Have you ever asked yourself the awful, yet unavoidable question:
“Am i ordinary?”
My mind has certainly not been a stranger to that question ever since I was a young girl. It’s never been good enough for my pride to have just a “good life” and “decent looks.” Lets be honest, with the gift of being created as a woman, we are also given the always-present desire to “feel” beautiful. If we are being REALLY honest, I confess that I have wished at times that my beauty was so great that no matter where I am at any given place in time, that when I walk into a room everyone stops to take in the splendor of my jealousy-causing beauty. But since we (or just me since it is my blog) are on this whole honesty issue, lets take it a step further and admit that an everyday struggle for me is: pride. The thought of not getting recognized or appreciated is just down-right frustrating to me. I find it ironic that my huge sense of entitlement tells me that I deserve an amazing amount of admiration for my God-given gifts.
Let me be ‘frank”: Pride is a nasty sin that is at the core of almost every other sin and that includes vanity. Eventually, in my ‘blogs’ I will dig in further on how Christ created each of us uniquely and finding our self worth in Him alone. But for now, I want you and I to get down to business and let go of all sense of self worth tied to anything here on earth that will easily be gone in the next 100 years.
Proverbs 31:29-31
“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
The following is a quote from John Piper:
When has any person ever said Jesus is all satisfying because you drove a BMW (or insert Beauty). Never. They’ll say, ‘did Jesus give you that? Well, I’ll take Jesus.’ That’s idolatry.... I will tell you what makes Jesus beautiful.... when we say ‘God is enough.’
Have you ever been around someone who just radiates the Lord? I mean their face just permeates with the confidence that HE is most HIgh? that HE IS enough? IT’s amazing.
I recently took a survey from a group of women to ask them the question:
Where is the limit? If we are created in God's image, what takes it too far in , as I like to call it, "beautifying" ourselves? Would you say make up? Plastic Surgery? Obsessing over crazy diets? etc? When do we draw the line from trying to look beautiful, to crossing an unhealthy self-loathing lifestyle that we have all encountered as women?
One reader responded with this :
I believe there are two issues regarding this topic. The first is the concept of self-worth and where we seek and find it. The second issue is allowing something to become more important than God in our lives, or what one would call an idol in our lives. You could make the argument that the two are intertwined...that which gives us 'value' often becomes more important to us than God (job, spouse, money, children, etc).
Yes! This lady hit the nail on the head... When we put ANYTHING above Christ it can so easily become an idol. And lets expose the truth that today being perfected in our outward appearance is a very high standard we have set. Try to be aware today of every ad you see that uses the concept of being amazingly beautiful to promote itself; and then pray against the thoughts that follow looking at that ad. Does the Bible ever state “Don’t braid your hair?” The answer is no, but it is very clear on where our beauty should come from: inwardly.
1 Peter 3: 3-5
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 the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.
Let me share a story:
Ephesians 5: 25b-27, 29
... just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless... After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does with the church...
A woman I know became a divorced single mother of four at a very young age. After years of raising and providing for her family alone, she met another man with whom she decided to marry. At this point she was in her mid-forties and her children were all grown. Upon speaking with the pastor performing the marriage she mentioned that she would probably not wear a traditional white dress coming down the isle, and his response to her was this:
When a woman wears white to walk down the isle in a marriage, she is a physical representation to us of the Bridegroom (the church) and the Bride, Christ Jesus, in all His purity!
Whooo, man, i get excited thinking about this!!! I know the white dress tradition is not followed as strictly anymore, but when you grow up your whole life thinking that the bride’s white dress represents her own purity, the white just doesnt seem as white. What a difference there is in your perspective, when you come to understand that marriage is a representation of Christ and its bridegroom. Then you see an actual bride coming down the isle in a magnificently beautiful white dress... the purity of that moment is remarkable and often times unforgettable. Almost every eye in the room looks to the groom to see his face and his reaction of first witnessing the beauty of his bride. To imagine Christ, His purity and splendor, and that he made us even more pure than that white dress, leaves me speechless. What’s more exciting is to know that coworkers, friends and family members may catch a glimpse of the beauty of Christ's life, death, and resurrection on the cross displayed through my face (or life) lighting up.
What a beautiful thought.
