True Beauty

I have mixed feelings about facebook. It's nice to see what everyone is up to, to see how things are going in the lives of people you care about but don't directly keep in touch with. Unfortunately, it almost encourages laziness when it comes to keeping in decent touch by serving as a middleman of sorts, not requiring much specific attentions or questions or even just attempts at meaningful conversation with old friends and distant (or not so distant) family. Not always of course, but for the most part. While there are undoubtedly many benefits to have a facebook profile (which is why I still have mine), sometimes the negativity gets to me. There is the obviously upset person who rants and raves all over the news feed, there are people who are sad and depressed using facebook as an outlet, and then there are people who post things like this:

I understand that society is sickeningly obsessed with being thin, which is wrong. But what about people like me who are naturally skinny, don't try to "kill" ourselves to be that way, but simply are. In fact, what about people like me who grew up being teased about how skinny they are, being surrounded by girlfriends who have curves and celebrated them with each other while teasing me for being too skinny and having no curves. What about the girl who went to a friend's house for a sleepover and was asked by her friend's brother whether or not she was anorexic (which I definitely have never been). I was insecure about my skinniness for a very long time. I have embraced the way I am now and am grateful that I can maintain a healthy body weight without "killing myself", but when I read things like in the picture above, I'm ouraged by its attempts to make skinny women feel bad about themselves. "Real men go for curves, only dogs go for bones." Regardless of the circumstances of one's skinniness, this seems to imply that the men of all skinny women are not real men but instead dogs... either that, or that a skinny woman who does in fact have a "real man" should not feel like she is beautiful to him.

I understand the underlying message-- there are many curvy and/or heavy women out there who have been terribly hurt by the western world's skinny obsession. I will NEVER, however, think that it is good to tip the scale so far to the other side. Why go from one extreme to the other? Let's try to stay on the horse here. Besides, shouldn't we as women be embracing and encouraging each other?

To all the heavy women who approve the above quote, you are doing the exact same thing to people as they have done to you, which is campaigning that one body type is better than another. Would you feel satisfied if you bestowed the same kind of hurt you felt upon a woman who is naturally thin? Do I, because I am thin, deserve to be told in so many words that I am not beautiful the way the God made me and that the man who loves me is not a real man? (And I'll have you know that he IS a God-fearing, respectable loving gentleman who loves me better than anyone on this earth has and ever will...)

So these are my thoughts today. I will conclude by saying that thin does not equal beauty, nor do curves or heaviness equal ugliness. True beauty will emenate from the woman who holds it deep within her heart, who has allowed her heart to be touched by love and show that to the world through her goodness.  THAT, my friends, is true beauty. Cling to that.

Lindsay