I couldn’t believe it the other day.  I was watching tv, and all of a sudden I see Brooke Shields in a commercial promoting a kind of prescription cream or gel that you could get to make your eyelashes fuller and thicker.  I couldn’t believe it?  What?  I wondered, “Are my eyelashes to short and thin?”  I had just gotten past the fact that I didn’t need to spend time whitening my teeth, and that they weren’t really that yellow.  Now I had to wonder what to do with my lashes.  Was mascara not enough anymore? 

Everywhere we look, we women, are told what we need to do to be beautiful.  We definitely need Botox for our wrinkles, eyelash medicine for our dull eyelashes, collagen for our lips, and liposcuction for our hips.  The list goes on and on.  Even if we feel okay with how we look, the world media makes us question ourselves.  Isn’t it bad enough that as women, we are already comparing ourselves to one another?  The truth is, we could spend all of our time trying to improve our looks, or to try to look like the most beautiful woman we have ever seen.  I’m sure that there are some that do.  I know that there are some that do…there are those women who get plastic surgery over and over again, only to still not be content with how they look.  I think that we could interview women all over the world, and not find one woman who wouldn’t want to change at least one thing about themselves, physically.  We all have to accept “what we get, and not throw a fit”…sorry, this is something said at our house a lot!  Besides, God created us exactly the way He wanted us.  He doesn’t make mistakes!  At times, I am very frusterated about how I look.  I have to ask myself why I am thinking about myself so much.  It is usually because I don’t feel like I measure up to the world’s standards of what “beautiful” is.  But, what is the world’s definition of “beautiful?”  I believe it is only the outer appearance that counts.  A lot of gals buy into this, and are found wanting more botox.  I have told my daughters for awhile that it is not the outside that counts.  It’s your insides that count…your guts!  I ask them it their guts are looking beautiful from time to time.  They know that they are beautiful on the outside, simply because God created them.  They believe it.  They know it.  What we have to work on is their insides being beautiful.  We do that by working on the Fruits of the Spirit.  We all know that even the most beautiful woman in the world is not beautiful if she treats people poorly.  She’s not so beautiful anymore if she goes around yelling at people!  We also know that a gal who isn’t “beautiful” according to the world’s standards can be absolutely gorgeous when we see her shine for Jesus, showing the Fruits of the Spirit.

You, sister, are beautiful because God created you that way.  You don’t need to cut yourself up, rearrange your face, or even worry about how you look.  Try working on joy, patience, and kindness.  The time spent working on our insides will be much more well spent that working on our outsides.  And, it’s free!  Not easy, but free!  I’m not saying to not take care of yourselves, our bodies our God’s temples, I’m just encouraging us to not forget about our beautiful guts.  Well, mine aren’t so beautiful at this point, but I am working on it!  What about you?

Galatians 5:22

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things is no law.