A survey commissioned by Dove found that only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful. A shocking statistic when you think of the number of beautiful people in our lives. As followers of Jesus should we even be worrying about our physical appearance, and does our physical appearance truly define beauty anyway?
Church ministry leader and blogger Loreli Cockra, has been diligently digging into this topic.
God cares about this topic and we don't always include him.
We live in a society that constantly tells us we need plastic surgery, fight wrinkles, lose weight, get fit, drink healthy drinks, eat kale. How does God care about it?
We have to revaluate what beauty is. If God cares about it what would change?
God himself has things he says throughout scripture about beauty. We have taken beauty out of that conversation. Beauty is an attribute of his and scripture is clear about that. We must then contend with it. How have we been treating beauty, why have we made it about physical appearance, there must be more to it.
God cares more about what's on the heart than appearance.
When you look through the Bible it doesn't generally mention beauty about anyone unless it's paired with a character trait.
If we look at the story of Esther. She was beautiful but when she was honoured it wasn't for her beauty but the courage she took in standing up for her people. Every time we see someone set out in scripture as beautiful we see it paired with an attribute that God honours.
This makes us look at scripture a little differently and ask what God is saying to us about beauty and how does that change our conversation.
We all have a beauty story. We are influenced by our heritage, our culture, our family of origin, media, generational attitudes. We have to take our story and ask God to speak His influence into our story. We assume our beauty story is about our appearance. We use our inner beauty as a consolation prize. God focuses on the importance of inner beauty.
The world puts so much pressure on the physical. We have a culture that pursues perfection.
If you got a Tiffany Co. box and there was nothing inside there would be no treasure but we put so much on the packaging.
God says we need to invest in our character, be informed about our beauty from God, and not the world around us.
We spend more time on this earth older than we do younger. Beauty is fleeting, youth is fleeting. The rest of our lives we are aging.
How do we find our value in the world while aging? Do we fight aging or embrace it?
If we really understand that beauty comes from God and he informs us of our worth and value. This body is temporary. It is not about our outward appearance. As we age we get better.
We understand our faith better as we age.
We are getting better as we age, if we understand beauty differently.
As women we need to help each other in this mindset, and encourage each other.
We need to start with our self talk to ourselves and then help other women change that for themselves.
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