Plastic

We live in a plastic society. Plastic surgery, plastic eyelashes, spray tans, acrylic fingernails, and many other beauty tricks have set a very high standard for what we call attractive. Not to mention that most of the pictures you see have been airbrushed. Just Google “airbrushed images” and you’ll see stars getting the treatment. We see thousands of images everyday, and we compare ourselves to them, pretty harshly I might add. But guess what…they are plastic, too! Ever since we were little girls many of us have allowed our body image and self-worth to be based on whether or not we looked like (you guessed it) a PLASTIC doll called Barbie.

So why does the beauty and magazine industry airbrush the life out of people? They want you to buy the lie so you BUY THEIR PRODUCTS. The beauty industry makes billions of dollars on selling face lifts, fake breasts, liposuction and more. They know that we women want to fit in, to be worthy of admiration. And we will pay to look the part of Barbie.

We even have plastic cards that give us a false sense of wealth, buying beauty with money we don’t have, so we can look like people who have been airbrushed, after all.

No, there’s nothing wrong with looking great. There’s nothing wrong with makeup or fashion. In fact, God is the Author of all things beautiful. But those things are just icing on the cake. They are nothing to obsess over, to lose sleep over. God certainly thinks more highly of you and I than we do of ourselves, and He probably has to chuckle at our attempts to be “beautiful” when He knows the truth.

Real beauty comes from the inside. It’s love. It’s confidence. It’s your personality. It’s your skin color, your natural-born beauty that God is crazy about. After all, He’s the Master Artist, and He created the amazing wonder that is YOU. The truth is you are lovable and worthy of admiration just the way you are. And the other reality is if we value ourselves, we will be healthier and happier. And that is something even an airbrush artist can’t create.

By the way, Barbie called, and she wants her life back. She doesn’t like being packaged and sold in plastic boxes any more than God likes his daughters to be.

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body," (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

Waiting for Your Someone?

I wanted to share something with you single ladies. I wrote this letter to my future husband back before I met him. In fact, I did this whenever I felt lonely. It helped me remember not to settle for what was available (the guys asking me out who I knew weren’t God’s best) but to wait for what was MINE. MY someone.

You have a Someone, and maybe you have not met them yet, but they are out there. As long as you are loving God, you are not far away from your Someone, because God knows exactly where he is right now.

So here’s an entry from my “Someone” journal. By the way, my husband Jason got to read this journal as one of my wedding gifts to him…

My Dear Someone,

Just thinking about you lately. Kind of like a birthday gift you know is coming, I have a sense of expectancy about you. Sure, I’ve known God would give me the gift of a wonderful mate, but it seems very near. I’ve reached a point where I am content with being single and I’ve actually grown to enjoy it in some ways. That’s saying something because for the past years, I’ve felt so impatient, spending many hours in either sadness, self-pity or insecurity over the fact that I’ve never, and I repeat, NEVER had a boyfriend. Granted, this is something I chose because I know you are there. We are both living for a greater purpose, and we will meet when it will bring the most good for us and for the Kingdom of God.

I’m so in love with my Jesus that it’s thrilling to just talk to Him. I love to lay here on these starless nights and have heart-to-heart talks with Him. Usually you come up in the conversation either because I ask about you or pray for you. I tell my siblings and others that if I’m serving God and you’re serving Him, then we can’t be too far away from each other.

At times I have a temptation to feel remorse over the fact that you are missing moments in my life or I am missing special times in yours right now, but really our faith gives us a history with one another.

I believe if two people are in love with the Father, they have in a sense known each other since they were born again because they both know the same Source of Life. If that’s where you find your identity and I find mine, then we know the most important thing about each other already even before meeting. And that gives me comfort.

I pray for you often and think of you so much. Hope you pray for me too. Hold on to the promises of God that are beyond wonderful. He blesses me with indescribable joy, despite the pain of this life. I am more than a conqueror through Him who loves me and has called me to his beautiful purpose. I know you understand that no matter how much I will love you, He will always come first.

I love you already.

Amy