Many times at work, when the cash register is closed, when the eager children and families have left with questions answered and hands full, I have a bit of time to reflect.
Recently, I sat cross-legged on a stool, watching as each person passed by. None were the same. There were families with many siblings, grandparents and young children, little Jewish summer camps, and eager loners racing towards the next adventure.
There were women with hair that had met some silver tone, there were barefaced women, and women who had painted their face for a day out. There were tall men, with heights that reached toward the sun, there were older men, who trailed a bit behind the others.
And none of these met some picturesque view of what we are all told we should be. None of these had every curve and every edge that we see on the billboards and in the magazines. Each had simply stepped into their own, and it was one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.
Quoted before in an article, Sufjan Stevens once said, "We have been known from the very start...The sort of skirt that looks good. The sort of cap that fits right. We have been made to find these things for ourselves and take them in as ours, like adopted children: habits, hobbies, idiosyncrasies, gestures, moods, tastes, tendencies, worries. We are all these things. They have been put in us for good measure. Perhaps we don’t like what we see: our shapeless hair, our loss of hair, our shoe size, our dimples, our knuckles too big, our eating habits, our disposition. We have disclosed these things in secret, likes and dislikes, behind doors with locks, our lonely rooms, our messy desks, our empty hearts, our sudden bursts of energy, our sudden bouts of depression."
Even our so-called "flaws" have been "put in us for good measure." I love that we aren't all so cookie-cutter, the "sort of skirt" will look one way on me, and another on you. That baseball cap will be worn by you in one fashion, and in me another.
Sometimes, we do hide behind these locked doors. We cover our frizzing hair, our freckle-covered skin and our messy smiles. But perhaps, we should simply strive for sincerity in all that we do. Perhaps we should strive to be completely at one with ourselves, and who God has created us to be, in all His perfection.
There is something so inherently beautiful about being your own. About waking up and accepting each of these hobbies, habits and idiosyncrasies. Each detail is placed with reason.
Now, where there is room to grow, well, grow. Be honest with yourself, be honest with others. But the things that you cannot change, the mole behind your left ear, your height, your blue eyes, leave them be. These things are so beautiful in you, and there is no need to paint some foreign portrait of something that cannot be altered.
Your place in this world is precious. You are a part of a beautiful patchwork of people, each with hobbies and habits of their own. "This is where you belong," right here, on this earth, completely and honestly you.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." -Ecclesiastes 3:11
