This Old House: Laughing at age and gravity
A few years ago, make-up was something I wore just because I was old enough to get away with it. A hint of color here, a splash of flair there. These days, make-up is a necessity. And it takes time. What used to be a light touchup has now become more like a major sheet rock repair. Fill this. Putty that. They call it a make-up sponge, but deep down inside I know it’s a trowel!
In my teens, I had a tiny make-up bag that would fit in my purse. Today what I call a make-up kit is really a TOOL BOX. I have this nagging fear that eventually someone’s going to make me get a permit every morning before I can take on the face project.
The gravity of it all (and please excuse the gravity pun) hit me hard one morning when I was blow-drying my hair. I was blow-drying upside down to get that “big hair” effect that all of us Texas-born women go for, and I inadvertently caught a glimpse of my upside down face in the mirror. It was horrifying – truly one of the more traumatic experiences of my life. It looked like my face was dangling about two inches past my nose! Traumatic, I tell you.
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I shared my flappy-face trauma with some of my forty-ish friends at a ladies gathering. Several had similar horror stories to tell. Donna, one of the more positive ones, shouted, “But watch me have a beautiful moment!” Then she sprawled herself on her back in the floor. Her theory was that if you let gravity work for you, the flappy part of the face disappears somewhere into the hairline. Personally, I’m still wondering how you’re supposed to actually HEAR someone tell you you’re having a beautiful moment when your ears are full of face!
If you haven’t yet hit that flappy-faced time of life, we can still be friends, but little of this will make sense to you. In fact, I’ll sound like your mother. My only consolation is that eventually, gravity will hit you, too. I say that, of course, in the most sincere Christian love – even if you do hear faint maniacal laughter in the background.
What about the Proverbs 31 Virtuous Woman? Granted, most of us have decided that she may have been Vulcan or an early alien visitation from some other near-perfect race, but the Scripture clearly says she smiles at the future. I think it’s more than smiling at her real estate and clothing businesses, her fancy garden or the matching red outfits she’s made for her family. She is clothed with strength and honor and kindness. That’s what others see.
Have you every noticed that we never see anything about her physical beauty anywhere in this passage? Did she have a flappy face problem? Who knows? It’s more important for us to know that it just didn’t matter. Verse 25 says that she will “rejoice in time to come.” When we focus on loving and serving Him, all the other things fall into place. Well, you know what I mean. You’re not going to see your face fall where it used to. But the true beauty of this woman is in her heart. “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.”
I know our bodies are the “temple” of the Holy Spirit, and that some of us are feeling like our temples may be in need of some serious repair, but the temple is for worship of our awesome Creator. When we focus on Him instead of our bodies, we can smile at the future, too, and we can put beauty in its proper perspective.
As for me, I knew for certain that the flappy face trauma was behind me one night when I awoke thinking someone was lying next to me – and it was ME!
On to the next trauma.
