Inner Beauty

Do not let your adornment be merely outward; arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel; rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.   - I Peter 3:3-4

            This passage was written by Peter, who lived in a world where women wore wigs, especially blond wigs, made from hair imported from Germany.  It was a big deal at this time for women to arrange and dye their hair, or wear a wig.  In this passage, Peter is not forbidding women to do these things; instead he suggesting that while all that may be fine, our outer appearance is not our true source of beauty.

            The incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quite spirit is what is precious in the sight of God. 

            A gentle and quite spirit.

            The dictionary defines these words as:

            Gentle:  Mild in temperament or behavior; kind or tender.

            Quiet: Absence of noise or bustle; silence; calm

            As I read this, it occurs to me that most of our culture desire this exact thing.  Gentleness and quiet. 

            I had oral surgery last week.  I had a lot of pain, but I also lost a lot of blood due to a clotting problem, so I put in several days of couch time recovering.  I had some rare free time to watch TV and read.

            What I noticed was that a lot of TV ads are for anti-depressant drugs, or help with over-eating.  Stress, they said, is the culprit.  (Oprah and Regis had a few things to say about that too.)

            I also read several women’s magazines, (Woman’s Day and Ladies Home Journal…).  There were a lot of articles on how to get better sleep, how to declutter, and how to juggle it all.

            It seems that we are all looking for more gentleness and quiet.  Since God is looking for that in us too, maybe we should start inwardly. Outward things will fade.  We’ll get older and get wrinkles.  Our fancy clothes will get worn out and our jewelry may go out of style.  But inward beauty will last our whole lives.

            Some beautiful people I can think of: Mother Theresa.  Gandhi.  Jesus.  But more personally: My grandmother.  A particular nurse at the hospital.  My son’s teacher.

            These people are beautiful to me because they literally glow from the inside.  Their acts demonstrate an inner peace and a clear focus on others.  They radiate joy.

That’s my goal for March:  to gain inner beauty, so that I will possess a beauty that doesn’t fade over time, but instead grows stronger and more apparent.  I want to be radiant.  I want to be beautiful in the eyes of God.