A Decade Of Beauty

I had just turned 18. It was my last full year in the Philippines. I stopped going to school after High School because I was going to the US - sometime, I wasn’t sure when then but I left in March of 2011. It was the beginning of a long season of waiting and feeling like being stuck in the in between but that was a beautiful year.

“I want to be beautiful because my Father is beautiful.” Even then it was hard for me to say it out loud because I didn’t want to seem vain. Beauty is relative for most people. But it was that year I felt the Lord open my eyes to what it meant to behold His beauty and to want to reflect that beauty in my life. 

If I could sit 18 year old me down and give her a talk, I would tell her to hold on cuz it’s going to be a rough ride but not without the beauty. You’re going to realize how brave you are and you’re going to realize how much you truly can’t do on your own. Moving to America is not going to be easy, in fact it will be the hardest thing you’re ever going to do. There will be days where you won’t feel beautiful but that never changes the fact that you are because the beauty that the Lord has put in you is not relative. Because His beauty is not relative, it’s hard fact. He is beauty and He is glorious and He made you in that same image. 

2019 was a year where I finally felt the refreshing rains of hope arrive after a long season of dryness. He promised of new things bubbling before I could see or feel anything. I moved to a new city, got a new job, and all the new things kept on coming up from what felt like fallow ground. I could hardly keep up but I had/still having the time of my life. 

This coming decade I truly just want one thing, and that’s to be surrounded by more people that I love. I wrote in my journal that I would like to be alone less this year. I like being alone, but I like being with people that I love more I think. And that is good for me, to not be alone so much. I would like to somehow be with family, all of us together. 

Beauty begets beauty. Beauty is strong and powerful and can be found anywhere. In art, music, conversations, in quiet times, in broken hearts, in nature, in parties, in solitude. Experiencing beauty only creates more beauty. Sometimes it takes a little of bit of time to find the beauty in certain things but once found, it's always celebrated with more beauty. I want my life to be of this beauty always.