that first year that I would look in the mirror and wonder who was staring back at me. The face was familiar but I didn't recognize the body it was attached to. I was 50 years old when I had this surgery so for 50 years I had one body and now, now it was unrecognizable. For 50 years I didn't appreciate my God given body, I critiqued it and compared it every chance I had, like most of us do. The sagging, the rolls, I hated them. Now, as I looked at this unfamiliar body my head was attached to and I found myself longing for Linda. I found myself longing for all the sagging, all the rolls, anything that was familiar. Of course, that would never come.

Then, I had the added battle of everyone telling me how "great" I looked, how skinny I looked, how jealous they were of how skinny I was. No, you may say that, but trust me you're not jealous of my body. I had one person say to me "I want your body when I'm 50" oh no ma'am you don't.

I smiled on the outside, said polite "thank-you's" but each time on the inside my inital respone to any outward compliment was "you should see me without my clothes on you think I look so good!"

What is beauty?

My doctor even made the lax comment one day after a check-up "well you sure look good with your clothes on." Thanks, that really helped!!!

Erica and I were at Chick-Fil-A once about six months after surgery and I looked over at this guy about my age and he was clearly checking me out, I wanted to walk over to him and tell him "trust me you don't want anything to do with this." Imaging how surprised he would have been! 

Because of a certain medication I was on after surgery I had to then have a hysterectomy, yes clearly being stripped of all womanhood in my life!!! But, it was a necessary preventive decision. I really had to look deep within myself and determine "who am I?" I came to the place (and not overnight) that Linda is in the heart, that can't be taken away, that is what my husband loves, that is who God created, that is where I will stand from, that is the position I will receive my healing within from.

Many of my scars have faded, things don't look nearly as bad now PRAISE GOD but there are still days when I look in the mirror and wonder who is looking back at me, there are still days I look in the mirror and I feel like crying from all that was taken from me but then I remind myself God makes all things perfectly and wonderfully and He even makes them new. 

What is beauty? My answer now is that it is that portion of us that nothing can ever take away and that is who we truly are and that is the most important and the most beautiful thing about each one of us!!!