Beautiful people do beautiful things

A story is told about a young bachelor who had a parrot.  When the young man got married, the parrot got very jealous.  Every time the young bride would come into the room where the parrot was, the parrot would say, "Man, you are  ugly!" This upset the woman to no end.  She complained to her husband, and he told the parrot to stop.  But still it went on; the woman came into the room again, and again the bird ridiculed her: "Man, you're so ugly!"  The woman burst into tears, and ran to her husband.  The man was furious.  He stomped into the room and picked up the parrot.  "If you don't stop insulting my wife, I will wring your neck and feed  you to the cat!  Do you understand me? Now stop it."  The next time the woman came into the room, the parrot looked at her smugly, and said, "You know."

The story is amusing because we all know that even though the parrot didn't say the words, the woman heard the message loud and clear: I'm unattractive; I'm fat; I'm too far away from the ideal body shape or skin tone or hair color.  Nobody will love me like this.  Even though the woman was newly married, she probably put more stock in what the bird said that what her husband actually saw.

Isn't that just like us? We tend to listen to messages that reinforce our negative self-image.  And we get caught up in secondary things, things that don't really matter.  You may think, "I have the ugliest feet God ever made."  But Isaiah 52.7 says "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news on the mountain."  See, the important thing is what you do with them, not what they look like.  Proverbs 31.30-31 says, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."

Looks are deceptive; you can't tell a beautiful person by what she looks like.  You tell a beautiful person by what she does.  Ephesians 2.10 says, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do."  God created you to do beautiful things.  Your inner beauty is in the heart, not the face; it is in the soul, not the body.

A little constructive criticism is good, if it motivates you to improve.  I am tired of my clothes feeling tight, so I have vowed to lose some weight.  That's okay.  But a lot of destructive self criticism serves no good purpose.  If I say to myself, "I'm fat and lazy" without doing anything about it, then it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And it starts me thinking about me, instead of about God and His plan for me.