GOD'S BEAUTIFUL YOU

Did you know that Americans spend 426 billion dollars a year on beauty products?  As of late, even more for plastic surgery and reconstructive surgeries.  Do you ever stop and wonder what it is that compels someone to physically change themselves only to realize another thing needs to change and then another and then another?  Are they doing it to gain self-confidence?  To impress others, maybe a husband or maybe even to land a rich husband?  Is it because they feel the need to be competitive with others?  These types of insecurities are indications of discontent.  Most of the time our discontent stems from a deep search for God.  We are looking for something to fill the God-sized hole in our hearts that only God can fill.  

The reason why the hole exists is because we were born belonging to a God.  Although He has freely given us our own will, just like a homing pigeon, we will never be fulfilled unless we live in His grace.  The world is not our permanent home by any means, and our home is obtained after we leave this world.

But ya gotta think... why change the way we look when this is really not our forever home.  Why are we changing ourselves so others will accept us when we should impress only God?  Don't get me wrong, I am not against make-up, nice hair, and the like.  Of course we should look clean and neat.  It is our obligation to society.  However, if we do synthetic changes to ourselves to mask a deeper longing to fill that empty space in our hearts, wouldn't it just be easier to fill it with God so we could feel whole again?

This reminds me of a story in Genesis 29:31-35.  Taken a devotional  from The Women's NIV DEVOTIONAL BIBLE

This Time. . .

Leah

Rachel, her sister, had always had something she didn’t. Rachel had beauty, Leah didn’t. Rachel had Jacob’s heart, Leah didn’t. However, with the birth of her first child, she finally had something Rachel didn’t: a son.

“Surely my husband will love me now,” she recalled thinking after Reuben was born. What she desperately wanted would finally belong to her and her alone. She had bargaining power, and she planned to use it.

This is the way that Leah considered each of her children. They served as a strange sort of currency, each one “buying” her a certain level of emotional security and social standing. However, whatever dividends she gained depreciated all too quickly. She had to have another baby, and another, to keep her emotional security afloat.

Unsettled in her own skin for most of her life, Leah longed to feel comfortable around other women. She would never be the prettiest. Never the smartest. Not even the wealthiest. She knew that. But a baby gave women reason to envy. “The women will call me happy,” she recalled fantasizing at the time of yet another son’s birth. She thought every eye would be on her. The odds would finally be in her favor.

After five strapping sons and with one on the way, she imagined herself becoming a queen among her princes. As she contemplated the next birth, she thought that surely her husband would finally look at her with eyes of love. This time, her peers would approve of her. This time, she would earn everyone’s respect.

The last time hadn’t worked out like she’d hoped. And the time before that, well . . . the rewards had been short-lived at best. Every “last time” was, after all, last time. She needed something new in order to feel good about herself today. As she looked up and saw her husband coming in from the fields, she absently stroked her pregnant belly. This time. . .

One more thing that is for sure... God will not disappoint!  Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!