beneath the shallow perspective.

I'm reading this book about the life and work of William Wilberforce. It's the book that inspired the movie, "Amazing Grace"...at least that's what is says on the cover. However, one thing in particular that I remember about the film was that the man who played William was GORGEOUS. Tall, dark and handsome...AND passionate, driven, selfless, humble...basically any girl would watch the film and hope she would meet a man like THAT. It was one of the FIRST things I remember about the film...and one of the FIRST things that struck me about the book was the painted image of the man on the cover. Gray weirdish long hair, funny nose, sort of sunken in eyes...and throughout the book's introduction there are frequent descriptions of what William appearance was REALLY like: He never grew above 5 foot 3 inches; He was weak and sickly as a child and an adult; He had poor eyesight; It was said that once during his adult years he became severely ill and weighed about 76 pounds... those things are just not exactly what one would expect of one of the most revolutionary men in semi recent history...or maybe it is, but it wasn't what I expected.

Initially, I was disappointed. It's amazing how shallow I can be. I was SIGNIFICANTLY less interested in reading about this man's amazing story and impact on the world because he wasn't physically attractive. I'm so lame. But thankfully, I kept reading it anyway. So far I've found that William was a beautiful, strong, convicted soul dwelling inside a broken and awkward body. I'm embarrassed about my tendency towards shallow judgements. How much beauty I must be missing in so many different areas of life that I've limited to a shallow perspective ..it's really time to grow up and see what's important about people and what things make someone worth your while.