Jun
20
2019
The Voice That Matters
Posted in Daily Living 1 Comment
I heard them in the dressing room across from me.
How does this look, Mom? A young girl’s voice asked.
It makes you look fat, her mother answered.
Hearing those words was as if someone punched me.
Perhaps the outfit was not flattering on her daughter.
There had to be another way to say it.
There had to be another way to get her point across.
There was no kindness in the mother’s voice.
I left the dressing room before them.
I did not want to see who they were.
If I had seen them, I knew the young girl would look deflated.
If I had seen them, I knew the mother would be clueless as to the power of her words.
When I grew up, my mother said something over and over.
If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
I remember smiling when I heard that same sentence in Disney’s Bambi movie.
Thumper was prompted to remember his mother’s admonition.
It is a good thing to remember.
Hard things needs to be said sometime.
We must be careful with the way we say them.
There are often fragile feelings to consider.
Why do we women do this to each other?
Why do we put such importance on the outer us?
Why do we allow someone else to designate the standards of beauty?
Why do we bow at the altar of appearances?
Hearing those words, hurt my heart.
They were timely, however.
They hit home.
I had said some of the same things to myself.
My daughter had taken pictures of the wonderful surprise party our children gave us.
Seeing the pictures brought back all the precious memories of the evening.
Then my eye went to pictures of me.
You should have heard the dialog in my head.
I don’t know why I wore that dress.
I think I will give those shoes away.
I am so much taller than everyone else.
My hips look big in that picture.
I caught myself after the fourth criticism.
I was always so careful with my words where my daughters were concerned.
Why was I not careful with the words I said to me?
I stopped, confessed, and prayed to the Lord about my heart.
I know Truth.
I know what God looks at and considers important.
I believe in encouraging and building others up.
Why was I so hard on me?
What lies am I listening to?
No one cares about my dress or my shoes.
My children always loved to lay their their head on my lap.
Do the words I say often to young mothers not apply to me?
As we age, and after we have children, our bodies change.
Those changes are badges of honor.
Do I really believe that?
Yes, I really do.
We women need to know the source of our true beauty.
The world has its own ideas.
The world is wrong.
God tells us in His Word the source of true beauty.
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.
(1 Peter 3:3,4)
The mother in the dressing room must have forgotten.
Perhaps she never knew it in the first place.
Words matter.
Words we say to others and words we say to ourselves matter.
The young girl was looking for encouragement that day.
Maybe the style was all wrong for her, but there was a nicer way to say it.
I was looking at the wrong things; my eyes were in the wrong place.
My eyes were on me.
No one notices the outside as much as we think they do.
It is the inside that people remember.
It is the inner beauty that enhances the outer beauty.
It is the inner beauty that God cares about.
The world will not tell you that.
But God does.
We focus on the wrong things.
We listen to the wrong voices.
Dress?
Shoes?
Hips?
None of that matters.
Even when we feel comfortable in our own skin, we have our days.
We have our days of doubt.
The world will only fuel that doubt with unreasonable standards.
God, in His Word, tells us where we can find true beauty.
Which voice do you believe?
The answer to that question matters.
Thanks for this reminder. I seem to fluctuate between pride when I’ve lost a few pounds and my hair is laying right or self flagellation when I’ve gained a few pounds and my hair is frizzy. What wasted energy! What ugly self-absorption. I can only take it to the cross. BTW I am always the shortest one in the picture and self-conscious about it