One guy’s thoughts:
Today is my wife’s 52nd birthday and she is as beautiful to me now, after 3 kids and 28 years of marriage, as during the springtime of our college courtship. I love her dearly just the way God made her. I’m a very lucky man to have such a devoted wife, a great mother of our children, and a good example of a godly woman who, somehow, doesn’t have to seek after some of the pressing vanities of our world, but who does make herself quite nicely presentable in the morning, for the day. (I think she’s gorgeous!)
I also witnessed my dear grandmother, who lived to be 100, gracefully age through the years. She never really “let herself go” but taught us a reasonable form of “Loss Acceptance,” which lesson was as beautiful in and of itself as any sweet music or flower in bloom. We all loved her; and her great example of a life well-lived trumpets still. In contrast, I am often shocked and almost horrified when I see an older woman with undeniable evidence of plastic surgery. Even the poor woman (captioned, “in her 60’s”) on the Rachael Ray show today (I know, what’s a guy doing flipping to that channel?) was to me, unfortunately, a very obvious, and sad example of this. I have no right to judge; I’m just being honest here.
What happened to the notion of a woman, from any walk of life, who feels so secure by the love of her family that she is free to care more about her life’s example of “teaching and giving” than her quest for the illusive fountain of youth? Am I such an idealist to wonder?
Thanks for reading – Paul (a very lucky man)