Extreme Beauty

To say that we live in a culture that worships beauty is an extreme understatement.

I was reminded of that at Disney this week, when I rode Snow White’s Scary Adventure with Hope.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?”

Really? If you had an “all knowing” mirror, THAT is the shallow question you’d ask?

{Aren’t fairy tales horrible? A vain stepmother who is going to cut out her step daughters heart because of her horrible jealousy and her quest to be #1?)

Advertisers are constantly feeding us the lie that “perfect beauty” will bring true happiness. All our troubles will be gone if we are a size 6 with perfect skin, hair and teeth. (Do you know any unhappy size 6’s? Me too.)

So we enter the crazy cycle in search of what will make us happy. We diet, fail and repeat. We are looking for something that can never bring bring true happiness.

We all know from experience that we tend to age and deteriorate, not get better and more beautiful. So why all this obsession about perfect beauty? Why do advertisers bother? Because we are all too willing to seek that “lesser goal” for our lives. We are an extremely captive audience.

Americans spend crazy amounts of money on beauty products. I wonder if we are as bent on inward beauty as we are outward.

God says he values beauty, but it is not the beauty we seek.

God wants us to be extremely beautiful from the inside out. He doesn’t care about wrinkles, deformities or handicaps.

He values a Spirit filled woman. This woman has certain qualities called the fruit of the Spirit. And God tells us how we attain this indwelling–this inner beauty:

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep my Word: and my Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make our abode with him.” Jn 14:23

My mother use to say “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way through to the bone.”

I wonder if somehow all this obsession with the outward is an escape from the inward struggle. The putting to death of the ugliness inside of us. It is the easy way out, focusing on externals.

I wonder if our lives shine with the true beauty of Christ’s loveliness–His kindness, love, meekness and self control–or if we are just masking our problems with our painted facades.

What do you think? Do you spend as much time worrying about your inner beauty as you do the externals? How do you fight this struggle?