Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,    I know that full well. -Psalm 139:13:14


I haven't watched a beauty pageant since I was a little girl, but some news from the recent Miss Universe pageant caught my eye.  Leila Lopes from Angola won the crown.  Remember those questions that were asked toward the end of the contest that were supposed to test the poise of the contestants?  Well, this came from that part of the show:

"Thank God I'm very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn't change a thing," Lopes said, responding to the question of what part of her body she'd change. "I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life."

Admittedly, this is not an amazing answer from someone who is young, thin and naturally gorgeous.  But in 30 years and after a baby or two, that all will change.  But the inner beauty can last a lifetime.


There is a billion-dollar industry based on the lie that we are NOT "fearfully and wonderfully made."  Most of us are extremely dissatisfied with our appearance.  So we diet, work out, apply makeup, spend thousands of dollars on fashionable clothes, put permanent art work on our skin, poke holes in our ears as well as some of the most unlikely places so we can stick shiny stones or metals in them, wear jewelry, inject poison under our skin and even get surgically altered.


I think Miss Lopes hit on something important though.  I think the youth and beauty industry has a pretty easy time of convincing us to spend our money on their wares because deep down inside, we think the outward beauty will in turn bring us inner beauty.  If we feel beautiful on the outside, we believe that all of our insecurities and psychological flaws will evaporate.


But experience shows that it works completely oppositely.  The more we perfect our inner beauty, the more physically beautiful we appear.  We have all known people who when we first see them don't seem particularly attractive, but once we got to know them they seem beautiful... that's what our inner beauty does for us.


We can undergo a complete beauty transformation just by being a more godly person... and it's so much cheaper and safer than surgery!  Trust that you are indeed both "fearfully AND wonderfully made."  Let your inner beauty shine through!


Father,
We know that true beauty really has nothing to do with wrinkles, cellulite or acne, but with how we treat one another.  Help us to focus at least as much energy on our inner beauty as we do our outward appearance.  Amen.


Joys:  Open window weather; lunch with a friend; Saturday