People Are Art

The creative arts are a huge part of what my life's interest's consist of.  From visual art to the performing arts my passion has been in the department of art.  In recent posts I've been reviewing about what my view of art is.  It is a gift from God meant to help us communicate our human nature and to glorify our God. 

In recent months I've been struggling with self image, what makes me special, am I beautiful?  I began to question where my identity was.  The Dark One was breaking my concentration of viewing myself from God's perspective.  Every time I passed by another woman in the mall, on a walk or saw one in a movie I couldn't help but think about how much more beautiful that woman's stomach, lips, hair, eyes, or legs were compared to mine.  It got to the point where I couldn't think about my myself without feeling depressed, ugly, and ultimately, worthless.  It seemed like the voices of destruction were so much louder then the voice of God.  In the darkest of it I came across an article about teenagers and, more specifically, changing teenagers.  I read over deep truths about how our identity come from God.  If we realize that God is our only hope for salvation, and hold unswervingly to the fact that we ought to reflect the love shown us by God, the beauty of the love and joy that will shine from within us should be enough to stimulate change in our thoughts about ourselves.  Like the moon reflecting the sun, we are reflecting The Son, His Love, deeds, and compassion for our world.   With this in mind, I began the journey of breaking down every lie that I had been accepting as truth, of destroying the false image of myself.  I began cultivating my relationship with my God, because the better I know him, the better I will be able to represent Him.  I started doing some exercises to help me see myself for who I am, a beautiful child of God, forgiven, and free from this world's bindings.  Exercises like: Going to the mall and making myself not play the comparison game with the others there.  meditating on scripture about beauty, purity, and God's love for me.  Not spending more then half an hour in the washroom in front of the mirror, judging myself.  refusing to believe in the lies that would continue to try to penetrate my mind.  PRAYING for myself (something I'd never thought of before, thinking it selfish.) After weeks of steady and diligent exercises, I was beginning to see myself in a new light.  A light that said, I belong to God, what can man do to me?  I am loved by God and precious and beautiful to him. 

With this new view of myself, I found that I was able to see beyond myself, I had this view that If I was going to reflect God, I needed to do my best at following Jesus.  Jesus was not a selfish man, he was always thinking about his neighbor and finding ways to help, encourage and strengthen.  I made it my goal to turn my eyes from myself, to Not only God, but everyone around me. treating family, friends and acquaintances like Jesus would is a hard task, but who says I can't do hard things?  I know I will fail, probably many times.  But I know that with the help of God I will be able to continue on in my goal. 

Now at this point you might be thinking that this post is great and all...but what does the title have to do with anything I have said?!  I'm getting there. 

Working on switching my view from myself to others I am realizing more and more that people mean so much to God, they are beautiful, creative, talented, and smart.  I am beginning to see people as beautiful works of art, painted by God almighty, formed by his mighty, yet gentle hands, and beautiful in His sight.  Just as there are different types of art in the world, there are different types of people, just as there are art styles that aren't necessarily "beautiful" in some eyes, others find true purpose and beauty in them.  I believe it's the same for people.  Some don't find others as attractive because of their large nose, complicated thought process, bothering habits and such.  But God finds true beauty and purpose in each one.  God's creation is always purposeful, always meaningful.  Viewing people in this way has helped me see beauty not only in them, but also in myself and the rest of God's artful world.  I can more easily appreciate the differences in people.  I am able to love them for who they are.  Viewing people as pieces of Gods grand masterpiece of a world.  Beauty...seeing the pleasure of God in his creation, and the glorifying creations of his creation.