Distorted Image

Society has a warped view of beauty. We judge one another’s value by our physical beauty. Women perm, paint, peel, frost, dye and liposuction to please the secular world. The media bombards us with images of the ideal woman, captioned “you can look like this in ten easy steps!” I have tried the steps and I still don’t look like them. I had always heard that “beauty was in the eyes of the beholder” and make-up changes their point of view! My mother said beauty was only skin deep, but ugly went to the bone. Her idea was to let me know that there is more to beauty than the outward appearance. What would this world come to if we all had the same view of what beauty is? Competition and jealousy would disappear along with the need for beauty contests and beauty shops. Beauty aids would disappear from store shelves.

Everything you could possibly need to improve your physical appearance can be found on a shelf near you. Fortunes are made while we scurry to the nearest department store for; fingernail polish, perfume, lotions, hair spray, foundation and the famous brush rollers, which I must say kept me awake at night. These things are wonderful and they do seem to improve our overall appearance but somewhere along the beauty line it stopped being about us and became an obsession. We have rituals which make us feel more acceptable to man but more distant from ourselves. People are beautiful, people of all shapes and sizes. Tall people, small people, large people, all people are beautiful

Medical experts have testified to the dangers involved with being obese, as well as how difficult the excess weight is to lose. These statements come as no surprise to those who suffer from obesity. The obese come face to face with these challenges daily, along with the self- hatred and depression that comes with it. Few of the obese have come to accept them selves as they are. The secular media promotes the worlds-eye view of beauty leaving us feeling as if we were just plain wrappers with little to value inside.

When we measure ourselves by the blue-eyed, blond model on the cover of Vogue -with that view of beauty  we can do nothing but fall short. While we polish, pluck and rearrange the outside we can’t forget that who we are on the inside is as much a choice as the dress we choose to wear. We should labor to make our Spiritual man as beautiful as the outside. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Competition among women may fascinate those who profit by it, but the Father would have us be satisfied with who we are. To look beyond what we see on the outside and see the true beauty that a woman possesses. Beautify ourselves because it makes us feel good. We have it backwards. Outward beauty is much less important, than the beauty that comes from the heart. For women: make-up and frilly clothes makes us feel desirable. For men it may take something else entirely, but all of us change our appearance to change the way we feel. We have been programmed to believe that we are unacceptable in our original state. Our self-image is distorted by the information absorbed through magazines, TV, family, classmates and every other form of secular media.