How do you define your own value? I am struggling with this. It seems here that my value as a woman in this world...even among the Christian men here.... is based primarily on my physical looks...but how does one determine if the are "pretty enough" or "thin enough" to hope that someone could love me again?
I look in the mirror and see nothing of value anymore to attract men in that reflection. Then I look in the faces of my patients and see the compassion, caring, and empathy that I feel and try to convey on to each one of them reflected back. The laughter as I can find gentle humor even in some horrific situations..."thanks for making me laugh" is the best compliment many can offer me as I perform a painful or embarrassing procedure.
If I want to find love again, do I really need to spend my time focusing on ever ounce of food that enters my mouth...and my spare time, in the gym. Would my conversation really be better if it included the calorie count of my entree and all my stories were related to things that happened at the gym?
Will no man recognize the person that lives within the shell of my 49 year old body? People tend to usually guess that I am younger than I am, but I am still not young. I don't want to be young again. I like the knowledge that comes with the age and the freedom that menopause will bring. Does a woman of intelligence and substance not matter anymore?
Are "mature" men really that shallow that they don't recognize the value that age brings?
My dear, dear friend,
My heart goes out to you and my pepper spray so wants a piece of the guys making you feel that way. (Do you have addresses. My pepper spray is willing to travel
)
Here'ts the thing. I am 54. I look about 40. That's where I fall on the Real Age/Biological Age test result. Some even say I look younger. (but they haven't seen me when I just get up in the morning!) I'm just about the "perfect" weight and quite fit. I have nice hair, big brown eyes, and most folks say I have a pretty face. I'm a godly girl. I love the Lord and that is apparent. I have a huge sense of humor. I'm smart. I'm employed.
I workout and watch what I eat because I love healthful food and working out, and I'm a CNC and feel I want to practice what I preach. But up until a short time ago I did those things because I thought I could make make men notice me and maybe someday before Jesus comes I could have a date and a reason to wear that super cute little black lace (which is lined of course, modest without being stoggy, and I'd wear it with tights) skirt my firend gave me three or four years ago. The results were futile. No dates, but a few guys in the online game (which I don't recommend
) responded. All the guys on line who could forgive me for my age (few and far between, how dare I be the age God made me, even if I look younger. Who do I think I am, anyway?) were only interested in my looks. Grotesquely so. One guy repeatedly asking gross questions like was I, no excuse me, was my body the athletic type or was "it" more "soft and feminine." Being reduced to an it is not much of a turn on, nor did I feel loved or like there was any potential for love in that anymore than there was from the guys who ignored me online or in real life. He was also very concerned about whether I liked to give massages.
While that particular guy was a grave dissapointment, I'm grateful for the experience, creepy as it was, because it was the final straw for me. The light came on. Charles Stanley says to "Do your best, look your best, and be your best," but he doesn't say to do so so I can get a man. As I see it he is essentially telling me to do those thing because they are part of who I am, but they aren't something I do for acceptance.
Somehow that whole media scam about "appearance can buy you love" broke off of me. I see it for what it is. A scam, a big one, and I believe from my experience that the majority of the men on this planet have fallen for it, sadly Christian men included. Nearly from birth the t.v. told them they had to have this and that in a woman. The t.v. won. But does that mean you and I lose. Well speaking personally, I am happy to lose those men. And I'm not just saying it. I find them no more appealing than guys who are disrespectful to their mothers and mean to their pets. I'm done, so done--so freeeeeee.
Does that mean oreos, soap operas and poor muscle tone. Noooooo. It means I am free to love my workouts and organic sweet potato custard, to develop my quads because I want good strong quads, to set a good, healthful example, to be healthy and feel good, feel strong, and free from the search, the heartache, the fear I might end up alone, to look in the mirror, smile at myself and say out loud, "silly men, they don't know what they're missing," and mean it.
In other words, I'm free to be me, appreciate the authentic me, with the assurance that if God wants me with a man, He can get guy's heart opens enough to Him that the guy realizes his own foolishness and stop worshiping the media. I am freed by the realization that there is nothing I can do to make someone love me, so I get to just be me, to live my life and enjoy it, realizing that that other thing was a lie from hell devised to keep my eyes off the truth. The truth is that I think still I would like to marry one day, but I now know that I know that I know I don't have to in order to have a happy full life. But until I stopped bowing to the lie and made it bow to me I couldn't see the truth or live it.
So dear daughter of God, here is the important thing regarding beauty: "Listen O daughter and hearken your ear....The King is enthrolled by your beauty." Ps 45:10,11. I know it sounds like a canned Christian line that all we need is Jesus' love. But it turns out to be true. And if jumping through all the hoops the media told me to jump through is what it took to learn the truth and live it, than it's true, God does cause all things, even media lies, to work together for good for those who love Him and are called. And maybe oneday you and I will meet a man that learned the truth and is living it. And for me personally, I have no interest in any other type. No matter how good I look (or don't), how great my quads, long my hair, nicely lined my eyes, if that's too important to a guy, I pass, and gladly.
The appearance scam is a lie, dear friend. It's great to be attracted to your future mate and him to you, but, no, don't workout so you can find him or to try to make someone love you. It won't be love you will find. It will be a weird dysfunction that you don't need. Workout to find the healthy you who can go jogging with her grand kids when she's eighty, who can work a 12-hour nursing shift and not hurt by the end of the day, and at the end of the day get on those knees and look back and thank God that He freed you from this lie.
Blessings and prayers,
a
That man is so funny. 
