The Divinely Beautiful Woman

My mom hosts international students in her home, mostly girls from Germany, Switzerland, and the more 'beautiful' parts of Europe. About two weeks ago I spent the day at my mom's house and just so happened to be very attracted to one of the German girls. Honestly, as a guy, something instinctually powerful overtook me as I spent the day with her. I was drawn to her beauty. I was captivated. I longed for intimacy. Connection. Depth. Love.

Throughout the day, I noticed two extremes in myself. One extreme was my tendency to sexualize beauty. I objectified. I made her beauty into an object to be consumed. Because we were both free that night, I asked her to hang out and truthfully, my intention was to be lip-to-lip and face-to-face by the end of the night, (a Christian one-night stand). Even as my feelings raged, I was aware that more than making out, what I really desired was intimacy. Apart from all of my sexualization, I wanted connection, depth and love.

As the night went on, and I knew that we would have an empty house to go back to, I could not handle how easy it would be to simply sexualize my feelings and consume this girls beauty. This is where the other extreme comes in. The other extreme was to completely cut off my desire for beauty. This was to shut my feelings down and to fail to confront and feel how deeply I longed for intimacy. In this extreme, I distanced myself from this woman and her beauty. I didn't allow her beauty to evoke in me my deep desire for connection and my deep desire for love. I began to fear that I was not mature enough to handle my feelings without acting out physically. And because of my inappropriate management of my desire for intimacy, the only other thing I knew to do was run.

And that's exactly what I did. A friend of mine called earlier to see if I wanted to smoke hooka and in the middle of the date I start texting him because I knew that if I got back to the house with no options, I would have made out with her. So, I planned it just right. Within 30 minutes of our arrival back at the house my buddy picked me up and I was FREE! I didn't make out with her! I avoided temptation! VICTORY! YEAH ME! WHAT A STRONG CHRISTIAN AND MATURE THING TO DO!

Now if you are a typical Christian, you would probably praise me for my Joseph-like self-control and my temptation-avoiding fast on my feet thinking. But I did not feel "praise-worthy" when I left that night. In fact, I felt very disappointed and even angry. At first I thought I was angry because I passed up the opportunity to make out with a beautiful girl.

But as I sat through my anger, I realized I was angry that i could not appropriately hold my desire for beauty and translate that into appropriate behaviors of connection and intimacy. I was angry that I am still not integrated enough, still so broken that I had to split between two extremes. I only saw two options: either I stay with her and make out or to run and avoid 'temptation.' I did not see a third option.

But what if a third option existed? What if I could stay with her, hold my desire for intimacy without sexualizing it and yet engage her in appropriate ways? What if I didn't have to shut down my desire for intimacy by running, but I could actually feel it in her presence and move toward her, even showing her a bit of God's love at the same time? What if I was strong enough to see beauty not as an object to be consumed or a temptation to be avoided, but as a impetus to intimately connect with a woman and ultimately with God?

The reality is that a woman's beauty is not bad! It is not something to consume or something to fear, it is something to reflect the beauty of God. Beauty is something that I desire because I was created to desire it. Guys, have you ever just let yourself feel how much you want a woman? Not in a sexual way, but in a desire for beauty way. It actually hurts in the pit of my stomach. Sometimes I'll just let the feeling linger. It feels so alive. So passionate. Every guy has had the urge to tell a beautiful woman just how beautiful she is. It's like we're built to detect it, like a radar. You know why? Because we were created to name the beautiful.

Adam was stoked on Eve because God put in him a desire for beauty. He named all the animals, but none was as beautiful as Eve. And in Eve he named what was beautiful. And guess what Eve means: "Life." I've noticed that if I direct that same powerfully intense desire for a woman towards God, that the same alive-ness and same passion results.

God is the ultimate Beauty. When we gaze at him, and allow our hearts to feel how deeply beautiful he is, we will be captivated by him. His beauty actually gives us life. A woman is captivating because her beauty actually gives life. She is a beauty formed from the beauty of God. She is a representation, a reflection of our Beautiful God who gives life. When I want to feel alive, I open my heart to the Beautiful One. Unlike my desire for beauty in a woman however, my desire for God does not leave me wanting. A woman's beauty is something that I cannot always have as a single man, but the beauty I find in God is something I have access to all the time. So I allow a woman's beauty to direct me to the Beauty that I can possess in God. In God, I find that my desire for beauty is fulfilled. I don't have to split. I don't have to desecrate a woman's beauty or avoid it, I can use it to direct me toward intimacy with God and with her as a woman.