Beautiful, Beautiful

Bare with me for a paragraph or two. I know I don't just speak for myself when I say that when I wake up in the morning, I wonder what I look like today. I get up and go right to the bathroom, look myself in the mirror and analyze my hair and face; do I have any zits that need to be masked with cover-up and is my hair too greasy to just put up in a ponytail for the day? Why do us women have to analyze ourselves, judge others and constantly have to feel that we look okay to be able to own confidence? We occassionaly find ourselves on someone elses facebook checking out what new hair style they got or new shoes they purchased. In the clothing stores we are grabbing a million pairs of jeans in various sizes because we are wondering if the burger and fries we had over the weekend maybe fluxuated our weight and made us go up a size. And, in the check out lane at the convienient store our eyeballs seem to accidentally make their way to the front cover of our favorite magazine to see who's airbrushed body is on the front.

Are the things I mentioned really beauty? Why is it that our society has labeled beauty as having a "pleasing" outward apperance?

As a Christian woman, we need to remember that we need to part ourselves from the secular way of viewing beauty. I want to try something this week.... I know, its Thursday night....most goals start on the first day of the year or week or month....but we all know how they work out! So, maybe tricking ourselves by starting on an "off" day, we can accomplish this little goal. My goal is to wake up in the morning, and before looking in the mirror to see what horror story is blinking back at me, I want to focus on being a beautiful person inside. How will I do that? Well think about it; when you do your typical morning routine what is it that you normally do? I know I wash my face, layer my face with makeup, do my hair and pick out an outfit and purse. I walk out of the house feeling "beautiful" on the outside. Well, when you open your eyeballs tomorrow and turn off your alarm, before jumping out of bed to run to use the bathroom, try and take five minutes to determine what you can do to make you beautiful inside. Each day, try and add a minute onto your morning routine until you eventually have enough time to read a bible verse, say a small morning prayer and think about what you can do to help your inward beauty for the day.

Here is a Bible Verse from NKJV to back up what I am trying to say:

"Do not let your adornment be merely outward -- arranging hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel-- rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." 1 Peter 3:3-4

And here is a little excert from a site I found when I simply typed in Christian Beauty into Google

"Now, dear girls and women, do you want a beauty which does not fade? A beauty that knows no wrinkles? A beauty that does not wash away like mascara, that is not rubbed off with a towel? A beauty that lasts, a beauty that is imperishable? This is the beauty that is to be found in Jesus Christ. This is His life in you, a life of trust and obedience in Him. Death and old age cannot touch it because it is the impression upon your soul of the likeness of Jesus Christ. When you see the beautiful women of the world, and everyone bowing down to them and worshiping at their feet and lusting, do you see the folly, the utter folly? I wish not to be cynical but to bring the truth. The Word of God says, "Dear beautiful woman, perfect figure, if the Lord tarries a short time, you will be old. You might, indeed, be forgotten in a nursing home, wrinkled, no family to visit you. And you shall die. In the grave, worms and maggots will crawl over you." Now, you say, I am being morbid? No. This is reality. Hear the Word of God: a plastic surgeon and facial cream can go only so far. They cannot overcome the grave. If your life is consumed in the outward beauty, how pathetic! It is vanishing. Stop, stop trying to erase the signs of death. Many women are still pursuing the allusive beauty of youth. They think that that is beauty. Their beauty will be their hair, their jewels, their clothes. This beauty fades away. But not the beauty in Christ." Rev. Carl Haak