3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment such as braided hair or gold jewelry or fine clothes, 4but from the inner disposition of your heart, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.… 1 Peter 3:3-4
Unless you are a single woman who has never had an interest in the opposite sex and plan to stay that way forever (God Bless you because God has decided to keep you all to himself) all of us women have most likely at one point or another have gotten caught in up in beauty and vanity, up to varying degrees. For others it may have nothing to do with your beauty but more to do with your achievements like the house you own, the car you drive, your college degree or your high paying job, etc.
van·i·ty
Excessive pride in or admiration of one’s own appearance or achievements.“it flattered his vanity to think I was in love with him”synonyms: conceit, narcissism, self-love, self-admiration, self-absorption, self-regard, egotism;
Because of past hurts and pains and even abuse, people are now turning more and more to self-love and self admiration. This is to fill in voids and try to heal wounds from the terrible things that people have said and or done to them. BUT this is also leading to more selfishness, self-centeredness and self-absorption. I am seeing children being neglected more than ever before because of their parents need to love themselves and focus on themselves vs their children. Children are just being left to themselves with many of them acting way older than they should. Loosing their innocence and using foul language that I myself wouldn’t even say. The cycle must stop and God’s love and healing needs to be allowed in to fill in those voids because everything else is just temporary.
NOW God is not against us having confidence and taking care of ourselves, looking nice and etc. For those of us who have husbands, the way we kept ourselves is one of the things that attracted them to us. My husband loves to tell about how classy I dressed being what stood out to him. And to this day he loves calling me the beautiful school teacher when I have on my fabulous glasses (they really are) and my hair is in a bun. But the key here is balance. So when I read the above scripture, I don’t see it as Peter telling you not to look nice and that you cannot do up your hair and etc. (as some have used to justify why they don’t like Christianity). What I see him saying is that this should not be your first priority. That we should work and focus on the beauty of our spirit which is unfading. When we focus on that, even when our outer beauty fades away, we will still have the beauty of being a virtuous women glowing from the inside. The love we share with one another. Putting others first and living Christ like. That is what is precious is in God’s sight.
Whether you’re in your career or you’re a college or high school student there’s one thing you
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