"Do you think honestly if you were really handsome or strikingly beautiful that would make you happy?" asked Evangelist Greg Laurie in Los Angeles recently.
Laurie cited actress Halle Berry as an example. She is regarded as one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, yet she struggled to find a meaningful and lasting relationship. She made this statement in an interview: "Beauty?"
Halle Berry said: "Let me tell you something, being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory." (au.christiantoday.com)
Reverend Dr Rowland Croucher of John Mark Ministries, the Pastor's Pastor has spoken on this subject for many years and has made similar observations about beautiful women as portrayed by popular media. It is often difficult for them to work out who is a genuine friend, and whether they are being marketed for their appearance, or as some sort of 'prize' for men.
Dr Croucher has also observed that: 'Around the world beauty is relative to the culture you live in. If you went to sub-Saharan Africa, for example, a women with big thighs or a big bottom is regarded as very beautiful'. (At one seminar, the largest woman in the group put up her hand and said 'I'm going to Africa!')
Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson says that there are also issues that arise within families where one child is seen as beautiful or handsome or clever or an expert sports person, and the others feel as though they are in the shade.
He counsels that we should all look to the Bible, which in various places urges us to know what our 'talents' are and to make sure we increase them (eg Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-28); and moreover we should help our children see their own talents and their own personal beauty and be proud of those things and seek to be confident with their own abilities and to find friends and partners who appreciate them for what they are, and not what they appear to be on the outside.
Sometimes, outwardly appearances such as strikingly beautiful / handsome face and figure; or exceptional abilities, can be both a blessing or a curse, because they hide the true personality and worth of the individual underneath.
Rowland Croucher says that Father Richard Rohr, a respected religious leader, is heard to say that he prays for one serious humiliation every day... It saves him believing the stereotype the prevailing culture puts on 'Religious Leaders.'
Mark Tronson thinks that a similar exercise in 'groundedness' could be practised by people who are thought to be more gifted, beautiful, athletic, or otherwise 'superior' whatever than others.
We can help those around us to appreciate their worth, to saying how clever or beautiful we find our own loved ones, but also to put their talents in perspective in the rest of society, in helping them realise that every human being also has his or her own worth. This is certainly a theological truth where Jesus died on the Cross for each one. Such is our true worth.