Beautiful

There is one hundred ten billion dollars in the diet and beauty industry. Billion. One hundred ten billion. Why? Because we'll buy it. We'll buy beautiful.

In my culture, "Beautiful" means "Sexy," and if I'm not "Sexy" than I must not be "Beautiful." "Sexy" is whatever Hollywood defines it as . . . on magazine covers, bill boards, tv commercials, and movies.

I don't look like the magazine covers. Chances are, you don't either.

Webster's Dictionary defines beauty as, "(1) The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit; loveliness (2) A beautiful person or thing; especially a beautiful woman (3) A particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality."

I worked in the beauty industry as a cosmetologist. In school, I was taught what "beautiful" is suppose to look like. The only beautiful face shape is the oval. If you don't have an oval face, you're not pretty. I was taught how to create illusions to make other face shapes appear oval in order to finally be beautiful.

It's buried deep in the heart of all women. The desire to be beautiful; to be desirable.

Undoubtedly, God made me beautiful when His hands shaped me. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man[kind] in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." I'm made in His image. "For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (Psalm 139:13-14) Made wonderful. Made in His image.

But I still get sucked in to this culture's definition of beauty. Or maybe it's not really beauty, but just a facade of truly beautiful.

If only it weren't so hard to stop thinking about my outward appearance, to stop being concerned with what other people will think of me, and just be me. Be the way God made me. Be beautiful.

Proverbs says, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised."

I've met those women. Women who aren't always drop dead gorgeous, and who haven't made the magazine covers, but who have a beauty that doesn't fade away. They shine with something more, something deeper . . . something truly beautiful. And it's not something they bought at the drug store.

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful." (1 Peter 3:3-5a)

A gentle and quiet spirit. How modest. How feminine. How beautiful.