You Must Suffer to Be Beautiful

"You Must Suffer to Be Beautiful"

I remember this phrase said over to me by my mother and grandmother as a little girl on many occasions.  Usually it would be the early mornings before school as my mom would comb the tangles that had gathered in my hair from the tossing and turning of the night before.  She would get out the comb and the “No More Tangles” spray and begin the long and grueling process that I hated.  Many occasions I would end up in tears as she combed and sprayed. Eventually the tangles were removed and then she would french braid my hair, tightly weaving my wet locks together to form one or two beautiful braids along my scalp and falling down my back.  The end result was beautiful.  I usually received many compliments on my varied “Pocahontas” hairstyles.  My girlfriends from school would often times come over early so they could have my mom braid their hair everyone liked it so much.  Yes, the end result was beautiful but the process seemed torturous, I may still need therapy to work through the undealt issues of the hair tangle pain someday!

More recently, in fact just yesterday, I was walking through the hallway of the hospital attached to my workplace.  I had chosen to wear my black leather tall boots that day, which have a generous heel on them. My job requires me to be on my feet the majority of the day but for some reason it is extremely difficult for me to wear flat “comfy” shoes.  It could be because I am just a little over five feet tall and feel more confident with the extra boost of height my heeled shoes bring.  Or perhaps it’s the fact that I will feel as if I am giving into the aging process should I “cave” and create a wardrobe of “comfort shoes” for my feet.  But one reason I am sure of I just plain like the fancy little heeled shoes I wear most days.  I am a girly girl and a little pain is worth the pretty.  So as I walked down the hall I crossed paths with a hospital employee.  We exchanged friendly hellos and she said “Joy, how can you wear those heels all day in your job?”  I smiled and said “I think it’s the insanity factor in me.”  And then added, “As my mother always said you have to suffer to be beautiful.”  As I spoke those words about the shallow shoe issue in my life it completely took me back to the early mornings of sitting in the bathroom with my mom while my French braids were created, but as I heard myself speak those words that I had associated with outer beauty, God began to speak to my heart and teach me more about that little phrase.

I Peter 5:10 states, “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. To him be the power forever and ever.” 

So this verse is God’s description of that little phrase I heard over and over as a child, “You must suffer to be beautiful.”  I associated the suffering so much with outer beauty, such as uncomfortable clothing, pulling my unaligned eyebrows out with a tweezers, vigorous exercise, obtaining from certain foods so as to keep myself thin, etc..  But over the more recent years I have felt a suffering within due to emotional and spiritual pain caused by living through a huge life trail of adultery in my marriage which led to the uncovering of many deep hurts and personal issues being addressed in my life.  It has been nearly two years of what I would call suffering.  This time has made the tangled hair days seem like cake. The sweet Creator of my days has graciously taken out his fine toothed comb and began to untangle the dysfunction in my life.  He has combed out my twisted thought patterns of negative thinking towards myself, misted my knotted up people pleasing behaviors with a shot of his clear vision of truth, he has meticulously gone over my matted idea of my worth with his sheer voice of truth speaking love over me.  He has examined my heart and tugged away at my snarled attitude of distrust towards him, lovingly explained to me that my tousled idea of his love was incorrect and was not just for the rest of the world it was for me, just as I am or was, tangled, twisted, snarled, tousled, and matted up.  What I learned in that untangling, suffering processing with God I would not trade for anything.  The pain of that uncomfortable time has been worth it all due to the beautiful truths I have found to display in my heart.  The tousled thinking, attitudes, and behaviors have been combed through and now I have orderly, shining, tightly woven spiritual truth tools that I can use in my life.  The rewards of confidence, self worth, acceptance of life as it is, the ability to believe that God’s love is for me, the conquering of so many lies and turning them over to truth has produced strands that have been creatively weaved into a healthy way to live.

I have suffered for a while.  We each suffer at times in our lives but what will we do with the suffering.  Well as they say we all have choices.  We do have a choice regarding what we will do with the suffering in our lives.  Will we allow it to over take us and live a defeated life, believing all the devastation was our fault and their is nothing we can do about it?  Let the root of bitterness and unforgiveness take root within our lives and cause us to live with a scarcity mentality and steal our energy?  Become angry to the unfairness of it all or angry at ourselves for getting so deep into the situation in the first place?  Will we live in a state of denial with a plastic smile staying busy, too busy, so the pain can remain at a distance? Choose to feed our pain with a comforting addiction, you name it, money sex, food, alcohol, drugs, gossip, etc…We have the choice to allow the suffering to keep our lives in a tangled state.  But we have other choices as well.  We have the choice to face the suffering. To take it in feel the pain, cry the tears, and grieve the loss.  We have the choice to confess the sin, process the hurt, dysfunction, and tragedy while allowing a steady trickle of truth and healing to invade and bring the antibodies to fight the sickness that caused suffering to come.  We have the choice to forgive, yes even forgive ourselves; we have the choice to learn new ways of thinking, new ways of believing, and new ways of coping.  We have the choice to run to a loving Savior or run away. 

But if we must suffer and it is for a reason, the reason of beautiful, I choose to believe it is not in vain.  I choose to believe the rest of the promise of I Peter 5:10 that states after the suffering “He Himself will restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.”  I choose to believe that the Creator of the universe who is not bound by time, sin, or space, who is magnificently big and powerful and yet is intimately concerned with my personal life issues, he, himself is making me strong, firm, and steadfast.  I choose to believe that he is completing a restoration process in me, his creation, working hard and refining me, sanctifying me. His fine artistry and craftsmanship are restoring me back to the original state he created humans in; perfect and in His image.

During my suffering state I cried out to friends, family, and God, “Show me someone who is making it!  Show me someone who has been through this tragedy and made it.”  As I write those words my spirit can still sense the deep pain and emotion associated with those statements.  Just yesterday as that phrase ran through my mind God gently spoke to my spirit “You, you are making it. Your friends, your family, divorced, married, or single, they are each making it.  Your journey is yours it is individual, it will not look exactly like someone else’s this is your journey and you child are making it.” I smiled and felt strength in my heart, as I firmly believed the truth spoken in my soul and experienced freedom once again.  The steadfastness of processing pain is beautiful, and I joyfully pranced through the rest of my day in my high heeled shoes.

Romans 8:18 - “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing the glory that will be revealed in us.” (All suffering will one day end for the soul who chooses Christ.  That is the hope that we hold amidst the suffering.)