Day Six: That her beauty would be found in the Lord
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30 (ESV)
” Pink! Pink! Pink! Why is everything Barbie so pink!?!”
I can still picture our youngest daughter who, at age five, spoke these words with such comical earnestness that my husband and I still chuckle when we repeat her words–now some twenty years later. Why, indeed, is everything Barbie so over-the-top pink and frilly and ridiculously “feminine”? And how is it that at least three generations of American girls have had their ideas of beauty so universally influenced by an eleven inch molded piece of plastic? Young women compare themselves to Photoshopped images of celebrities with personal trainers, and mature women wince at their HD images when they take that FaceTime call from their grandchildren. May our daughters be set free from such things as they grow in godly beauty from the inside outward.
Heavenly Father, you made all things with beauty in mind. Today, I pray that my daughter would know and accept that her true beauty comes from knowing you. Lord Jesus, remind her even now that youth and outward beauty may fade with time, but true beauty only grows as the years pass. Encourage her to cultivate that beauty, to spend time in your Word, in prayer, and with other spiritually beautiful women. May she compare herself only to the standard of your holy Word, and may the only thing she finds repulsive be the ugliness of sin. Lord, grant her grace to develop the true loveliness that comes only from you.
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Joan Hartley is a member of Grace Presbyterian, OPC in northern Ohio – wife, mother of four, and “Mimi” to two grandsons. She is the founder of Winsome Arrows Educational Services which exists to nurture special needs learners in home and private school settings and is training two therapy dogs, Justice and Mercy, for ministry.
