Have you ever seen Disney’s 1991 animated version of Beauty and the Beast? If not, please put your entire life on hold and go watch it. It is enchanting, through and through. When I was a little girl, I had a giant princess-shaped pillow with Belle on the front holding a stack of books in one hand and her skirt in the other, posing in a winsome “Who, Me?” fashion.

Looking back, I think I took most of my young lady cues from Belle:

• Books and Dresses. Dresses and Books.

• Highly idealistic dreamer.

• Constantly sings to herself to sort through internal conflict.

• Is okay with chickens.

• Dislikes domestic chores.

To a fault, I have also tended to give hurtful and deceptive men the benefit of the doubt, believing that there’s a handsome prince in there somewhere and I am the sole heroine strong and loving enough to transform him. This is a bad strategy for living one’s life. 100% do not recommend.

My favorite line from the movie—a line spoken by Belle that has shaped my life for the better—comes towards the beginning of the story:

 “Step into the light.”

Belle has braved a terrifying journey through a dark forest in search of her lost father. As a punishment for trespassing on the Beast’s property, Belle’s father is being held captive by the owner of a dark and haunted castle. When Belle finds her father cowering in a shadowy prison cell deep within the castle walls she demands, “Who did this to you?!” and watches her father’s face twist into terror while the shadow of the Beast looms behind her.

From his place in the shadows, the Beast tells her that her father got the punishment he deserved for trespassing: imprisonment. But in a stunning display of Christ-like love, Belle tells the Beast that she will take on her father’s punishment so her father can go free. She then tells the Beast, “Step into the light.”

When he hesitantly steps into the small pool of light, Belle sees him for the ruined person he has become: a monster who uses violence and intimidation to get what he wants. But she doesn’t run; she stays. Throughout the rest of the movie, Belle learns to see the Beast differently—to see him for who he is, not for who pain has made him to be. In doing so, she more fully becomes Beauty as her heart expands to embrace him.

But the most stunning transformation occurs when the Beast learns to see himself differently—as more than his shameful past. As the Beast trusts that he is a person capable of tenderness, of learning new things, of loving and belonging, he is changed. He steps into the light and stays there. In the end, the fruit of Beauty and the Beast’s transformation blossoms into an ultimate act of true and sacrificial love.

***

While this is in fact a fictional story, so much of it reminds me of Christ’s invitation to allow the shame of our past to be transformed by his love. Christ was not content to let us stay in the shadows; instead, the Author of beauty and light came to earth and gave his life for the people he loved. This is the truest definition of Beauty.

In his 1999 Letter To Artists, Pope John Paul II wrote,

In becoming man, the Son of God has introduced into human history all the evangelical wealth of the true and the good, and with this he has also unveiled a new dimension of beauty, of which the Gospel message is filled to the brim.

This “new dimension of beauty” is the person of Christ, who died to set us free from the bondage of sin and shame and calls us to live with him in the light. “Beauty will save the world,” Dostoevsky famously wrote. Indeed it has, and it is, and it will again. 

***

This week, I practiced stepping into the light.

Every couple of months, my college friends and I gather on Zoom for a two hour conversation that always turns into three, no matter how hard we try. They’re all on the East Coast and have children, so their staying up till 11 p.m. to talk is a true act of love.

At some point, we began discussing the harmful impact of Christian purity culture on some of our most foundational and formative years. Growing up in purity culture, I was given certain messages about my body and my worth as a woman. Though I don’t believe any of my youth group leaders intended to harm us, the conclusions I drew from their dire warnings about sexual impurity and how it was my responsibility to keep men pure by dressing modestly left me feeling more fear and shame than anything else. I began to distrust my body, and in a sense, to cut myself off from it in order to stay faithful. Looking back, I can see that much of my desire to stay pure was driven by fear, not by love. I tried so hard to be good that I often ignored what was true. Today, I am learning to re-integrate my body with my heart and mind, but it has not been easy. 

With my friends I shared some particularities of the shame I still carry—things I had not spoken aloud or even to myself. I stepped into the light, and in doing so I discovered one of the most essential components of healing:

We are not alone. 

As my friends bravely shared their lingering hurts and questions, the tightness in my chest loosened and the tension in my shoulders eased. There is something truly beautiful about a burden being shared.

As I write, I wonder:

• What other stories need to be invited into the light?

• How do we become a people who do not run from each other’s shame, but instead behold one another with eyes of love?

• Wouldn’t that change something?

My husband Drew recently posed this question on social media:

How might you live differently if you were utterly convinced that the truest thing about you is that you are deeply loved by God?

Wouldn’t that change everything?

The Beauty of Christ asks each one of us:

Can you learn to love yourself as I do? Are you willing to see your story in a different light? Will you invite others into the light, too?

The apostle Peter writes that as those who have been redeemed, we are called to also invite others into redemption:

You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession.
As a result, you can show others the goodness of God,
for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
(1 Peter 2:9b)

He called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

You are deeply loved.

You are not alone.

Step into the light.