The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord.
Psalm 45:11
from the new book "My Inflatable Heart" by John Koehler
Melissa is a beautiful young woman. Perhaps not in the classical way that we typically refer to beauty, but in every other way she has a beauty that soars above other women who know every trick and buy every cure for their perceived lack of perfection.
If there were a beauty contest that judged only according to the standards of society, Melissa would never make it through the first round. She is overweight, has a slightly misshapen face, and can’t do much in the way of performing such as singing or dancing. She would quite simply not ding any of the bells needed for advancing in a beauty contest today.
If – on the other hand – you held a contest that was based on heartfelt grace and inner beauty, Melissa would certainly be noticed and considered by the judges. Her shyness would be seen for what it was: deep-seated humility bred from fear of rejection and massive waves of self-doubt; an ocean of doubt.
Her reserve and gentleness would be seen as a gift from God, while her kindness would be felt by all and honored according to the beauty marks and standards sent down from heaven. Gentleness would be seen as one of her strongest points.
It is impossible to look into the eyes of this young beauty and not be moved with wonder and compassion and appreciation for what God has made.
My radar goes off for many reasons when women are involved. The most commonly known form of radar intercepts by men is based on receiving physical signals about a woman. A quick sweep of the active radar system reveals her in detail and the random access memory performs a match against the interior logic system. The system finds her attractive and locks onto her.
Which of course means we keep looking!
Now another part of my radar deals with more than just my brain stem needs, but collects signals from people that light up my heart and soul. Melissa lights up my soul radar and I can’t help but notice her. The signal comes back in a powerful way and my heart responds and says, “Oh what a beauty is she! Stop and bask in the glow of her. Tell her she is beautiful. Adore her and love her.”
And so I do. Like all of us Melissa just wants to be loved and accepted into the family. Into your family and mine. She wants to be understood and looked at as a valuable human being with real purpose, versus a broken throwaway object of scorn and rejection.
She wants to fit in and the yearning for that is powerful and drives her like a root level directive. She does not understand this powerful need within her, but it is there. The rest of us know we seek the same things that Melissa does, but her need is more refined than ours because it is more simple.
There is a strange fallacy that human interaction and acceptance must be complicated in order to be successful. Therefor we complicate the process of accepting each other by building layers in our lives and going through a ritualistic breakdown in order to expose our wiring – our inner self – to another human.
We build up these layers of protection because we think we need to protect our hearts from loss and from others who might try and steal them from us or snatch them when we’re not looking. We build gates and moats and iron clad doors around the dungeons of our hearts and then we swallow the key.
Then we sit back and dare someone – anyone – to try and storm the Bastille that is our heart. We watch as they slam into the tough defenses we have built, bravely attempting to find a way in to claim the treasure that we hold. We laugh at them.
But Melissa does not know how to build such defenses. Her heart lays exposed inside of her, within easy reach and for all to see. She does not hide it because she does not know how to hide it. Hiding it would be like hiding her skin. How does one do that? Melissa does not know how to hide her heart or protect it from the world. It is a great treasure of God that glints and glows like treasure when you finally reach the end of the rainbow.
Melissa glows. She is in fact the end of the rainbow, but no one can see that because you can never see the rainbow when you are in it. You cannot recognize the brilliance of the light when you are inside the light. They look away because the radiance of her strangeness if just too much to look upon. They look away and do not understand so they call her ugly and pity her and her lack of normalcy.
They pity her and thank God that they are not like her. Meanwhile Melissa wishes she was like them. Neither quite understands how special she is, or that God has made her inside out beautiful for a purpose and a mission, hidden inside the rainbow of her life.
If you turn your head you can see it glowing. If you come up close to her and hug her and then look into her eyes you will see the glint of the treasure shining out. Stare into her eyes long enough and you will forget your toes and your heart will beat a little louder because when you strip away all the layers and scars from your heart there is only one thing left to see: the face of God.
To look upon Melissa is to look upon the face of God. She is a beauty queen of the finest kind, the heavenly kind. She is a Kingdom Beauty and God’s Favorite, and to behold Melissa is to behold the very beauty of God, when the garden was first green and from his laughter grew his first daughter, so beautiful and radiant.
Melissa is God’s first daughter, so beautiful and radiant. The world is a better place – a much more beautiful and pleasing place – because she is here with us, even just for a little while.
