Beauty

Tonight I watched "The Devil Wears Prada."I looked at the clothes they wore and the makeup and I loved it! It was art. Color and combinations, shades and complements.

Inspired, I got up off the couch and went into the bathroom to experiment, as girls do every once in a while. I pulled everything out. Instead of doing what I had been told, I did what I would have done if I had been painting. I tried to paint myself to look like a model--to look like the girls in the movie. I swiped and covered-up and powdered and applied over and over, until the makeup looked better than I've ever done before. I was painting. My eyelashes were stiff by the end, but looked as close as I could get to being like the movie (I'd need fake eyelashes to look like them). I looked at myself in the mirror and I looked different.

In that moment, looking at myself in the mirror I saw beauty. I was beautiful.

I wanted to capture this! I wanted to capture this woman with piercing eyes and red lips, a woman who might be like any of the beauties I would see at the mall, walking with confidence and attracting attention.

I went into my room and added clothes from my recent spree. Decked out in Steve Madden heels, capris from The Limited, and a white collared shirt from Target, I grabbed my camera to capture this woman of mystery who would melt away before being seen in public.

I took picture after picture after picture.... None of them were good. It could be the lighting. It could be the self-portraiture. I stopped for a moment to look over the pictures to see if I could identify why they weren't turning out as beautiful as the person I saw in the mirror.

As the pictures flipped past I saw the same straight face, the same dull eyes, and the same disappointed look. I wasn't smiling in any of them. I took more, trying to smile--yet over and over again I came up with the same problem. I just couldn't smile. It was like something inside me knew I was a fraud. The more I took, the more pained my face became until the later photos just showed painted eyes and a cringing face. It was like inside I knew that I was a fake, that I couldn't be beautiful--that this wasn't me.

I finally quit and put the camera away and started thinking about it. It bothered me. Why couldn't I smile?! Why couldn't I be beautiful too--like those beautiful girls who walk around the mall with their perfectly touched-up skin and highlighted eyes? I was a painted lady.

"What is true beauty?" I didn't want to be so upset by that nagging thought that the pictures I was taking didn't turn out good because no matter what I saw in the mirror, I wasn't as beautiful as I thought. Instead I thought about the change a smile would make. A smile is beautiful. A flower is beautiful. Landscapes are beautiful. Families and laughter are beautiful. What about beautiful women? I want to be a beautiful woman and since I wasn't in those pictures I wondered what would make me beautiful. Instantly the Proverbs 31 wife came to mind--a woman of noble character, worth more than rubies. She works hard, is intelligent, compassionate, and thrifty.

I want to be that woman because that is beautiful.

Why do girls need so much to be/feel beautiful? After reading Captivating I understood the longings we females have for beauty and admiration. I wish I could say that I learned a huge lesson out of this, but I haven't. I still wish I could capture that mysterious woman I saw in the mirror.

But I also wish that I would learn to supplant that desire with the greater desire of being a beautiful Proverbs 31 woman.

28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:

29 "Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all."

After all, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

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