Friday, October 10, 2008

True Beauty


This year I have the pleasure of leading a middle school girls small group at my school where I teach music. Now I know.....you might be thinking "pleasure"? Yep it is a pleasure to be teaching a small group of middle school girls:) In all honesty if I had to pick my favorite age group that I teach, it would be middle school. Yes.....they can be quite an interesting and fun bunch of kids to work with.

Over the past several weeks we have been discussing things from getting along with parents to gossip. However I am very excited as this week God has lead me to share with them about beauty.....true beauty. As I began to research and prepare what I would share with them I was sadly reminded about what our society thinks about beauty.

I found the following information on an internet website.
Did you know...
• 24% of women would sacrifice 3 years of their life to be thin
• Girls as young as five have expressed fears of getting fat
• 90% of high school junior and senior girls diet regularly even though only between 10-15% are considered overweight.

In another study researchers questioned 2,000 girls from the UK and the US aged between 10 and 14 and found out that as much as 77 percent of them described themselves in negative terms. Many said they consider themselves ugly, fat and upset when comparing themselves with attractive images shown in advertisements.

To many beauty is all about who we are on the outside. Be honest when presented with the question "Who do you think is beautiful?" where does your mind automatically go? Angelina Jolie, Kate Moss?

True Beauty, the beauty we should really be reconizing is so much more. A beauty that can be seen in a friend willing to sit for hours an listen to the struggle you are going through, a beauty that can be seen in the way your spouse loves you more after you've gained a few more inches here and there, a beauty that can be seen in the sacrifice of one for another.

It is my hope and prayer that true beauty will be seen by these girls next week. And that others will start to see beauty more in the way it was intended by God.

1 Samuel 16:7 - "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Lord is beautiful too(Ps 90:17), but the Lord has no physical beauty. But then how could be called beautiful if He does not have a body? His beauty is a composite of holiness, glory, greatness, oneness, bright, pure, etc, it is a composite beauty, I believe that that everyone should pursue composite beauty and not just one side beauty.