A Thought About Hybrid Women vs True Beauty

I'm not really one to look through magazines....I simply don't have the time, but the other day I found an old one in the piles and piles of debris in my basement. As I looked through it's pages I couldn't help but notice how very little things have changed for women over the years.  The magazine was filled with advertisements for women on how to be more beautiful, with articles such as "How to get your share".  "How to make your man love you more". "Do you still have what it takes to make your man want you?"  It had ads for many products to help us women do just that... remember this one?..."If all of a sudden a man gives you flowers"....... it's because you're wearing this fragrance.  Or.... buy this hair product "because you're worth it".........use this shampoo and you'll have men following you home.........this make up. that make up, this lip stick, those pantyhose....all these things would make you a more beautiful person and best of all it would help your man to love you more!. It's funny how many of those products I actually owned growing up.....and I'm still using them, or at least a close facsimile.  I grew up in the age of advertising.....advertising that conditioned women to think that they needed to be a certain way, or look a certain way, or fit into a certain mold if they ever hoped to be loved and desired by any man. This stuff tends to stay with you over the years whether you are aware of it or not. Women are conditioned to believe that if they could all just change their appearances and be something they are not then of course men will love them.......if of course, we fit the mold the ads say we should!!! We have become these hybrid women with old skin and thinning hair. But it's ok because there is surgery to fix that kind of stuff too.....NOT

The closest advertisement I saw that talked about helping women develop the inside self was an add for Jamison vitamins. I suppose none of these things are wrong in and of themselves, but I didn't see one article that talked about being a beautiful person on the inside. No wonder most of the woman my age and older have self confidence problems...they have been conditioned to find their significance in how the look, what they wear, what their figure looks like and what their man thinks of them!

Even most of the magazines on the shelves today are no better. I have seen a couple of ads for 'Dove' that I like, but on the whole not much has changed over the years. There is still nothing that shows women how to have true inner beauty; inner beauty that's full of character, love and kindness. Beauty that doesn't fade, sag, droop or wrinkle. The stuff that really matters in the eyes of God.

I think the opposite of 'love' is not 'hate', but rather it is 'self.'  Now please don't hear me say that there is anything wrong with having a very healthy self esteem, because God made each of us a wonderful creation of his love. Women for far too long have tried to find their significance in men and have focused largely on outward appearance in order to do that.  Problems have now manifested in many different ways....some women become very selfish and almost desperate, untrusting, unloving and sometimes even unfaithful, while for others it has caused severe depression and self esteem issues because they simply can't measure up.

When we get too wrapped up in 'self' we tend to be more intolerant of others and we can become very selfish; unloving and truly ugly people...the exact opposite of who we really wanted to become......and really that isn't desirable at all. I found this little clip that I thought explained it well:

How to be perfectly miserable:
Think about yourself
Talk about yourself and how wonderful you are in the eyes of others
Use 'I' as often as possible
Mirror yourself continually in the opinion of others
Listen greedily to what people say of you
Expect to be appreciated by everyone
Be sensitive to slights.  Never forget criticism
Be suspicious, jealous, and envious
Trust nobody but yourself
Insist on consideration and respect at all times
Demand agreement with your own views on everything
Sulk if people are not grateful to you or for favors shown them
Never forget a service you have rendered
Be on the look out for a good time for yourself, shirk your duties if you can
Love yourself supremely, be selfish, and do as little as possible for others

Being a beautiful person on the inside means showing love to others. I don't in anyway think that it's wrong to be the best you can be on the outside, however it's the beauty that comes from the inside that really counts and that never fades. I don't know about the rest of you but with every year that goes by things seem to be hanging much lower on me, and my body is not what it used to be and I don't suspect that it's going to get much better with age. Physical beauty for everyone will pass away, but love and true inner beauty only grows with time.

If every one of us was giving and showing love the way God wanted us to, then everyone would have plenty to receive as well. It's time to focus on the things that really matter and those qualities that truly make us beautiful women. We need to be who God created us to be and stop trying to be these hybrid wanna be's.  Who's to say what outer beauty really is anyway, it's all in the eyes of the beholder. God made each of us unique and wonderful!
I think that's all I'll say about that for now.