No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted

What do you look like when you get up? After putting on make up and doing your hair, do you still feel like you need something else? A little touch up with photoshop perhaps? No digs at Helen Clark intended here. We all know what it like to wake up looking like something the cat dragged in. And, if we are to be honest, sometimes make up and a quick flick with the hair brush and dollop of gel scrunched through is not always enough. Who wouldn’t want to look like that fashion model on the front of that mag that we know we have all seen at one time or another? It may not necessarily be the same model or same mag we were looking at but at the end of the day it is all the same thing: they all have something that we want, and if they can have it, why can’t we?

‘Cause the photo was photoshoped.

I saw an interesting video that illustrates this well. And check out the website: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com

In reality we are all the same…

When I look in the mirror I see many imperfections. Now, I can take comfort in the fact that nobody is perfect – not even that model on the billboard, wearing barely anything on her seemingly flawless body. That’s how they got to be models right? By having that perfect figure? I’m not fooled. Without the use of a computer she may still look above average with make up and a hair do but what’s above average anyway? And without the make up and the hair do… well it is then that we see all the imperfection and say: wow, she’s quite ordinary without make up. A magazine showing a flawless body one week, will zoom in on the cellulite the next. It’s a cruel world for the famously beautiful in the media. We can learn an important lesson from this: we don’t have to look beautiful to feel beautiful.
God has made each of us special and unique and beautiful.

So what if there are things about yourself that you would like to change. We have been made by God who loves each and every one of us very much. We should remember this each time we step out the door: that it doesn’t matter what others may think; it doesn’t matter what the media may be telling us about our image and how we should look. We don’t need to be more beautiful on the outside than what God has already made us to be. But if we start feeling good about ourselves we will feel more beautiful on the inside. This is what God looks at – our heart. God wants us to feel good about ourselves because he made us to love as he loves us and we can’t truly love others if we don’t love ourselves first.