A Beauty That is Way More Than Skin Deep

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Generally when we say a person is beautiful, we are talking about their appearance. However, there is a beauty that is way more than skin deep; it includes inner beauty. It works both ways, there may be little inner beauty but a gorgeous outer beauty or there may be a gorgeous inner beauty and little outer beauty. And also there could be a rare combination of both. Today my purpose is to discuss inner beauty which I believe to be far more valuable than an outer beauty, and can actually enhance outer beauty.

There is a wonderful true story that establishes the point I’m making. It is the story of David Roche and Marlena Blavin. Mr. Roche asked Marlena to marry him a dozen times and she said no. She had a very good reason since she was already married and as David added, I am weird. For clarification David was born with a deformed face.

“Woven through the left side of my face, head and neck, extending into my soft palate and airway, is a benign congenital tumor consisting of my own engorged and tangled veins and capillaries. My left cheek is tuberous and misshapen. My dark bluish purple tongue is twice normal size,” he writes. In his book, “The Church of 80% Sincerity” (160 pages, Perigee Trade, $19.95), His tuberous lower lip was surgically removed as a child and his chin failed to mature because of radiation, leaving him also with few teeth.

The story begins some 20 years ago when David was 64 and Marlena was 58. They met when they were in a training course on how to give messages to the critically ill at a San Francisco Bay Area Hospital. David was talking to a patient on one side of the curtain out of sight of Marlena. Marlena had never seen David before but was awe struck by the sound of his voice. In her words, “It was as if something deep inside of me was alerted.”

In her imagination, Marlena envisioned David as being six feet tall with brown curly hair, olive skin with dark piercing eyes. Her fantasy was soon shattered when David walked from behind the curtain.

Marlena said when she saw him she was a gasped and was repulsed, and she quickly walked away. David said that sort of action was quite common and he didn’t refer to it as rejection but just a need to get used to him.

David said, with Marlena it took some time to warm up to her. With her it was an attraction she could not understand but one she could not run away from. She calls it, “Love at second site.”

“There was something about him that kept me taking another look,” she says. “I kept watching him during the class. I was attracted to his sense of humor, the bold way he spoke. You’d think a guy disfigured like that would be shy and sit quietly in the back of the room. It was attractive seeing someone being able to speak out like that. David just has this magnetic way about him. In some ways, I felt like I saw into his soul.”

David’s beauty lay within him. He had become an extrovert to compensate for his looks. He came across as a warm and gentle person who cared deeply for others.

“People think I’m diseased, or a monster, so I have to turn on my sense of humor and my charm,” he says. “It’s an incessant effort on my part to win the hearts and minds of people, to prove I’m a normal and valuable person.”

As time went by, David asked Marlena to be his team member in the class, and she agreed realizing that she could no longer ignore the intense attraction they had for each other.

Marlena was determined to honor her wedding vow to her husband, but nevertheless the marriage was encountering a lot of trouble. As the marriage of 17 years continued to end her attraction to David continued to grow.

“I wasn’t used to the stares,” she recalls. “So I watched movies like ‘Elephant Man,’ ‘Mask’ and ‘Phantom of the Opera’ to try to understand it. I felt protective of David. People would make comments like we were beauty and the beast, or say things like, ‘You must be some kind of saint to do this.’ I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but, to be completely honest; some part of me could get into it, like I was going to be David’s savior.”

On the other hand David didn’t feel a need to be saved only a need to be more forthright in talking to others about his appearance. His parents had always cautioned him to never bring the subject up. He had built his confidence and trust in Marlena, finally, six months into their relationship to the point he was able to tell her about his distorted appearance.

Up to this point David had lived in a world of pretending he was normal and acting the part out but of course he realized how ludicrous his actions were.

“He shat said, “You pay a price for it because you have to hide your feelings. You’re not dealing with something that’s obvious. It’s not just the elephant in the room. You bring the elephant with you wherever you go.”

It was much harder to tell his story before a live audience but that he did, and as a result started a new career as an “Inspirational Humorist”.

Ilona Frieden, a physician and professor of dermatology and pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine, said this of Mr. Roche,”Via his humor, grace and wicked wit, David has been able to give voice to the experience of being facially disfigured. He’s done this in a way that speaks not only to others with facial disfigurement, but to all of us, who, in our own secret ways, harbor feelings of shame for a variety of visible and invisible differences.”

After her divorce, Marlena and David were married in the Mill Valley Golf Clubhouse in 1996. Davis said in his book, “With love, all things are possible. It sounds schmaltzy, but it’s true.”

The inner beauty is the primary focus of Christian development. We all have within the potential to be beautiful. It just takes a lot of determination and a lot of work to bring it out and to make it visible to others. It will compensate for whatever lacks in outward appearance. The best way to get the most benefits from your inner beauty is through a relationship with God who is the author of all beauty. That is, the kind that counts the very most.

The original story can be found at: liberatore@marinij.com

About the author: Jimmie Burroughs is a motivational speaker and author who has been involved in teaching Christian Personal Development for more than 30 years. There are hundreds of articles to help you on this website, Website Contents , in your person growth. Be sure to take vantage of the FREE offer to get the eBook “The 4 Pillars for Personal Development” while available.

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