Wives,
in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not
believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their
wives, when they see the purity and
reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment,
such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead,
it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet
spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy
women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.
They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and
called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not
give way to fear.
(I Peter 3:1-6)
"Oh
Lord, do we have to do another passage on wives submitting? I've already
said everything I can think to say..." Yes, another passage on
wives submitting, but not really. If you spend time on Facebook, you've
probably seen memes showing someone who is disabled or kids with Downs Syndrome,
with a request that you share or like in order to prove to them, or to someone
who has been unkind to them that they are beautiful.
Part
of me rages at the pimps who parade their hookers in hopes of the reward of
"likes" and "shares," and the "Johns" who do the
liking and sharing, exploiting these people further by reducing them to their
"beauty" while ignoring their many other attributes: their courage, strength,
determination, hard work, love, gentleness, friendliness, love of fun, sense of
humor, personal intelligence, personal integrity, etc. I also want to rage at
the girls who build their lives around looking "hot" and being
"sexy" because they have bought the same lie.
At
the same time, I understand the longing for attention, the feeling of
abandonment and rejection that we all face as it seems like everyone walks on
by. It's easy to look to others for our sense of value, and it's inevitable for
most of us that we will not receive it as consistently was we feel the need. I
don't think today's passage is a call for women to demean themselves, but a
call to stop demeaning themselves. It is a call to develop real beauty, beauty
that will last forever. In a way, it's a
call to stop being a parasite, seeking our "life" in the attention of
others.
Imagine
how you'd feel if you really believed that you were going to be cared for, that
someone loved you with a love that was not based on your performance (and "beauty"
is a performance.) How freeing. Imagine
how you'd feel if you believed that you were actually competent, that you had
value that was found in who you are, not how you look or what you pretend to
be, that you could survive and even thrive. Imagine being able to love someone
instead of needing them. Imagine not living in fear that "beauty"
engenders.
God isn't opposed to beauty. He made
LOTS of it, but one thing this passage suggests is that God has a different
idea about what beauty is. He's right, and as we come to see beauty as He does,
we discover the real beauty in ourselves.
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