“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”
(Proverbs 31:30).
When I was a little girl, my very favorite story was “Cinderella.” Remember the story? A poor servant girl becomes a beautiful princess, marries a handsome prince and lives happily ever after. The story starts like this: “Once upon a time, there was a girl who was as good as she was beautiful …”
I have always wanted to be beautiful and good.
It is not wrong to want to be beautiful, but the Bible says it is not the most important thing. The Bible says beauty does not last.
When there is pressure to look young and beautiful all the time, we can remember that physical beauty is not the best kind of beauty. Peter, a married apostle, talks about beauty this way: “It (a woman’s beauty) should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet
spirit” (1 Peter 3:4).
As we grow older and it gets harder to be beautiful, it is comforting to remember that God looks at the heart, not at the body.
Recently, I met a woman at a conference. My first thought was that she was quite unattractive. I was surprised to see that she was married to a very handsome man. I wondered about his attraction to her.
As I listened to her talk about Jesus, her face began to glow. Her warmth and caring were unmistakable. After a few minutes, all I could see in her face was the love of Jesus overflowing to me. She became beautiful in my eyes.
I know what her husband sees, and I know what Jesus sees, too.
Kimberly Snider is a missionary to the Philippines.
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