The Forked Tongue and the Question of Beauty

“What is wrong with you?” he asked. And the question was innocent. He did not understand.

I can’t think why his words have come back to me now. My best guess is that Lorelei has rattled them free from a dusty corner of my memory. My daughter is a little stocky, thick in the ribs like me, with sturdy legs. Both my kids were enormously chubby. Before they lost their baby fat, even their forearms had three or four distinct sections. Silas, now almost six, is nothing but bones and sinews and feet and energy and giggles and questions. Lorelei is stretching out and getting leaner, but she’s still hanging on to some chub. It’s delightful.

I like to watch her, to piece together from the few thin shards of my memory, what it felt like to be a little child. I cannot help marveling at her lack of self-consciousness. She is blissfully free from concerns about how she looks or what she will look like when she’s grown or how many appalling, awkward stages lie between her and her adult self. For Lorelei, her body is a vehicle, a tool. It exists only that she might fully experience the world, and take delight in it.

I look at her now, and I think, She’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing. But I wonder if, when she is a little older, she will worry about her body, about how she looks compared to other girls, about whether or not she is beautiful enough to be desired, loved, admired, enjoyed. Someone will tell her the lie, one day, that something is wrong with her. Some sneering, insecure boy will make a comment about her legs or her nose or her hair or her weight. A magazine cover will make her wonder. A Barbie doll or a Disney princess figurine will cause her to question. And I hope, I pray that she will recognize the forked tongue behind the words and cast them out the window. I pray that when the questions rise again and again, she will vanquish them one and all.

But I didn’t. I haven’t. With her, I see the truth as clearly as if it were tattooed on my arm. She is lovely. With me…well, I’m only just beginning to wonder if I’ve spent my life believing a lie.

The question came from my doctor, you see. I had asked him, brim-full of indignation, why I wasn’t seeing more changes in my body. I was doing all the right things. I wasn’t cheating. Beauty hung just out of reach, suspended in the air, sparkling and ephemeral. I thought I should have grasped a handful by then. But his brows came together, and he asked, “What is wrong with you?” And the question baffled me. I thought it was so patently obvious. Surely everyone could see! I ran down a much-rehearsed mental list of my defects, and one or two of these I stammered out. He gave me a couple of half-hearted suggestions, but his manner never changed. He did not believe me. He did not understand.

At the time, I felt angry, frustrated. I felt dismissed.

Now, I wonder if I shouldn’t have painted the question in large letters across my living room wall. “What is wrong with you, Helena?” And, for that matter, “Who told you that you were naked?” (Gen. 3:11) Who, indeed? And how many? And were their voices all so sibilant?

What if…WHAT IF nothing is wrong with me? I have lived for decades with the assumption that my body needed changing, transforming, that my skin, my hair, my shape, my teeth needed work. I have dreamed of the affections of the charming prince, knowing full well that a man so noble and beautiful could not love me in return. I have yearned to be the princess, the beauty, and despaired.

But what if…WHAT IF nothing is wrong with me?

“What is wrong with you?” he asked. And the question was innocent. He did not understand.

The question runs deeper than my skin. I’ve seen absolutely everything about myself as a project, as something that requires much labor and long commitment. Everything about me needs altering, fixing up, refining. Naturally, we all grow and mature, we gain wisdom and experience, and this is to be desired. But what if…WHAT IF, right now, I’m just the person I’m supposed to be? What if nothing is wrong with me?

Sally Lloyd-Jones can speak to this, I think. In The Jesus Storybook Bible she uses the same language to describe all the rich splendor of creation as she does to describe Leah, the homely sister, the girl no one wanted. Of all these things she says, “…they were lovely because He loved them.” I’d like to read that line to Lorelei over and over. I’d like for the two of us to say it together, sing it together, when we’re not certain if there is any loveliness in us. Jan Meyers says that beauty is not something to be achieved or possessed, but something to be revealed. I’d like my daughter to live that truth. I’d like to live it in front of her, not fearing the aging process because I understand that the work God is doing within me will shine out through my eyes even when the skin around them is sagging and spotted.

“What is wrong with you?” he asked, not understanding.

Without the foundational belief that something is wrong with me, my world seems to spin. The floor buckles beneath my feet. The landscape is swept clean of so many worries, so many small endeavors. I feel as though I must learn to speak a new language.

If I can learn it, perhaps I can teach it to Lorelei.

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Helena Sorensen

Helena Sorensen grew up outside Tampa, Florida in a little backwater called Fort Lonesome. She is not making this up. As a child, she went exploring in the orange groves, searching for empty shotgun shells and fragments of broken glass. Since then, she has performed in show choirs and chamber choirs, received a degree in Music Education, written songs and poems, and traveled to Italy and Ireland.

She never saw any of this coming.

She also had no idea of becoming either a mother or a writer, yet here she is, living in Nashville with a husband and two kids and three published books to her name. She ponders the humor of God and the strange adventure of living while she drinks kombucha on the porch, or plans new homeschool units, or reads everything from Emily Bronte to Dave Barry to Betty MacDonald.

You can find her books and an occasional poem or some such at www.helenasorensen.com.

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