I'm So Vain.

Please, Lord, help me to not be filled with the vanity that is threatening to disrupt my life. Help me to not be consumed with how I look, not at all.

Psa_119:37  Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

Pro_30:8  Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me

Ecc_1:2  Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Pro_31:30  Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

Your word tells me all is vanity and yes, all is vanity because we are so caught up in ourselves. We are indoctrinated from a very young age to care about our appearance. We are called names by others who want us to know we don't meet the standards of acceptable appearance. We are told we have nice smiles in order to keep us from being called homely, plain, ugly. We grow up and this never changes. We just get to see the beauty in the younger ones around us as age takes its toll on our flesh- regardless of our attempts to use the touted products to slow down the wrinkling, crinkling, crepe-like, mole appearing, skin deteriorating flesh we possess. We console ourselves with words like- my genetic makeup predisposes me to aging badly- we're a family of early wrinkling. There is just so much that is TOTALLY out of our ability to control. I can't stop a single wrinkle from appearing, I can't stop a single mole from showing up. I can't keep arthritis from disfiguring my hands. I cannot take my flappy, loose flesh and make it taut.  I can't do any of that without becoming rich enough to afford a lot of plastic type surgery. VANITY!  I'm so vain! Satan wants me to want to hide away, to become bitter about my lot in the appearance pool of life. Satan would have this depress me, to turn my outlook on my life completely inward and let this keep me from walking in the path Christ wants me to walk.

Should I care if people whisper behind my back saying how old I look, how I look so much older than my years? How I look older than they are when in fact they are much older than me? Should I care if it is TRUE? Should I feel shame that I can't look better for my spouse? Should I feel apologetic for aging badly and now he has to be seen with the ugly old lady looking me? Should I care? Should I care if when he looks at me he sees his great grandmother looking back at him? Should I care?

If people are judging me in this way- or consoling themselves by saying they're not judging - just observing facts-  should I care? If people are making themselves feel better about their own aging and their own appearance by holding up mine as something to make them happier because they look better, should I care?!  Doesn't it just make me awful, because I in turn must be hoping I look better than they do, that I'm aging better than they are if it bothers me they are wanting the same thing?!

Why am I caught up in this nightmare? I care because Satan wants me to get caught up in the CARES OF THIS LIFE! Satan wants to trap me any way he can and he's trying so hard to rip me away from Christ. All stops are being pulled out - one plug after the other is coming undone because Satan knows how incredibly short his time is.

My SAVIOR is stronger than Satan! My Savior WILL save me and keep me from all these awful traps being thrown up all around me to trip me up! My Savior has told me that this LIFE is temporary, it is ETERNITY WITH HIM that is the most important thing ever! My Savior tells me to put my TREASURES in heaven!  I can't have my treasures here on earth or they are not in eternity with Him!  The treasure of my appearance must be the treasure of transformation when I'm finally with Christ, not the treasure of earthly beauty fading quickly away.  If I become the most physically ugliest of all here and now it shouldn't matter one bit! If I'm despised for the horrors of my aged, weight abused flesh it shouldn't matter not in the slightest! NONE of it should matter except living for CHRIST and eternity with HIM.

We are to count ALL things as loss but CHRIST. Meaning nothing but CHRIST and living for HIM, with HIM in us directing our way of life so we can reveal HIS love to others, should matter. What good would all the beauty in the world do me if I don't have Christ?! Just as riches are the root of all evil, people believing having riches would solve so many of life's problems, beauty is a close second- people thinking if only they were better in appearance then a lot of life's problems would be swept away- LIES.

LORD, please help me to live YOUR TRUTH, protect me from Satan's many evil traps! Help me to truly have my TREASURES in heaven. Help me to care first and foremost for YOU!

Php_3:8  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ

This includes my looks, my youth, any comeliness I may have ever possessed at all. Help me count it all but loss so I may live in the knowledge of YOU, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Help me to ONLY care about what YOU think of me and no other!

Let my beauty be YOU in me, and nothing else. Please, Lord, please.

Help me! Help my head know and live what my heart knows and desires to live- all for YOU. Help my heart and head, Lord as only You can do!  Thank you, Lord! Thank you!