Beautiful Women

In a column in Boundless Webzine, Candice Watters answers a 25 year-old young single woman who worries:

I've never had anyone ask me out or tell me I'm beautiful (other than my mum and dad!). I have guy friends and think I'm at least average in looks, but sometimes I think I must be abnormal! Is there something wrong with me? What can I do to relieve my worry that I'll never find the one that God has for me?

I really appreciated Candice's answer! Here's part of it:

For starters, there's nothing wrong or shameful about your desire to be singled out by a man. As women, we long to be the glory of a man; quite literally, his beauty. As you make the most of your features and form, remember your spirit also informs your beauty. Peter wrote that all those externals were secondary to your "inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."

This inner beauty comes from resting in God's provision and trusting Him to be your advocate. It's the opposite of striving to control.

Beauty is not just a state of being. It's also doing. God designed you to take delight in being a beauty, and to create beauty for the delight of others around you. Every time you create beauty for others, you send the message that they are valuable, worth the price of your effort. It's this message of value that Mary of Bethany so lavishly sent when she anointed Jesus' feet with the pure nard.

Finally, I asked one of my single, attractive, unattached friends how she thinks about beauty. "'You're beautiful' is something you hear from God," she said. To know that God sees you as beautiful, and worth the costliest gift ever given — His Son — is a powerful antidote to counterfeits. When you draw your self-worth from your Creator, you're better able to recognize and resist men who would flatter for their own ends rather than your good.

What a wonderful view of true womanhood! As a married woman, I was reminded again that God, not my husband (much as I love him!), is my ultimate giver of worth. Is the way I am living my life beautiful to God?

Also, I am pondering Candice's statement that we as women--whether married or single--have been created to "delight in being a beauty, and to create beauty for the delight of others" around us! How can I grow in beauty as God's woman, and seek to nurture beauty wherever possible as a gift for those in my world? What are some SPECIFIC things I can do to give the gift of beauty?

Well...for one thing, I can go grocery shopping right now, so that my husband will have a good dinner to eat tonight! (A man with a satisfied stomach is a beautiful thing!) I'll have to meditate on these things some more as I meander hither and thither:o)