The Ugly Meter...

If you know me than you know that I’m an Apple guru. I may have even been the one to convert you….helped you see the light. There’s been many that have been stuck in darkness that I’ve led to see the light and those Apple users have never turned back. Once you go Mac you never go back; it really is that simple.

I’m straying from my point, sorry.

Today I was surfing the app store on my iPhone. I’m not an app queen, of course I enjoy using them but I’m not on top of the latest and hottest apps but I decided to look around today. I found some gems – the “Timmy Time” app, the “Starbucks” app, “The Gas Buddy” app (shows me where the cheapest gas is) and the “find my iPhone” app but there was another app I came across that I chose not to download for some reason.  It’s the “Ugly Meter” app and here’s the description:

“Do you ever wonder if you’re ugly and your friends just don’t tell you?
Do you have an ugly friend, and you just don’t know how to tell them?
The Ugly Meter takes your photo and scans the details of your face to give you a rating of 1-10 on the Ugly Scale. If you rate a 10, you probably have a face that only a mother could love. Depending on how bad your rating is, the Ugly Meter will comment on your looks! Who’s the hottest? Now you can find out”.

And we wonder why we have a society filled with people who hate themselves? 

We wonder why we have kids growing up with self-esteem issues? 

We wonder why we have so many relationships failing when they’re built purely on outer beauty that fades?

In case you’re not quite convinced that you’re beautiful, why don’t you allow an app to give you a good dose of truth?

I’m so glad someone out there has created yet another app that proves just how shallow and degrading our society is. Instead of looking to the creator of the universe who constructed our innermost parts, who knows how many hairs are on our heads and whose thoughts about us outnumber the grains of sand, instead of looking to Him we can now look to an app to give us an accurate measure of our worth!

It’s disgusting really.

It’s disgusting because we have taken a word that was not meant to be purely physical and made it just that. “Beautiful” has become an analysis of our face and of our body, when what it should look at is our hearts and our minds.

I care for a lady who is severely disabled. I know that when someone who doesn’t know her sees her, they wouldn’t call her beautiful. But I know this woman’s heart, I know her quirks, I know the sound of her laugh and the touch of her gentle hand on mind.

I know her and because I know her I know that she is one of the most beautiful people I have ever met. She was knit together by the master, He sees her and He knows her heart and He calls her beautiful.

And He does that for me too.

I had coffee with a friend this morning and in a rare occasion I opened up about my own insecurities. I told her that I don’t usually feel beautiful and that most of the time I feel that no one could possibly ever love me. It’s easy for me to tell someone else they are beautiful and to share with them all the reasons why I think so but when it comes to myself I just can’t believe it is true.

And maybe it has something to do with the idea of the Ugly Meter, maybe I have a very distorted idea of what beauty is really all about and maybe I’m not the only one?

Perhaps the lies rooted in the Ugly Meter have seeped into our culture so much that they’ve also seeped into our hearts and we don’t even realize it.  

Beauty is more than what we’ve made it.

It’s not skin deep and it’s not a rating on a stupid app.

And I think that might be the message that some of us need to hear right now, in this moment. 

We need to breathe it in, let those word go right to our very souls.

I need to do that.

I think we all have this longing to be known and understood and to be accepted even with all of our flaws and our faults. I’m not quite sure we will ever meet anyone who can love us and fulfill the desire of our hearts the way we hope for. I think only Jesus can meet that need. I think He’s the only one who can come into the deepest places of our soul and wash away the lies we’ve come to believe.

And when we let Him in, I think He will speak these words over us…

“I made you and I know all about you. You don’t have to try to hide. Who you are is enough. You are worthy of love and you are loved. I see you and I call you beautiful”.

So the question becomes:

When the creator of the universe notices me and when He calls me beautiful,

why in the world would I need to buy an app to do that?

Yours truly,

~The Kindred Spirit