Strength and Beauty

My husband's mother sent us an online gift card for Wal-Mart. We really did not buy much for the children for Christmas, so this was a nice opportunity to purchase a couple more things for them. As I was browsing the online toys- first the ones in the girl category and then the ones in the boy category- I noticed something interesting: the "dolls". Actually, for boys they are not even called dolls, they are called "Action Figures". And that is part of what I noticed. All the "action figures" for boys were just that, dolls meant to be played with actively. They included guns or swords and were basically made for fighting. The dolls for girls were nothing of the sort! No, these dolls were primarily about fashion and beauty...clothes to change, long hair to brush, etc. Here is the doll I chose for Sarah and the "action figure" I chose for Peter:





Seeing this reminded me of the following comparison taken from the book Captivating:

"Stasi and I just spent a weekend together in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which boasts the third largest gathering of art galleries in the world...Toward the afternoon of our second day, Stasi asked me, "Have you seen one painting of a naked man?" The point was startling. After days of looking at maybe a thousand pieces of art, we had not seen one painting devoted to the beauty of the naked masculine form...However, the beauty of Woman was celebrated everywhere, hundreds of times over in paintings and sculptures. There is a reason for this.



For one thing, men look ridiculous lying on a bed buck naked, half-covered with a sheet. It doesn't fit the essence of masculinity. Something in you wants to say, "Get up already and get a job...Get to work." For Adam is captured best in motion, doing something. His essence is strength in action...On the other hand...Eve just does not look right...chopping a tree down...Eve speaks something differently to the world than Adam does. Through her beauty."


Women bear the image of God, as do men, but they bear His image as a woman. We reveal things to the world about God, such as the fact that He is a relational God Whose primary importance is relationship and that He is a God Who has a heart for romance. He is a God that, like a woman, yearns for us to seek Him and pursue Him, to desire Him and delight in Him. But most of all, women reveal to the world the mystery of God, and the beauty of God.