"Addicted to Beauty" - (The Idol of Appearance)

According to a recent survey, women have thirteen negative body thoughts daily. -- thoughts like:

---I'm too fat.

---I'm too thin.

---My breasts are too small.

---My ears are too big.

---My hair is too curly.

---No man will ever want me.

Where do those thoughts come from??  Ok, I'll admit it... I spent my evening last night watching "The Emmy Awards".  I found myself ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the glamorous dresses, the gorgeous hairstyles, the beautiful faces and the perfect bodies.  I even tweeted "I want Julie Bowen's arms!"

We all want to be beautiful, right?  But at what cost?

Every year Americans spend some 20 billion dollars on cosmetics, 2 billion on hair products, 74 billion on diet foods, and 7.4 million on cosmetic surgery.  Huge numbers of young men and women are falling into the destructive trap of placing all their hopes on how they look.

Ah yes..."The destructive trap".... it IS a trap.  And one that is so easy to fall into.  Why?  Because this society seems to reward the beautiful, right?  Things are just easier when you are beautiful.  People love you more when you are beautiful.  Well, it seems that way, but...

...the truth is, while we spend all our time reading books on how to look more beautiful, or buying products that promise to make us more beautiful, it goes way beyond that.  It's a deeper issue that we aren't addressing.  It isn't really about being beautiful at all.  This is about fulfillment.  this is about wanting to feel admired, desired, and ultimately, loved.  

REAL BEAUTY

Oh, if we could only rest in the truth that we are uniquely created by our Heavenly Father (Ps. 139:14).  That the God of this universe designed us, loves us, and fully approves of us -- including the way we look.  I believe the beginning of a healthy self-image is seeing ourselves as God see us -- no more and no less.

The desire to look attractive is not wrong in and of itself.  It's the place of prominence it occupies in your heart that can make it an idol, and therefore supremely destructive.  Striving to find significance, acceptance, or power based on the beauty standards of this world will leave you empty, hurt and ultimately destroyed.  

Personally, I've come to see that there is a big difference between being beautiful and being attractive.   Let's go back to my Emmy Award watching for a minute.  Although I'm always amazed at all the beautiful people at those award shows, there are honestly few that I feel drawn too.  By that I mean, there aren't many that I think I'd really love to meet or engage in conversation with.  As beautiful as they are, I'm not attracted to them... I'm not drawn to them... I'm not curious about them beyond what hair product they are using or what exercises make them have arms like that (calling Julie Bowen!)... but I digress.....

I don't mean to sound judgmental here.  I'm sure many of those beautiful stars at the Emmy's are lovely people.  I'm just saying that it isn't the external beauty that makes them interesting to me.  It isn't their external beauty that makes me attracted to them beyond a very shallow and superficial level.

There are few things more attractive than seeing someone who is whole --- whole as only a person who is fully submitted to God can be.  Someone who accepts herself/himself as God created and continues to shape them to be.  That's a person of real beauty -- the kind that lasts and satisfies.

What do you think?  Do you struggle with worshiping the "idol of appearance"?  Personally, I know I have struggled with it in my past.  Convinced if I didn't look a certain way, I wouldn't get hired.  Or I wouldn't be included in the "right circles".  Or I wouldn't get a good husband..etc....  learning to love myself, exactly the way God made me, is a process --but one that I'm learning to embrace.   And it feels good.

*italics are direct quotes from "Empty Promises" by Pete Wilson.