Pretty Piggy

"Like a gold ring in the snout of a pig is a beautiful woman who lacks good sense." (Proverbs 11:22)

As a woman who bore a nose ring for a large portion of her adult years, all I can say is: "Oink". For many years, I didn't spare myself of any chance to try to decorate myself. I had a box of jewelry, a closet full of clothes I was never satisfied with, a five pound box filled with makeup choices, and a heart that dragged upon the ground and risked getting stepped upon by my own feet.

Why did I outwardly adorn myself if I felt so ugly inside? If only my true ugliness were as blatant as a sow's bristly hide and beady eyes. Perhaps then, I would have understood how ridiculous it was to try to play the beauty when I was not one. Perhaps, I wouldn't have wasted as much time in deception.

Like a pig, I ingested garbage and slop on a daily basis and tried to pass it off as good for me. Like a pig, I rolled in mud and filth. Like a pig, I was vicious and unpredictable around people. And like a pig, I was little more than a scavenger for what delight I could find.

Pigs, in Biblical times among the Israelites, were very taboo critters. Pigs are about the only livestock that Provision Farm has not housed at any point. Pigs are very dirty for many reasons. Did you know that pigs literally are so full of toxins that their bodies cannot process them all and they are equipped with a "pus canal" that runs down their hocks to drain bodily poisons? Did you also know that pigs can can eat vipers and rattlesnakes and not die? Pigs are not beautiful, and they're just plain gross on many levels.

We all, before Jesus changed us, were much like pigs. Any attempts we made to make ourselves acceptable and lovable in the eyes of God were ridiculous before we were transformed by Him. God saw our ugliness; He was not deceived. And one must wonder if all of our cries of "Lord! Lord!" sounded like little more than pitiful squeals in the courts of Heaven when we acted like pigs while trying to pass ourselves off as beautiful.

"For by a single offering he has brought to the goal for all time those who are being set apart for God and made holy...Now where there is forgiveness for these, an offering for sins is no longer needed. So, brothers, we have confidence to use the way into the Holiest Place opened by the blood of Jesus. He inaugurated it for us as a new and living way through the curtain, by means of his flesh. We also have a great priest over God's household. Therefore, let us approach the Holiest Place with a sincere heart, in the full assurance that comes from trusting--with our hearts sprinkled clean from a bad conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." (Hebrews 10:14&18-22)

So, Christ has made me new. I'm not unclean and I'm not a pig anymore. I'm acceptable and I can walk into His Throne Room trusting that He will lay His scepter to me in favor. Why then, should I worry about how I appear? Now that Christ has begun transforming me from the inside out, I am enough. There is nothing I can add to me to make me more beautiful than I am.

Lady, a better Sculptor far
Chiseled those curves you smudge and mar;
And God did more than lipstick can
To justify your mouth to man.

C.S. Lewis

This is no criticism to those who wear makeup, wear jewelry, or have nice clothes. This is a reminder to those who think that adornment will somehow make them more beautiful than they already are in Christ that they cannot achieve what they are after. If your spirit has not been redeemed, and if your mind has not been renewed, and if your heart has not been cleansed, and if your tongue is not submitted to God's holiness, then whatever you are doing to try to appear beautiful is ridiculous. If God has transformed you as He did for me, then know that whatever you decorate yourself with will not justify you; it will only accentuate the beauty that only He can make.