Are you beautiful on the inside or physically? Or maybe both?! It shouldn't surprise me but today has just been one of those days where I read articles or see TV shows about people from 40 or 100 years ago and open emails and go to restaurants or out shopping and see people who are beautiful in appearance. No, of course I'm not talking about people who are model-pretty, although there are plenty of them too, but people who are beautiful in a more ordinary way yet are beautiful all the same. Of course there are some people who really got rejected by the appearance genes and no, none of us stay beautiful forever or at a specific time in our lives (and some of us take a terrible picture so it's very hard to see that beauty unless you're in person with someone), and some of us don't put any effort into learning what helps us look our best, but I still believe that more of us are beautiful than we might think.
So what do you notice first about other people? Probably how they look, right? But that isn't always the lasting impression you have of them. So many times I hear the confused statement: "I don't understand how someone who looks like that can act or talk like that!?!" because someone might look like $1,000,000 or might be incredibly handsome/beautiful but have zero personality or be downright nasty. So the lessons that so many moms (and dads) taught us about beauty not being important or to focus on our schoolwork or behaving well are absolutely true, but at the same time I think they did many of us a disservice by almost or completely brushing off the physical appearance aspect. I'm not suggesting that moms (or dads) around the world should have enrolled all of us in pageants or acting classes or put unhealthy levels of focus on our appearance but I do think they should have helped us understand that we were good looking and encouraged us to care for our bodies and be proud of who we were and how we looked.
Why? Because even if our appearance doesn't get us hired, married, lucky at the lottery, win a popularity contest or be free of health issues, knowing that we are or can be attractive is a big factor in our confidence as we grow and may even play a big role in whether we thrive in life or not. And having that confidence in who we are, feeling good about how we look, can make all the difference in how courageous or (appropriately) risk-taking we are and as a result how well we do in life on multiple levels including emotionally, relationally, and financially. So remind your kids that they're beautiful inside and out, help them appreciate and cultivate both kinds of beauty in themselves, and don't forget to love and believe in yourself and your beauty inside and out too.
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