Getting Older …but more beautiful?

25 Nov 2011 3 Comments

by rebecca7 in Uncategorized

This post has been in my brain for a few days. I have struggled with how to write it so that I express myself clearly. So,to be very clear….I am getting old.

The other day, I went to my hairstylist for a cut and color. His name is Marwan and he looks like he could be on the reality show for horse jockeys…but anyway, he was very kind as he pulled up his stool and said. “Madame, you should consider going lighter. All your new growth is white. It’s not even gray. I know you don’t like the idea of being blond but..if we try to stay your natural color, you will need to return every 6-8 weeks for a new application.” I blink…I blink again. I breath out and smile pretending that I am fine and reply, “My husband doesn’t like blond. How light are you talking?” He proceeds to say words like honey and wheat…and I pretend to listen but all I can think is….”It’s a normal day. You knew you had white hair…It’s a normal day”. We finally decided on a “dark wheat for the highlights” and the styling began.

After all was said and done I came home with noticeably lighter and shorter hair. To which my family responded very favorably…but that night I laid in bed and waited…waited for an empty house and a quiet moment to ponder my aging. The next morning with my husband gone and kids in school, I stood before a full length mirror in yoga shorts and a tank top. I walked closely and stared into the face of a now woman…I remembered her as a girl. Her first dance recital and the ice cream afterward, I remembered her first bike ride, memories she had long buried, her first date, first heartbreak, and I remember so much like it was yesterday. That girl was now this woman reflected back in the mirror. I proceeded looking down my body, turning this way and that. I am a fitness instructor so I am fairly fit but still my body has changed with the bearing of three children and weight loss and weight gain over the years. And I sighed…not because I was sad but because I know that in another 10 years, all this will change yet again…in fact, it was changing that very second.

As I went about the day, I pondered aging as a woman. I find my husbands aging to be very sexy. The white in his beard is sweet because it tells me that we are fullfilling our vows to grow old together. The laugh lines around his kind blue eyes still make my heartbeat fast. His broad deep chest can still cradel my entire body while sitting in his arms…but my aging…my aging is different. As a woman, the media tells me that I am not what I used to be. That I am somehow a little less. Yes, I can still be beautiful but…not like I used to be. So vainly I started a list, my children think I am beautiful. My husband thinks I am beautiful. My mother, my friends….and then suddenly on the street in Cairo, I stop. I blink. And I am convicted. Convicted that not once have I considered whose opinion matters most. Am I beautiful to God? Is my life, my heart beautiful..not to people….but to God. Because how can one be truly beautiful if God is not pleased with ones beauty?

Honestly, I don’t desire to be young again. I am not depressed about my changing body or hair..but rather I am pondering what am I doing with my life. Am I wiser? Am I blessing others? Am I not more than skin and hair? What will I leave that is ageless? What about my life really counts? Maybe not today or tomorrow but I will oneday be soft skinned, white haired, frailer, it’s inevitable. I will not try and stop that by dressing like I am 14 when I am 40. I will not try and ignore the gift of maturity by immersing myself into pop culture. But what WILL I do?

I don’t yet have the answer to that question but I can tell you what I want the outcome to be. I want to be more beautiful in 10 years. In 10 years, I want to know my Jesus more and I want to bask in the assurance that He is pleased with my life. NOt because I am trendy and young but because I have seen the suffering of His children and done something to ease it. I want to be more beautiful because I am broken for hearts that are lonely. I want to be more beautiful so when people look at my face, they will see the wrikles of a woman who lives in a thrid world country and hands that are a bit worn…but they see and feel the grace of God that has been granted to that face and those hands because my heart is being displayed by them.

I wear so many masks. Masks that lie…everyday…they lie. Masks that make me look peppy and relaxed, happy and content. Oh how I relate to King David when he wrote “Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” (Ps: 86:11) My heart is so divided. On one hand I desire to be beautiful in my flesh and the other to be beautiful only for God. With all that is changing in my body and time always taking, taking, taking, my youth…how am I to live with anything but purpose? Real purpose! Not some washed up, media pumped idea of chasing senselessly after youth and beauty!!

I am aging…meaning ultimatly that everyday, I am closer to meeting the Lord. I will answer for the life, body, and time given to me. And will I be found beautiful on the day I stand before my Lord? This question must drive me to action. This question must consume me…because if it doesn’t at the end of my life, I will have sold my soul for revitalift night cream and a rather expensive tube of lip gloss.