October 2, 2010

Redefining Beauty

On a mommy message board, I posted one of those questionnaires with a question in it that said, "What is your favorite thing about you?" Out of the 65 women there, one woman said, "My rear end." Every single other woman said, "My children, my husband, my skills making cake, etc." No one else had a favorite thing about them that had to do with their physical appearance.

In continuing my discussion of Vicki Courtney's 5 Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter, we enter into Chapter 4, "Redefining Beauty."

In the introduction to this chapter, Vicki Courtney says, "Only two percent of women would describe themselves as beautiful." Only two percent. That is a LOW number.

The problem is that in this society, we are bombarded with images of what society deems as "beautiful" women. 19-year-olds with surgical enhancements, who starve themselves to appear healthy and thin, and then are airbrushed into even more "perfection" and then placed on display. There is no way a 38-year-old mother of three can look at a picture like that and secularly compare in her mind.

As I type this, I'm enjoying spending time with my maternal grandmother. She is enjoying one of her "shows" and is watching the original CSI. I cannot help but flinch when I look at Marg Helgenberger and how she has butchered her face in the name of "beauty." Every slice of the surgeon's blade was supposed to remove natural age from her face and ended up leaving her looking like a bad accident.

However, the true definition of beauty does not lie in anything that can be photographed or captured. It is nothing that can be surgically enhanced. It is nothing that can be gotten out of a bottle of hair dye.

Psalm 139:14 says:

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
A contemporary Christian group named The David Crowder Band took some lyrics from this verse and have a song called Everything Glorious that says:

You made everything glorious. What does that make me?

God created us, fearfully and wonderfully. He made me with my 5'11" height, with my redish-brown hair and my freckles. I am how He created me. And that, according to His works, is marvelous.

1 Samuel 16:7 says:

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
If we really want to concern ourselves with beauty, true beauty, so that we can be beautiful in God's eyes, then we need to work on our hearts and not our faces or our bodies.

Proverbs 31:30 says:

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.

Fearing God, loving God, keeping His commandments, loving your neighbor, loving your husband, raising your children to fear the Lord - those are the things that make a woman beautiful. It has nothing to do with skin tone or pants size.
My personal blog: Hallee the Homemaker
Find me on Twitter: @halleeb

4 comments:

Joy Ellis said...

Loved this post. I have a hard time choosing something favorite about myself! Thank you for sharing it. However, I will say the one thing I do love about myself is my blue eyes and my smile. I get them from my daddy! :)

Rebecca Holt Brandt said...

Thank you for this....it is so important to help our daughters see the beautiful world God created...and how the Bible said everything was 'good' when he created it. We all have flaws. My favorite thing about me...my eyes...my least, my skin...I have always had acne...and it has brought me to my knees, even as an adult. But, it has given me sympathy for others with it...the struggle, the stares...but, I have found..that it bothers me, more than others. Thank you for this posting.

Raven said...

Its so important to teach our daughters to love themselves. I think the best way is when they see that we love ourselves. I think picking on ourself as mothers especially in front of children. Screams the wrong message. Great post.

Aytgim said...

What a wonderful post. I am currently doing the Daniel study by Beth Moore and it focuses on living in a Babylonian world. It is tough, but if we all hang together, we can make a difference.

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