I’ve felt dull lately in my appearance, and it seems that whatever glow I used to have is diminishing. My body is not what it was ten years ago. Clothes don’t fit the same, so I have to be more strategic about what I wear. The gym is not producing the same results it used to.
I’m wearing the body of my grandma and sometimes don’t even recognize my own face in a mirror! So I’ve felt a loss of confidence as well as an increased sense of irrelevance. That’s because my body deceived me into thinking that my outward appearance was what defined me and gave me worth as a woman.
I discovered this in a place I would typically not look to for validation as a woman… Proverbs 31. Yes, that’s right. The most feared chapter in the Bible for us girls, because the woman described seems so impossible to become. And, therefore, many of us go away from reading this chapter feeling even worse about ourselves.
Something got into me though (the Holy Spirit I imagine), and I took verse 30 apart, looking up each word’s meaning in the original Hebrew language. The verse says that the favor and adornment of my form and appearance (charm) deceives, disappoints, and betrays. Beauty is vain, worthless, transitory, and has no purpose (passing). But the woman who has a reverence for the awesomeness of God (fears the Lord)… she shall be praised.
All of that was such a fabulously eye-opening new understanding of how God wants me to see myself. But that’s not all. The word praised in Hebrew translates to SHINE! Isn’t that something?
So that means I will shine if I have a reverence for the awesomeness of God. If I quit critiquing myself and instead gaze at the holy wonder of my all-knowing, all-powerful God who adores my 56 year old self, that will put a glow on my face!
“Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.” Proverbs 31:30