Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Beautiful (11/07/05)
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TITLE: Personal Perspective | Previous Challenge Entry
By Gary D Moore
11/13/05 -
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Friends who ride motorcycles may not refer to their rides as objects of beauty. However, they treat them with high regard and pamper them beyond being practical. The style, make, and model of a motorcycle are a person's choice as is the distinct appearance that the motorcycle develops. Adding sundry accessories personalizes a production run motorcycle. The motorcycle sometimes becomes an alter ego of the rider. (An unwritten rule among motorcycle riders…do not bash a person's ride!) However, calling a person's iron horse a thing of beauty is, of course, optional. That metal and plastic contraption becomes beautiful in its own unique, and perhaps, vain way.
"Am I beautiful?" a petite girl asked her mother in the grocery line. The young mother smiled kindly and replied, "To your father and me, you are very beautiful." The young girl kissed her mother's cheek, and then cuddled against her neck. My heart broke.
Three women fawned and complimented the young child of the woman at the head of the line. They did not say anything to the young woman in front of me about her child. The young girl who cuddled her mother had a scaled, web of skin around her eyes…a birth defect. The outward appearance of this frail and tiny girl may also cause her problems in school. (Children are often so cruel.) To me, the inner beauty and gentleness of this delicate young child and that young mother gives the adjective, beautiful, its best definition.
The Bible speaks of beauty. Rachel is beautiful in form and face in three popular version of the Bible (Gen 29:17). Moses is a beautiful child (Exo 2:2) in the New American Standard Version. Solomon describes aspects of beauty in Songs. No doubt, Esther was a beautiful woman, but her qualities went beyond the definition of beauty in her era and culture. The often referenced, Proverbs 31 woman is ascribed with many attributes, but being beautiful in appearance in not one of them. In fact, it clearly states that beauty is vain (NASB and KJV Pro 31:30), or fleeting (NIV).
The song, Beautiful by Gordon Lightfoot, sums up this personal perspective best, "I must say…It means so much to me…to be the one…that's telling you,…I'm telling you…that you're beautiful." A husband should say that to his wife, and mean it…in some way…everyday.
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The change in tenses threw me off for a second, but overal, very well-done, and I liked the added Scriptures to back up your point.