There have been a lot of chatter on what beauty is and what it isn’t…overtime the so called standards of beauty have changed.

Not so long ago, the idea of a beautiful woman was thought to be one with a lithe slender frame, long legs and little or no curves. So, women were under immense pressure to live up to this perception of beauty. Some even going to dangerous length(extreme diet plan, pills and even surgery) to achieve this. The world’s idea of beauty is designed to create dissatisfaction with self and how you look.

The fundamental problem with society’s standard of beauty is that it changes with time, hence an unreliable yardstick to measure beauty. 

Outward beauty is not all there is to life. When we spend our time and money chasing that and not tending to our souls our priorities have gotten out of line. As Christian women we must understand that our idea or notion of what beauty is, cannot be based on society’s standard. That will be akin to attempting to build on shifting sand.

There is something more lasting and substantial than outward beauty. God gave us a clearer picture of what that is when he selected David as king. Elias would have been anointed king in place of David as he ticked all the boxes per society’s standards, but God rebuked Samuel saying “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature because I haverejected him for God sees not as man sees for man looks at theoutward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (1 Sam 6:7)

This proves that God’s standard of beauty isn’t skin deep (Pun intended), it is the inner person-the heart, soul and character that counts as far as God is concerned. We are most beautiful when we radiate Gods glory, when we bear fruits of love, joy, peace,patience, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. This is beauty in the eyes of God and this is what we should strive for as Christian women.

This brings us to the title of this article, The Beauty for ashes exchange. 

God wants us to trade in our ashes, false perceptions of what beauty is for his true beauty. Ashes may signify rejection, low esteem, depression, worthlessness and God wants us to exchange all that for his beauty, not society’s warped version of it .We get the better end of the deal at the end of the day; we leave with his beauty and drop the ashes at his feet.

Because he is an all-powerful God, he’s able to use our ashes for his glory! He can set fire to the ashes to make it burn again and light up our lives!

Are you beautiful by God’s standard? Selah.

JESUS…, THE Way, THE Truth, THE Life….

Sarah Bassey