Pretty Woman–God’s Perspective

On Thursday, January 26, I will be the guest speaker for Colorado Springs, CO, DreamMakers, a ministry for single women of ALL walks of life.  Whether you are widowed, never married, separated, divorced, young, young-at-heart or feeling REALLY OLD, if you’re a single woman, you are welcome to join us at Woodmen Valley Chapel’s Café area,  290 East Woodmen Road from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.   Here’s a sneak preview of my topic, “PRETTY WOMAN—God’s Perspective”.

Have you ever bumped into a girlfriend you haven’t seen in a long time and the first thing out of her mouth is, “YOU Look GREAT!”  Do you think to yourself…“Liar!”? 

Inside, you’re saying, “I’m overweight, my hair’s a mess, my tan has faded, I’ve got bags under my eyes, I bite my nails, I’m undisciplined, insecure, untalented, unworthy, and ugly.”  Then you hear these words spill out loud, “Thank you! You look Great too!!”? 

Why do we do that?  What in our spirit compels us to dig up all the junk we possibly can about ourselves and then accept it as gospel?  Why do we default to the negative voices in our head rather than cling to the truth of what God says about us?

In 1990 Julia Roberts starred in a movie called Pretty Woman.  You probably even saw this movie.  Roberts portrayed a beauty who made her way in the world by cashing in on her looks.  She lived as though she believed her only worth was in selling her body to the highest bidder.  Oddly though, an ache inside her told her there had to be something better out there.  I remember thinking how strange it was that her character would give herself from the neck down to just about anyone with cash in hand yet she had a hard & fast rule that she would not KISS any of her customers.  She so wanted to believe there was MORE for her than what she was getting paid for, and she held on to a tiny bastion of hope, allowing no one access to the sacred sanctuary of her lips.

What is it in my spirit that has caused me at times to live like this Pretty Woman?  No, I’m not a prostitute.  At least not in the literal sense defined by the law.  But you can bet there have been times in my life where I’ve compartmentalized my value and marketed myself for less than God says I’m worth.   I behaved as if I scarcely deserved 50 cents worth of Christ’s Love but not the full price of His Sacrifice.  Like the Pretty Woman I held certain small things sacred but would rummage through refuse in most other areas of life.  I didn’t value myself the way my Jesus does.

I see this so often in single women and it breaks my heart.  We might start out feeling like we are beautiful but somewhere along the road we lose touch with our true beauty.  Once like a stunning evening gown in Nordstrom, we hung in there for a while.  But the clock ticked off too many days, weeks, months and we were relegated to the sale rack.  Sadly, we did it to ourselves by taking a virtual red marker to our soul’s price tag. 

First, it was just a little…10% off.  We’re still feeling like we are worth a lot but we’re hoping this small mark down gets us noticed.   When it doesn’t, we pick up the pen again…20% off.  Surely now someone will snatch us up…for a date, a promotion, a relationship, a party invitation, a leadership role.  We’re looking for validation from someone, anyone.  And when we still don’t get what we think we need, we tell ourselves it’s because we don’t deserve good things.  Again we pick up the pen… 50% off.  The danger?  We keep discounting our worth until we end up in some bargain basement sale for 90% off.  Or donating ourselves to some guy named Good Will.  Trouble is, Good Will often has Bad Intentions.  What Happened?

In this presentation, we’re going to take a look at things single women use to define ourselves…the tools & traps this world offers us to trade not just our confidence but our true value for.  You may recognize several of these “tools” as ones you have applied to yourself.  You may even have others I don’t mention.  Our goal is to have some fun, maybe even laugh at ourselves, and to also thoughtfully consider who we think we are and who we REALLY are from the perspective of the Grand Designer of the ultimate Pretty Woman.