Russell Media - Laurie

Culture is one of those things you often find on the debating block. Some love it. Others hate it. It’s thought by some to be an expression of beauty.  Others consider it a tool used by society to manipulate us into what they want.

I happen to be a lover of culture. Part of me believes when God made us, he put a little bit of his personality in each part of the world. Perhaps that is why Jesus prayed to the Father that we would be unified. When we come together with the mix of all of our differences, we can see the whole of God.

One of the things I love about culture is what it teaches us about God. When make the effort to look deep within a culture and allow ourselves to look beyond the distractions, we often see a principle, a piece of God that we should strive to imitate. This is the purity of culture.

However, externals of culture often steal our attention, externals we have created and/or added. We end up missing the intended beauty and lesson. It’s the same ol’ lesson; when we take our eyes off of God, we pervert stuff and mess it up.

An example of this is a wedding. God obviously enjoys celebrations. From the beginning he told Israel to worship him and continually gave them annual festivals to celebrate. He even carried it over into the New Testament. Jesus was at a wedding and when the threat of it coming to an abrupt halt due to a lack of wine, he saved the day by turning the water into wine.

So we see God celebrates the union of two of his children. He smiles as he watches the families and friends rejoice in it together. But it’s our “additions” to the celebrations that kill the true joy, i.e. the “party before the party” that causes one to enter his or her marriage burdened with guilt. These are things that give culture a bad name and prevent us from seeing God’s face in it.

Over the years I’ve live in Russia, Chile and Germany as a missionary and done some short-term trips as well. In each place God revealed a piece of his personality through the home culture. Each country left me with a life principle I strive to attain. My next few blogs I will highlight a culture and share a story to illustrate these principles.

So, in the mean time – what are your thoughts on culture? Are you a fan? Not a fan? Any thoughts or insight into that will guide me over these next few blogs?

Until then – have a great weekend!

I work from home most days. It’s really nice, especially since the lack of a commute saves me time and money. One morning I knew I wasn’t going to see anyone else until late afternoon. The kids were at school, Mark was at the office so I decided to save even more time and go with the “natural” look. I skipped my daily routine of putting on make-up. In a hurry to take advantage of my extra time, I jumped right into work.

About an hour after I started, the doorbell rang. I peeked out the window and saw it was our delivery guy in search of a signature. When I opened the door he looked at me and seemed thrown off a bit, “Oh, you’re home. I sure hope I didn’t wake you.”

Hmmm…why did he say that? I didn’t delay in answering the door. It was almost 10:00 a.m. on a weekday. Why would he think I’d still be in bed?

As I returned to my desk, I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I stopped. I knew. My face, which is normally covered with beauty products, was completely bare. My imperfections glared. My eyes seemed smaller, my nose looked bigger and my hair was definitely nappier. I looked more like a woman fresh out of bed rather than one fresh for the day.

The rest of the morning was spent with me obsessing over my lack of “natural” beauty.

I have a love/hate relationship with beauty. The old saying tells us that “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” but if this is true, why do I feel enslaved to it? Maybe it’s our present definition of it. Why do I feel the need for my body to be a certain size and my hair to not be a certain color? Why is it that I can I find beauty on the TV but not in the mirror? Something is wrong.

Perhaps part of the problem is our culture’s misconstrued definition of beauty. Dictionaries define beauty as something that that brings great pleasure to the senses or blesses the mind. I like this – it’s quite nice. According to this definition, beauty can be found basically anywhere. But if my skin is not a certain color or my jeans a particular size, I feel ugly.

I did an informal word search in a Bible program on the words “beauty” and “beautiful.” There I noticed two things. With the exception of the books of Esther and Song of Solomon, these two words were generally used to describe God or part of his creation and the other warned us of the dangers of depending on our own beauty or man-made beauty.

Again, this was an informal study but it appears that God knew that our obsession for beauty would take our eyes off of Him and what He has given us, and then place it on ourselves. We like beauty. We want it and will do what it takes to have it. In the process we lose sweet communion with God.

I personally don’t see harm in trying to improve my appearance but when it causes my focus to leave God and then fixate it on myself, I’m in insecure territory. I see all that I’m not. However, when my eyes are on God and all who He is, I see all that I am in Him. I see true beauty – one that blesses the mind and brings true pleasure. I’m filled with peace instead of anxiety. And to me, that sounds beautiful.

For now, I’ll continue to wear make-up most days but I’m won’t worry if others do a double take and wonder if I’ve been sick due to my small eyes. I may never see the natural color of my hair again. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I actually remember it. Either way, when the gray makes its way through I’ll see it as a reminder that God has given me some great years and memories…and hopefully some wisdom learned along the way.

How about you? Does our culture’s definition of beauty haunt you? Any insight on how you deal with it? How are raising your children to deal with it?