I recently came across a very interesting article by Jasmine Baucham, authoress of Joyfully at Home. It perked my interest extremely. It was not a fortuitous circumstance that I happened upon the article--no, I was meant to read it, for a very special purpose.
But, before I give you the link, listen for just a moment. Girls, we all know that there is no such thing as perfect beauty, remember? (Hey, I just came up with a title for another post!) The media distorts true beauty (watch this to believe) and makes girls out to be beauties with perfect naturalness. Whatever. Throw that out of your mind. We all have flaws; there is no denial.
Now that we girls should know the truth (if you are still having trouble, I can recommend other great articles to read), let's take a different step.
I love how well Jasmine writes her articles. She says this about young women:
"For so many of us young women, our ideal man might look like [insert wildly attractive movie star's name here] on the outside, but, on the inside, his identity comes from making us happy. He is fine-tuned to meet all of our desires -he caters to our every romantic whim. He never disappoints us. He never aggravates us. He never falls short of our expectations, even though they hover somewhere in the stratosphere."
Does that stun you? It hit me like a lightning bolt. My mouth gaped open, my eyes grew wide, and I was left dumbfounded. Do I really do that? I wondered. Yes, ye I do! Shocking. Here I don't want my future husband expecting me to look like a movie star (slim, trim, and dazzlingly beautiful), but I will actually compare him to the perfect Prince Charming, or any other famous movie stars (you know, the one with the cute dimples, the tanned skin, the flashy smile, and the deep, dark eyes?)! How presumptuous is that?! We girls are hurt when any men place such high expectations upon us, but we'll go as far to expect perfectness from the man we marry! How preposterous!
We are all guilty, men and women. You may do so consciously or subconsciously. Men automatically expect women to look like the actresses and models they see on TV, and vice versa. We are all expecting lies. Perfection is not real. True, movie stars may seem different and unusual, but they are still flawed human beings.
What are your expectations for your future spouse? Are they supposed to be a certain height and weight? Are they supposed to have even, white teeth; full lips; certain eye and hair color; flawless skin; perfectly shaped nose? (insert any physical attributes.) You'll be searching your whole life without success!
What is wrong with the people of our society? Why is truth so distorted? Walking through town we can see the diversity of man and woman: short ones, tall ones, skinny ones, large ones, black ones, white ones, and all the ones in between. Why then do we automatically dismiss those images from our minds and presume that our future spouse has to be special?
Dear men, young men, and boys who read my posts, I just wanted to apologize for my fellow womankind and myself. We expect y'all to display perfect behavior and gallantry, not to mention perfect physical attractions. We girls have messed up, but an important reminder: we all are flawed. Y'all must be patient, just as we must be. No one is a real Prince Charming, or even Mr. Knightly or Mr. Darcy. Although fictional characters like they had flaws, we girls still measure men to meet such standards, because they seem to be such perfect examples of manhood. We should all know that no one is perfect except our Savior, and we as humans can never be.
Jasmine Baucham is a highly perceptive and zealous young woman. I relate to so much of her writing, although my tastes are quite different from hers. (*smile*) If I had not read her articles, I might have continued on in my ignorance (of which I have a lot.) I thank God for her influence in many aresa. Now that you have listed to my incompetency, please read her article. She expressed herself much better than I.
She is also going through a series on her blog called Joyfully Content. You can read the introduction here, the first post here, and the second post here. The series continues on Monday. Please read with an open heart. I know I've given y'all much to read, but it will be worth it, I promise.
You don't want to believe a lie, do you?
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