You beauty
Whenever I see ads about skincare products, I start worrying about whether I'm moisturizing enough and whether, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, I'll break out into an epidemic of wrinkles.
One helpful antidote to such irrational thoughts is thinking about Sarah, Abraham's wife. In her retirement years, she and Abraham did the overland tour, coming all the way over from Ur of the Chaldeans down south into the dry lonely country of the Promised Land. She was in her mid-sixties when she first set foot on Egyptian soil, and she was so good-looking that Pharaoh himself sought her out to take her as his wife (Genesis 12). But just in case you're thinking that Pharaoh and his court really needed to get their glasses checked (or at least invent some for the sake of their eyes), at the age of 90, Sarah was still such a stunner that King Abimelech of Gerar fell head over heels and took her into his household. Does a woman's stock plummet as she gets older? In Sarah's case, definitely not!
Well, perhaps ancient near-eastern people age differently than we do now. I doubt it; Paul said that Abraham was “as good as dead” at a hundred (Rom 4:19) and, despite the 10-year difference in their ages, Sarah was probably much the same. Maybe they were fine specimens of humanity who didn't need plastic surgery. I doubt it; I think that our standards of beauty have changed so much, it's hard for us to think of a 65-year-old women in the same terms as Naomi Campbell. But what is considered beautiful is also relative to culture and race; if Sarah entered a Miss Universe contest today, she'd probably be laughed off the stage.
This makes me wonder if there is a universal standard of beauty—one not bound to culture, time, race or even religion. Unsurprisingly, the answer is found in the Lord who “[makes]everything beautiful in its time” (Eccl 3:11). The true standard of beauty must come from the beauty of God, whom David longs to gaze upon all the days of his life (Psalm 27:4). This might seem odd, given that God in the flesh wasn't a particularly attractive person (“he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” [Isa 53:2]) but I think Peter's instructions to wives might help us out here:
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. (1 Pet 3:3-4)
In other words, what will make you beautiful does not come from what's on the outside but rather what's on the inside—a gentle and quiet spirit. And in case we miss the point of what a “gentle and quiet spirit” is, Peter goes on to say, “For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord” (1 Pet 3:5-6). Having a “gentle and quiet spirit” means being submissive, and in the context of 1 Peter 2, submissive means putting yourself under the authority of those who have the right of authority over you—governments, masters, husbands and, of course, God, as the unalluring Christ did when he submitted himself to his executors (see 1 Peter 2:21-24 for Peter's take on Isa 53).
Sarah may have been a babe but she wasn't beautiful in God's sight because she was physically attractive. She was one of the holy women who “hoped in God” (cf. Heb 11:11). She adorned herself, not with the gold of Egypt or the silver of Gerar, but with the glory of submission and obedience. We may not all look like supermodels and we may not be able to stop our skin from sagging and wrinkling, but, whether we're 16 or 65, striving to sustain a spirit of submission should make us look hot, moisturizer or no.