Meaningful Beauty Part 2

In my last blog I talked about meaningful beauty and how many times we as women are searching for the external solutions for remaining beautiful throughout our lives. As a younger woman size, weight, flawless skin, cute clothes and the like were very important to me. I may have worked hard to look good on the outside, but on the inside I was a very insecure person. I lived in insecurity. It was like a secret tormentor that came each day to steal joy and blessings from my life and my relationships.

Now that I am much older and have traveled the journey of life a bit further, I am finding that even though looking and feeling great on the outside is a good thing, cultivating beauty on the inside is the most important.

Just the other day, my children and I were walking home from the neighborhood park. It was late morning. However, it was hot. This is Arizona and we are hitting 100 degree days already. So as we came closer to the house I noticed all of us started picking up our pace. We could not wait to get inside for that cool glass of water.

How does this relate to cultivating meaningful beauty? Well it has to do with heat. In life we find ourselves in the heat many times in the form of trials and tribulation. Sometimes we can find our own way out of these circumstances. However, many times we find ourselves stuck in the heat, a least for a season. What do we do?

In looking back over times in my own life when I have felt deserted in the heat of hard times, I have not always handled the stress very well. But as I have become older, I find myself like the little child who runs to find water in the heat of the day. However that water in not liquid water, but it is the Living Water who is Jesus Christ. When I drink of His presence in heated times, I find myself yielding more and more to what life brings as more of a beauty treatment.

Like I mentioned earlier in my previous blog, beauty is something that is worked in the heart and flows from the inside out. This comes through learning to allow hard times to soften our hearts instead of harden them. Soft hearts manifest tender eyes and a gentle and understanding smile. Tough times make the heart more flexible and enlarges it to carry love for all people, not just a few. The best potion for beauty is taking the arduous seasons of our lives and having a healthy perspective. Then we become better and more beautiful, not bitter and hardened.

So as the summer is around the corner and things are heating up, think about how the fiery trials lead us to the Well of Living Water, the most beautiful Well, the most meaningful beauty! Drink plenty of water!