One very important lesson my dad taught me without him having to speak a word was that he was content with his body. Maybe he’s been blessed by the skin that tans to a rich brown, Asian genes which age well, and slender, working digits that never need an EEE-width. He was content with bodies the way they were. Dad had started going gray in his early thirties (and when I was born. Am I the cause of all this? Probably…). As faithful as Dad is, he went to all my practices and games. Sometimes friends marveled at how my grandfather would always come out to support me, and I gently corrected them that it was my father instead secretly proud of the fact that he had the dignified and wise appearance of an older man. That wasn’t it, though. Dad also had a plethora of sports injuries including surgeries that led to long scars and crooked fingers and toes. From a poor family, neither him nor his brothers had corrective dental work done, and most of them wore glasses. Despite all this, Dad never said anything negative or reinforced any type of height or size, and he never mentioned skin color or body modifications/corrections of any sort. He never mocked scars, and he marveled at the way bodies recovered.
You see, I was always into hair and beauty. Of course, I’m female and I have grown up with media thrown into my face. Yet, glance this way and I’m wearing a hairstyle that I’ve had since high school (which, in my defense, wasn’t really that long ago and it works with my face) and wearing a wardrobe that isn’t equipped and ready for a career. The only concealer I wear is a smile. My eyelashes are nature’s mascara. I do not wear tubes of color or shimmer; the shadow on my face is one that is created by the sun. Hair and makeup have always made its way to the art that I created because they are readily available and common practice for many American women, but not me. I don’t have a desire to add color to myself – my color happens naturally. The more days I spend in the sun the darker a yellow I tint. The bruises I collect from accidentally confronting door frames and chair arms and legs add a lovely purple smudge that fades into greens and yellows before returning my skin to its original hue.
In the midst of always having felt external pressure to look a certain way, I’ve never really been interested. Maybe I’ve had a handful of traumatic makeup-related memories accrued from my elementary school years? Whatever the case, I have come to realize that Dad has been my standard and go-to person for anything… “glamorous.” He has never said anything negative about the way I looked or instilled in me false ideas of what beauty should be. I think it hearkens back to this from Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Although God is my divine creator, my dad made me. I am made in his image. Slandering the way I look insults himself as well – and Dad never spoke ill of whatever he may consider his physical shortcomings. If not, maybe Dad was confronted by Proverbs 31:30, every girl trying to get their Mrs likes to use as a rebuttal: Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
No matter the case, I have done my own digging in what it means to be beautiful:
– Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1 Peter 3:3-4)
– Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. (Psalm 34:5)
– So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)
God looks at my heart, but he has also given me a body to be the caretaker of. I don’t have to look like the girl in the magazine. I don’t have to spend my money on things to make me look like anyone else. I was created by Him for Him, and I should delight in that. The moment I start graying, no matter how painfully awkward, I will not dye my hair. I will wear my scars proudly even though the acquisition of it may be embarrassing.
So, thank you, Dad, for instilling in me contentment in the way that humans are made – each unique, each beautiful, each beloved.
