A note to women: You're Beautiful!

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Do you believe this to be true?  Do you believe that each individual person defines beauty?  Or do you believe that each person in this world is beautiful?

I believe that we are all beautiful.  I believe that beauty is so much more than our outside appearance.  I also believe that because we are created in the image and likeness of God that we have to be beautiful no matter what we look like, because God is beauty.   

Listen to the song You're Beautiful by Phil Wickham.  His song reminds us that every beautiful thing we see is God's beauty.  

As women we are always being put down and told that we need to improve ourselves.  We need to buy this product to take the "flaws" out of our skin. We need to buy this pair of jeans to make ourselves look thinner.  We need to wear our hair a certain way and color it a certain way to make ourselves more beautiful.  We are certainly not "born with it" because it's Maybeline that makes us look so pretty.  

Every time we turn around we are being told what to do to improve ourselves.  I am not saying that we should not take care of ourselves, but society and the media are constantly telling us that we are not good enough.  But who are we not good enough for?  Are we not good enough to grace the covers of the magazines?  Well to be honest most of the models out there are not all that attractive and photo shop can make anyone look "beautiful".   

Do you remember the reality show The Swan from a few years ago.  The show where they took the "ugly ducklings" and turned them into beautiful swans through lots of plastic surgery and spending everyday at the gym. Then to make these women feel even more insecure about themselves after being told by the world that they are ugly, they make them compete in a beauty pageant to see which one is the most beautiful.  Now I cannot sit here and knock beauty pageants, however I think that taking insecure women, telling them they are ugly, making them believe that plastic surgery is the only way to fix their insecurity, and then judging them on national television to simply turn around and tell one woman that she is the only one that is beautiful is wrong. 

Plastic surgery is not going to fix our insecurity problems with our bodies. That is only a band-aid for a much deeper problem.  It is a problem that all women have, whether we choose to admit it or not, we are all insecure with ourselves.  We are constantly judging our bodies telling ourselves that we need to tone up, lose weight, change our hair, and do something with this face! We all suffer from insecurities; we just think no one else does.  This is our curse as women, put on us by each other.  If we would stop judging each other and comparing ourselves to each other we might actually begin to see our own unique beauty. 

You see we can all buy makeup and clothes, gym memberships and diet food, but that still is not going to change our hearts.  What we are missing is that we are all truly beautiful already, no matter what people see on the outside.  You see our bodies are just a shell.  They are temporary housing for our souls.  And while we need to take care of our bodies, we do not need to obsess over it.  When we die and our soul goes to meet the Lord, our bodies stay in the ground.  We do not take them with us, until the day Jesus returns and we are reunited with our bodies.  But we forget, when that day comes, our bodies will be flawless.  There will be nothing wrong with them.  In the meantime however, what we overlook is the beauty in our hearts.  It is our personalities and the love that radiates out of us that makes us truly beautiful.  When we honor God, serve others, and emit Christ's love we are showing our true beauty.  Have you ever heard someone say" well she is not that pretty, but it's her personality that makes her pretty"?  That is where this comes from.  You could be the most beautiful woman in the world, gracing the covers of all the magazines and modeling for all the top designers of the world, but if you have an ugly heart, people do not see you as a beautiful person.  They see you as an ugly person.  

I have been involved with beauty pageants for the past few years now and trust me when I say this, you can have the most beautiful picture and wear the right clothes and have that "look" that we as women all want to have, but as soon as you open your mouth or look at someone else in disgust because of how they look, you are now the ugliest person to have entered that room.  Just because you feel beautiful enough to stand on a stage and have a group of people judge you partially based upon your looks, does not mean that you are beautiful.  Truly beautiful people have beautiful hearts.  Having a beautiful heart is so much more important than having a beautiful face or a perfect body, because that is what others will remember you for.    

When we look at ourselves and we start judging and criticizing the way that we look, we are in essence telling God, OUR creator that He did a bad job with us.  Think of how it makes you feel when someone puts you down. Now imagine how it makes God feel when we put ourselves down. Think of the way it makes Christ feel, knowing that He sacrificed His life for us, that he had the skin literally torn from his body from the beatings He endured before he hung selflessly on a cross, all for us, and then we stare at our imperfect bodies and tell Him it wasn't enough.   

We will never be perfect.  We will never be flawless.  But we can fix ourselves.  We can change the way we think about our own bodies and each other’s bodies.  We can stop focusing on the things we think are wrong and start changing our hearts and our minds.  By recognizing that it is a change in attitude, we can change the way other people see us and more importantly the way we see ourselves.   

We can start thanking the Lord for the ability to walk, talk, hear, see, and feel.  We can start appreciating His beautiful craftsmanship and realize that we are a canvas that God paints on and He is never finished with us. From the day we are born to the day that we die and then are resurrected from the grave, God is constantly painting on our canvas.  He is making improvements and changing things about us; always making us more beautiful for Him.  But you see, this can only happen if we allow Him to do so.  If we refuse God the ability to work on our hearts then we are taking the paint brushes away from Him and telling Him that we do not like or need His work.  Do you really want to tell God that?  You wouldn't tell a heart surgeon in the middle of surgery that you know how to perform the surgery better than he or she does when you are not a doctor, would you? No!  And the reason is because you know that if you were to perform heart surgery on someone and you were not a heart surgeon, that person would die.  When you take the brushes away from God, you then are ultimately dying.  Your heart and your soul begin to deteriorate from the damage that is being cause by yourself. We are not equipped to fix ourselves on our own.  We need help; we need the Holy Spirit to guide us, we need Jesus to walk with us, and we need God to protect us.  

So give Him back the brushes and realize that you are a beautiful woman no matter what your age, dress size, hair color, skin color, or anything else that you think is wrong with you.  Take pride in the fact that we were made in image and likeness of God and know that when you are filled with Christ love and the Holy Spirit, when you look in the mirror, you are not seeing yourself, you are seeing the most beautiful thing in the world, the face of our majesty and creator, God. 

OC-ism Its an epidemic!

I heard a horrible thing on t.v. today, OC-ism is now an epidemic.  And it is extremely contagious!

Actually I heard something horrible on reality t.v. so you can't really expect it to be good. Regardless, there was this couple and they were talking about their relationship and how they were on two different pages.  She was looking to get married and he was just not interested in it whatsoever.  So she says, "fine, we'll just be buddies then.  I have lots of buddies".  He looks at her and says, "no I don't want to be buddies, and frankly we don't have enough in common to be buddies"!  

My first reaction was WOW!  You are a douche bag!  How can you build a relationship with a man or a woman without having a friendship with them? How can you build anything without that foundation?  What happens if/when you do get married and the "lustfulness" of a new romance has worn off and you are just left with each other?  Well, divorce is generally what happens.  The "intimate relations" (keeping it G rated) stop and so does everything else apparently.  

Thankfully this woman was smart enough to break up with this guy and wait for something better.   The other thing that cracks me up about it is that she calls herself a Christian and yet she expects these men that she meets in bars or other random places to be one as well and then continues to date them and sleep with them even when they are not.  And then she gets upset because they do not have the same values that she does.  Even in your 40's and 50's these people do not get it.

You see they all suffer from the same sickness, OC-ism.  OC-ism is a disease that has begun to spread nationwide.  And probably thanks in part to all the Orange County reality shows.   The women are all "OC Plastics" and the men are just rich douche bags.  The married one's cheat on each other with the single and much younger one's and then they all wonder why they are unhappy.   Their children are spoiled brats that think the world and everyone in it owes them something.  They all drive the benz or lexus that daddy bought them and buy true religion's with daddy's credit card because their parents are too wrapped up in their own lives to realize that they are raising monsters and not children.  Daddy is always at work and on the road and mommy is having drinks with her girlfriends discussing some other woman's plastic surgery.  And the women that are divorced are just money hungry cougars looking for husband # fill in the blank.

You see people in small towns in other states see this stuff and actually believe that these people lead glamorous lives and are happy!  It is funny and terribly sad at the same time.  None of these people are happy.  They are all looking for the next best thing to fill that void in their hearts that they just can't understand why it's there.  I mean you can fill in wrinkles with botox, cut off saggy skin with a face lift, get new implants, and even have liposuction all as an outpatient in just one day.  So why can't they fix this loneliness that they all feel inside?  Because they are rich and missing one important factor...GOD!  

Holy crap!  What a concept.  Mark 10:25 says, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God".  Why?  Because the rich can mask their pain.  They can distract themselves with new toys and trips and anything else they can think of.  Others cannot, they have to deal with the realities of life.  So to all those of you that want to be rich to have the lifestyles you see on these reality shows, it is so not worth the heartache and the risk of not making it to Heaven.  Turn your face towards God and seek his comfort.  Do not depend on earthly possessions to help you heal, but rather the peace of God and the faith that He will take care of you and protect you.  

The more you focus on earthly treasures the less you build up on Heavenly treasures.  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", Luke 12:34.  So where is your heart?  Is your attention on keeping up with your neighbors for the latest and greatest things that mean absolutely nothing in the end?  Or is it on God, and Jesus, and the blessings you have been given, and being thankful for everything you do have.  It should be about being grateful and content.  Not about wanting and needing more.

So do yourself a favor and go get a shot for your "OC-ism", because although the breakout of this disease is strong, there is a cure for it.

Patience

One thing that I have never been good at is having patience.  I've always tried to work on it, and for certain things it works and for other things it does not work.

Life is so complicated and everyone is always in a rush.  Everything has to be done right away and the faster the better.  We need our crackberries so that we can always be in direct contact with the world around us.  We have become so dependent upon technology that we tend to forget that it is alright to speak to someone over the phone or even better, in person.  What a simple concept this is that so many people forget about.  We are all about sending text messages, emails, myspace comments that we lose that human touch.  Yes, sometimes it is convenient to text and email when we cannot speak.  However, there are many people that are so used to that way of communicating that we forget what it's like to be in the presence of others.  That we all need human contact.  We need to see each other and speak to each other in person.  We need to be able to reach out and touch each other.  We need to hug each other when we need it.  You cannot do that over the phone, email, myspace, or other means of communicating.

What kind of relationships do we have with one another?  We never really get to know each other.  We lose that intimate contact that our souls so desperately long for.  We actually need each other.

We need to learn how to slow down.  To take each day for its own.  Recognize the beauty in our relationships and in our own lives.  We need to realize that we do not have to do everything so fast.  That relationships and other important things take time.   

If we want something to grow into something beautiful we have to nurture it and love it and take care of it.  We have to let it happen at its own pace.  We cannot get upset with God when we don't get our way.  We have to rely on Him and trust that He knows what He is doing.  

God places people and situations in our lives so that we can grow and learn from them.  If we want something to happen we have to allow God to take control of it.  We have to be patient and wait on God's timing.  My timing is not His timing.  All the great leaders of the Bible had to wait on God's perfect timing.  When something wonderful was to happen they had to be patient.  We all have to learn this.  Patience is a virtue.  It is a gift from God.  When we are sitting in traffic and running late, are we patient?  I know I'm not.  I'm usually pissed off and angry at the "stupid drivers" in front of me.  Even though it might not be their fault, it's probably my own for not leaving early enough, but that's where I have to be patient.

The first step to loving is being patient.  We all know these verses 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 8Love never fails...

When we love someone are we being patient with them?  Are we waiting on them?  Are we letting them do the things they need to do?  Are we allowing them to grow in Christ and in their own life?   Or are we trying to rush them along and force them to do what we want?  I see parents doing this to their children all the time.  I saw a man at Disneyland one day in line to see Belle.  He had an itinerary and his little girl just wanted to spend time with Belle because in the words of 4-year olds "I'm your favorite princess Belle".  My point is Belle was trying to spend time with the girl and the dad crossed off "princess" from his list, took the picture and literally picked the girl up by her one arm and said "Time to go!  We have to get to the haunted mansion".  Well, needless to say the little girl started crying because after all she was dressed like Belle and the 45 seconds her dad allotted for her to spend with Belle just wasn't enough.  The dad however, told her to stop crying and that they had to stay on schedule.  Now first of all, you don't come to Disneyland with an itinerary and secondly, you don't rush your children when their dream of meeting their favorite princess or other character finally comes true.  It was just heartbreaking to watch.

We all forget to be patient.  It is so easy to do.  But just look around you.  Look at the beautiful world you live in.  Go down to the beach or look to the mountains and you will see God's perfect craftsmanship.  You will bear witness to the beauty that is in God's eyes.  Look at the stars at night and just realize how amazing it is that God created all of this for us.  For us to live in and enjoy.  To look back to Him and worship, praise, and thank Him for all the wonderful things He has given us.  

There is beauty everywhere.  Just take the time to slow down and enjoy it.  Be patient with those we love, those we want to love, or those we just need to love.  They will come to you when they are ready.