Beauty

I don’t know if I could handle a daughter.

I remember about 10 years ago when I read Mary Pipher’s book, Reviving Ophelia. It was the first time I was exposed to the depth of the challenges young girls face growing up in our culture today. I read it because as a youth minister, I believed it was important that I understand (as best as a male can) the challenges facing the young girls and young women that were a part of the church and involved in Young Life. I was shocked.

Recently, while watching the Olympics, I saw an ad that caught my attention. I now found out it is one of many ads that Dove (not chocolate but soap) has put together as part of their Real Beauty campaign. Click on the video resources and you can see all of the ads. They are very well done.

They talk about beauty and where real beauty is found.

Think about that for a moment. “What makes a person beautiful?” and “How would you define beauty?”

The answers to these questions are being shouted at us in magazines, on television, in the movies, on the internet. Look at the billboards.

Beautiful people are defined by how they look - their face, body, clothes, hair, car, house, etc. It is all based on external characteristics. The message we hear in our culture is that beauty really is only skin deep, so if you have a pretty face, a thin body, and can afford to purchase the right accessories, then you are beautiful. If not, our culture defines us as ugly, not desirable, plain, and therefore of less value. And we believe it.

Webster’s Dictionary says that beauty is

the quality(s)in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses and/or exalts
the mind or spirit.

A synonym is loveliness. Loveliness is defined as one who is lovable.

DOVE found in their campaign for Real Beauty that only 2% of women around the world describe themselves as beautiful and that 81% of women in the U.S. strongly agree that “the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.” DOVE is doing something about this challenge. Their mission is “to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening the stereotypical views of beauty.” A worthy goal.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because it is the beholder’s definition that matters. If the definition is in error so is the conclusion. The beholder matters.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
Psalm 139:14

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Proverbs 31:30

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
Isaiah 52:7

Remember, loveliness is defined as one who is lovable. That’s you. You are lovely. You are beautiful. You are created by God and his works are wonderful. In His eyes, you are lovable for He created you out of His love for you.

The beauty that God has instilled in you cannot be bought. It does not need to be altered. Your beauty is found because you are inherently YOU.

Our “loveable-ness” is for much more than outward appearance. God looks at the whole YOU. You are His handiwork. No matter what the worlds says, you are and will always be beautiful, lovely, desirable, wonderful in the eyes of God. Who knows better than Him? Ultimately, what ‘beholder’ should we trust to get it right? God is never in error in His conclusions about you.

What the world values is fake, artificial, and vain.

What God values is real, perfect, and true. God loves you. You are beautiful to Him.