My city has a free monthly paper that I call the “pretty people paper.” It’s a slick, four-color, multi-sectioned tabloid with gorgeous ads from trendy retailers that I seldom recognize, much less frequent.

The “pretty people” are photographed in bunches and posing alone at charity events, boutique openings, art and fashion shows and private gatherings. They’re well-dressed, trim, tanned, and sometimes a little too obviously botoxed. I can’t imagine any of them in Levi’s or sweats. (And certainly not sweating.)

Sometimes I see someone I know in the pretty people paper. But they’re mostly strangers. I like to look anyway. It’s like a field trip to place in your city you’ve heard about, but never visited.

Last week I had a conversation with two dear friends – women I know and love, and both of whom I consider lovely. We talked about outward appearances, and how they can fool you. About our diligence to groom the “outside,” because that’s what we’re most often judged by.

The pretty people paper was thrown in my yard this morning. I looked at it over coffee, and then threw it away. But yesterday morning, something plainer caught my eye. On a street I walk down at least three mornings a week, I passed a house I’ve probably passed a hundred times. I don’t remember noticing the house before – but this time I did. And I noticed it because of the realtor’s sign out front. Under the realtor’s name and phone number were these words: “Beautiful interior.”

Beautiful interior. I looked again at the house, and it was the plainest one on the block. White wood. Whitewashed brick. White front door and white shutters. Just a white, plantation-style two story, probably built in the late ‘30’s, restored in the 80’s or 90’s, and up for sale in a neighborhood where plain-on-the-outside isn’t good enough.

So the realtor added two words: beautiful interior. Translation: “No curb appeal, but you really mustn’t let that stop you. Do call. And look inside. You won’t be sorry.”

I’ve been thinking about that sign. I want one. And I want to live up to its promise: “Beautiful inside.” I don’t aspire to make the pretty people paper. I don’t run in those circles – and that’s okay. And although I’m not about to stop working with the exterior I’ve got, what I’d really like is to be unexpectedly, delightfully, utterly beautiful inside.

I’d be in such good company.

The servant grew up before God – a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered and who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. (Isaiah 53:2-3, The Message.)

© Leigh McLeroy 2004