Skin Deep

The other day I was scrolling through my news feed on Facebook and happened to see the now infamous picture of Kim Kardashian's naked behind. And not that anyone is asking but I felt like sharing my reaction. Regardless of the fact that I wasn't necessarily a Kardashian fan to begin with, as I've been bombarded on social media with images and commentary on the pictures, my gut reaction is not disgust or judgement, but rather pity and sorrow. Here's a woman, who by many people's standards "has it all," yet she is clearly so plagued by insecurity that she's willing to objectify herself in front of the entire world. She has placed so much of her worth and value on her looks that after dealing with the assault motherhood is on one's body, she's feels the need to overcompensate for her insecurity by showing off how great she looks. (And maybe she does, I don't know. All I saw was the behind, which I honestly thought was a satire.) I am actually very confident in my post-baby "mom bod." Sure there are some battle wounds from the journey but overall, I'm happy with how I look. I assure you that you will never see a scandalous picture of me anywhere at anytime. Once I took a "sexy" selfie for my hubby (fully clothed so how sexy could it be?) but I deleted it before sending because I'm still not real sure how this whole "Cloud" thing works and I was afraid of where it would end up. The point is I'm comfortable in my own skin so I don't feel the need to prove it to anyone else. Ms Kardashian seems to be lacking in that, which is a shame because she is a very pretty girl. 

And then I think about her child. I can't imagine the message that sends to a child. (I honestly don't even know if her kid is a boy or a girl. I think it's name is North....not clarifying at all.) Whether a boy or a girl, she's teaching either that a woman is an object to be desired, not respected and not loved. She's teaching her child that beauty is only skin deep. 

The problem with all of this, as we know, is that beauty fades. Proverbs 31:30 says "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." If I can say this in a public forum without being awkward, I've been told my whole life that I'm pretty. But 32 years and a couple kids later, the body starts to betray us. Wrinkles, dark circles, wear and tear of motherhood, and the unfortunate effects of gravity start to hit in the 30s. So I could start to invest a ton of money into trying to preserve or prolong whatever physical beauty I can but to what end? Would I wake up one day so insecure with the results of my efforts that I felt the need to prove to the world that "I still have it?" Or would my efforts be better spent on something else? Charm is deceiving and very rarely genuine so that's not a good investment. But what about character? As I continue to discover who God made me to be, I find myself in these uncharted waters of contentment and self-confidence. And that's what lasts, right? People don't talk about the legacy their mother and grandmother left in terms of their physical beauty. They talk about it in terms of the way they loved and gave and served. My mom has recently stopped coloring her hair and we're seeing these beautiful silver curls come through. My daughter, who thinks her Nonni hung the moon, hasn't noticed. Although my mother's "wisdom" in her silver hair is beautiful, that is not the epitome of her beauty in my eyes, or in my daughter's. Her beauty is in how she loves us all so well. I'd rather be remembered for generations to come as a woman that served the Lord, loved others well, and walked confidently in her own skin than a grandmother who lacked wrinkles, a mother who lacked physical scars of childbearing, or a woman who looked good in a bikini. Call me crazy.