Beautiful
Ebony Williams
Beautiful is what men called me. They would stare in my eyes and let that simple, soft word slip out… beautiful. I didn't know how powerful that word was. That word alone opened the gates to my treasures that should've stayed hidden. Beautiful is a word that a young woman should hear from her father in order to protect her from other men. If I would've heard that word from my father, I wouldn't have been so easily smitten by the man who told me first. A word I wasn't used to hearing nor had ever heard. It made me feel good in my heart and in other parts.
At the time I didn’t understand that he was only a young boy whose hormones were raging. For a couple of weeks I was smitten, totally infatuated and enamored with this boy who seemed to see the real me. I now realize that he complimented me not for me or my pleasure and confidence, he did it to break down that barrier and enter inside my throne. Soon after the sweet talk came, those three little words that every girl wants to hear came out, "I love you.” Being beautiful and loved, being beautifully loved allowed that boy to take the only thing so precious to me. Then after the beauty was discovered I was then left not so beautiful anymore.
He disappeared and the next boy came along and used a different word: stunning. Then the next said, "Gorgeous." Soon, I was an admirable beauty. The vocabulary got richer as the boys grew into men. The game changed: hands placed gently on my face, jeans turned into slacks and ties, and kisses moved from my neck to forehead. Who knew that those minor changes would make my eyes wonder in many directions? I had a gift, something men wanted and would say anything to get. From that boy when I was eighteen to the man who likes me now who is in his thirties, it doesn't matter because beauty is my sin. That weakness allowed a man into a place that no man should be except for my husband.
Beauty was my weakness because I was denied being told I was beautiful by the man who mattered most, my father. He was present while I was younger and he worked very hard. When I became a teenager and started to grow into my own, the complements on how I looked in my father's eyes stopped. Looking for that love and affection from a man, any man, became what I wanted. I needed that attention from my father growing up. When it stopped, I was determined to feel beautiful again. When the first boy told me I was beautiful, he opened a new world for me and took me down a path I never planned to go. The path could have been different if beauty had been defined by my father.
Beauty was my sin, because I didn't know the true power I possessed inside. The secret weapon between my legs would have taken me many places if I had handled it with care. My beauty caused me to get attention from men when I wanted it because that little girl inside of me was crying and I didn't know how to soothe her. I held onto that pain for many years and now I look back, ashamed of who I was and what I did. I woke up from my hellish nightmare and realized it's never too late to change and accept your sin; it took me a couple of years to realize I am beautiful and not just because of the power I posses, but because God the father told me so. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9
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