The Oregon Women's Report - Women's News from Oregon

January 14, 2013

Amee Foster
Certified Family Life Educator, Oregon
This Great Adventure Blog

Like most women in this world, I have a love-hate relationship with my body.  There are some parts I love, and others, not so much.  I try not to complain too much about those parts making me less than happy as I figure it’s nothing a “pick-a-body-parts of steel” video cannot correct.  As for the parts I love…my eyes, my hair, and the one’s that sometimes make it difficult to try on button up shirts…hair gives me the most trouble.  One could say I have a love-hate relationship with hair.  The luscious locks on my head, love them.  The wild goat hairs, hate them.  Some of you are saying “what are wild goat hairs?”  Bless your hearts.  Some of you are saying “you get them too?  I’m not the only one?”  Also referred to as stray eyebrows, these can show up anywhere…chin, neck, shoulders, chest.  Acceptable if you’re a guy, not so much if you are a chick.  So we find ourselves in front of the bathroom mirror, plucking out every one.  And never talking about it.  Years ago I asked my doctor if this was normal, terrified that I had some strange issue…or was turning into a baboon.  She laughed and assured me it was perfectly normal, then said “and it gets worse as a woman gets older”.  Thank you for that.

Over the centuries, the definition of beauty has changed.

Grecian women were soft, beauty marks were just moles, Snow White was the fairest in the land (did that girl ever see the sun?).  And I have read Song of Songs.  Her lover said nothing about stray eyebrows.

But is having a hairless neck really what makes us beautiful?  My Great-great-aunt lived to 99, and like many her age, the eyesight just wasn’t what it used to be.  After complaining she couldn’t see to pluck out her chin hairs (sorry dears, it’s hereditary), she would laugh and say “I must be so ugly”.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  What made this woman beautiful came from within; her kindness, her laughter, her wisdom.   Another wise woman (my mom) shared these words with me. “At 50, I looked back at picture of myself at 30 and thought ‘what was I complaining about?  I was beautiful.’  I don’t want to be 70, looking back at 50 saying the same words.”  I think of these words when I start whining about my perceived flaws, complaining is such a waste of my time!

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, who’s eyes are we looking through?  Who’s view of us really counts?  Psalm 139, verses 13 and 14 say ”For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  His works are wonderful, and He made me.  Hmm…maybe these wild goat hairs aren’t so ba-a-a-a-ad after all.

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