For those who feel ugly.....

I have had a few encounters in real life and on the internet that have been making me think about this country and its ideal of beauty.
I mean, I have been getting this from all sides this last week...front, left and center...so if you think it's just YOU....It isn't. It's partly you, and partly you...and quite frankly....
a LITTLE BIT ME.
So, back to that hollywood idea of 'beauty'.
From what I can tell, it is an adolescent boy with boobs, fish lips and no discernable expression because any life has been botoxed into non existence.
Don't get me wrong..you aren't going to find me pounding some sort of feminist dogma here, but I AM going to take a pot shot at hollywood beauty.
The hollywood beauty of anorexia, and the neurotic knee jerk plastic surgery at the first sign of a wrinkle and the shelving of women over forty.
The idea that wrinkles should be abhorred, rather than embraced.
Wrinkles come from experience, from life.
Wrinkles are a privilige alot of people don't get....old age is a blessing from God...he could have taken you a lot sooner.
When did women become merely the sum of their parts.

You, as women of God are not the sum of your body parts.
A well toned leg...a pert pair of boobs does not a woman make.
Some day madonna and her arms and abs of steel will sit, moldering in the ground.
Just think of The endless hours she has spent perfecting a dying body.
I am not downing exercise...it's good for you.
But like everything, it needs to be kept in perspective.

How much time do you think eleanor roosevelt or mother theresa spent gazing into a mirror?
Let's take a look at one of the most beautiful women in modern times.
marilyn munroe.
She was an image of beauty.
She spent her whole life trying to get people to see past that image.
She died of suicide, because she was so depressed, scared and alone.
She is still an image.
It's nice to be pretty....and firm and good looking....but do you think marilyn munroe would still be an icon if she had lived past her good looks?
How would she have been seen?
As an icon, or a has been?
Maybe she would have grown as a person once people stopped idolizing an ideal.
Who knows.
Now, lets look at mother theresa.
Not known for her cover girl looks.
But she will probably be inscribed in history as a saint.
What's in us shines much more brightly than the covering.
God loves the inside, so do our children, our husbands and our sisters, brothers and mothers and fathers and friends.
I heard this song today and I wanted to put it on my playlist but it wasn't available...so had to download it here.
Lyrics first...video below...

Days will come when you don't have the strength
And all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart
They'd see too much

You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're beautiful

Praying that you have the heart to fight
Cuz you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you've held inside so long
But they are nothing in the shadow of the cross

You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful, You're beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're beautiful

Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skies above
You're the one He madly loves
Enough to die!

You're beautiful, You're beautiful
In His eyes

You're beautiful!
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful!
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're beautiful!
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful!
You are treasured
You are sacred
You are his.