Biblically Speaking ....I'm HOT!

I'm about to burst a bubble for some of you and so if you are feeling like you are walking a thin line of coping today, you might just want to STOP READING and return to your cocoon of safety. I just got home from exercising and decided to write today about exercise (one of my creations in my Genesis). Up to this point in my life, I ONLY exercise because it is vaguely connected to my desire to be beautiful.
This is what the Bible says about beauty:
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. 1 Peter 3 3-4.


This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is female AND that the writers of the Bible were women. Seriously. No MAN would ever write such shit! Really, its a woman's heart that makes her beautiful? REALLY? Its a woman's quiet spirit that makes her beautiful, REALLY? Not the hair, jewelry and clothes????? Bullshit.


In our culture baby we have standards of beauty that NO ONE meets (check out my video at the beginning of my post) and yet even when Dove Soap shows us what happens behind the curtain, nothing changes. It's in our subconscious mind that its real. We've believed it is real for so long, we can't NOT believe it.
We prune, prod, scrape and shave ourselves into some semblance of these magazines....we color, weave, cut, wax and obsess over every pimple as though it means the end of our title. It's what we do. No matter what we look like, no matter our age, the one thing that never ever leaves, is that sense that we don't measure up somehow.


The bible says we do....there are many references...Proverbs 31-30 says "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised" By whom? Other women? Cuz it ain't the boys! The only real truth here is that "charm is deceptive" (how often do we act like someone else early in a relationship?...yes I LOVE football (GAG)) and also beauty is fleeting...(at any given moment of any given day we find a reason to feel badly about ourselves)...


Here's the deal for me. I'm 50 (I'm speaking for myself now, you can listen if you want but I'm talking to myself)....almost 51. I can't change that. I can't be anything BUT almost 51. I'm aging. I am too lazy to do much about that in terms of creams and oils and procedures. I'm just too lazy for all that. I barely wash my face. I'm virtually 100% gray/white haired. So I color my hair and a few days before I go in, I am reminded of my skunk tracks that it is an illusion that I am dark haired. I don't whiten my teeth because I think you all look ridiculous with neon teeth that couldn't possibly be real on anyone. I don't think I want to glow in the dark actually. And I'm overweight. Oh yea, like I have ever gotten to forget that fact. For 50 years, I have been some level of overweight (its women like me that expect those biblical references to set us free). They don't. They are not quite the soft comfort that you might think when you don't fit the model of being "beautiful".


So I exercised today......trying once again to focus on how I "FEEL" instead of how I look. How I felt today was angry. The entire time I ran, walked uphill, hurt, sweat pouring down, crunches, weights.......all I could feel was angry because as I much as I want it to be about how I "feel", I don't know how to get off the hamster wheel of how I look.


I will end with a story about my daughter. My Rachel who is 15 and beyond beautiful. Her shape is perfect. She weighs 120 pounds and is 5'5"...she is shapely like God intended women to be....she has a waist that comes in and hips that go out...her shape defines "curvy". She has a top and a bottom. She is muscular because she is a jock. She has beautiful eyes and a very unique face that makes it all work. She has a crook in her nose that she doesn't realize yet (it belongs to her father's family) and when she smiles, the world changes. I say that not only as her mother but i say it as a member of this culture. Rachel is beautiful. I have spent the last 5 years mostly talking to her, reading with her, processing with her all that comes from being female in this world. It is not an easy thing to be. She is strong, she is independent, she is kind and she is smart. What has made a difference for her is that she does honestly believe that God made her to look just like she looks and that because of that, she is beautiful. She believes it and it has shaped her. She has had something other than the world to use in judgment of herself. I hope to be just like her when I grow up.