There's More To Life Than Beauty

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. - Proverbs 31:30

Before I got married, I often thought about the kind of wife I wanted to be. I thought about what I wanted my life to look like once I had a husband and kids and dogs and a house - a whole family of my own. And I still think about those things now. I now have a husband. I have a dog. I have a house. (No kids yet, but hopefully that’s something we’ll get to experience down the road.) And it’s fun to think about these things and get excited about what’s in store for my current and future seasons.

And then I get on Instagram…

I see picture after picture of these seemingly perfect-looking wives and moms. I see them always looking so put together. I see their houses perfectly decorated and their dinners deliciously displayed. Not to mention their hair and makeup is done every day. And all of a sudden, as I’m scrolling through it all, the pressure starts to hit.

I ask myself, “Is this the standard? Is this the mark I have to hit?”

But as I was reading my Bible this morning, the Holy Spirit gave me a gentle reminder.

“Kristen, that may be the world’s standard for a wife and a mom, but that’s not my standard.”

I spent some time reading Proverbs 31 this morning, and just from this one chapter alone, I could see that He was right (duh). There are 21 verses about a noble wife in this chapter of Scripture, and the only mention of beauty in the entire passage is a verse giving a warning that beauty is fleeting.

That’s right. The one thing that our culture puts so much emphasis on, the one thing we as women seem to worry about more than anything, that’s the one thing that the Lord isn’t worried about when it comes to His standard for being a godly wife and mom.

Instead, He’s more concerned with us being hard workers, of taking care of our families, of our children and husband respecting and praising us, of us being wise and strong, and, more than anything, He’s concerned with us trusting Him with it all.

Trust me friend, I know the comparison trap is real. I know it’s a struggle to always think you’re not doing enough or that you’ll never be enough. I know it seems like there’s an impossible standard to live up to. But if we want to be strong women of God, if we want to be the kind of wife and mom that He describes in Proverbs 31, we have to remember that what the Lord values is not what the world values.

We have to remember that we’re aiming to please God, not impress our social media following. And we have to remember that when we focus more on what God is calling us to do rather than how we look along the way, we will be the kind of women today’s key verse describes: “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”