Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Beautiful (11/07/05)
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TITLE: Psalm 139, Bangalore, India | Previous Challenge Entry
By naomi mac millan
11/09/05 -
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So I land into India and I can’t help but all the people, ( men women and children) staring at me. After a few days of this, I ask my guide why are these people constantly staring at me? She replies, “ I know it is rude in your culture to stare, but these people stare not because they are being rude, but because they are curious as to why a beautiful white woman is here. You are something new and pretty to look at” I smiled uncomfortably and disregarded her comment. That day as I was working with the orphans at their school, I had several of them approach me with huge smiles and give me kisses all over my face and then they would say “ Oh Auntie, you are so pretty!”. Our guides took us to dinner that night and we all dressed in traditional Indian wear, as I was walking through the lobby of the restaurant a man came up to me and said “ Oh miss, you look very beautiful in your sari.” The teenage girls I worked with during the week gushed over me, one of them even touched my skin to see if the color would come off, and then wanted to know what I was using to make me skin so white, I told them nothing at all. The girls said I had a beautiful figure…keep in mind I am 5’3 and 220 pounds…certainly not acceptable for the American standard of beauty, but no matter where I went, in India, I was always called beautiful, always treated like a goddess.
I’m not writing this to brag about how lovely the Indian people thought I was, but to share with you what I learned. As the week progressed, I observed our female guide, who carried herself with such pride, it was almost noble. I commented on her confidence and told her I wish I could be that way. She said, “ I am this way because I am fearfully and wonderfully and supremely made. This is what the Lord says, so it must be true. And if it is true for me then it is true for you too.” She was so sure in this, I also has to accept it as truth.
Being told I was beautiful everyday by strangers was not what boosted my self esteem, although I can’t lie, it did feel good. What boosted my self esteem was that I began to believe it. That I learned that it’s ok to think well of yourself. That you can believe that you are beautiful without being narcissistic. We are fearfully, wonderfully and supremely made and the Lord wants us to recognize this, to believe it and embrace it. I am beautiful, all 220 pounds of me, and I will still be beautiful when I loose or gain another fifty pounds, Not because my beauty is on the inside, not because it is in the eye of the beholder. But because I am a wonderful supreme creation of the Lord, and all his works are wonderful, I now know this full well.
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Great Article.
Pauly