Hit your panic buttons, ladies, because swimsuit season is just around the corner. An article in Ladies Home Journal was titled, “How to Buy a Bathing Suit, Without Crying.” A study said that 52% of women find cleaning the cat’s litter box more enjoyable than shopping for a swimsuit. The idea of entering a store’s dressing room to squeeze their bodies into two dozen different floral printed spandex suits and view them from various angles under the unflattering glare of florescent lights is more torture and humiliation than most women can bear.
I had avoided buying a new swimsuit for years, so I decided to “take the bull by the horns” (so to speak). I marched into the nearest department store and purchased a skirted swimsuit (the kind senior citizens wear on cruise ships). The tag promised that my thighs would look thinner. My children were provoked to laughter because it seemed to remind them of the similarly clad dancing hippopotami on Disney’s “Fantasia.” Maybe it would have looked better without the accompanying daisy-topped flip-flop sandals. To add insult to injury, when I went swimming, the skirt floated up and looked like a lily pad.
I spent years modeling in an industry with beauty standards few could attain and even fewer could keep. During that time I weighed myself daily and agonized over every (real and imagined) blemish. Who wants to live like that? Certainly, I don’t. In the real world, eating “Häagen-Dazs” is not a crime.
So what if we’re not seven feet tall and seventy pounds like the girls in the fashion magazines. The average fashion model is a size four. The average REAL woman is a size 14 with curvy hips, a rounded stomach and an ample bosom. Real women are not on magazine covers. Real Women are at Wal-Mart.
Psalm 139:14 – “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”