It’s all in the eyes

          One night my cousins and I got together we began arduously searching through all their movies and none seemed to satisfy our current mood (mind you it was five girls trying to figure out what to watch, THAT is always a mission jeje!). We found nothing that caught our attention, so we began to flip through the channels, one show after another and yet we seemed to find nothing. Boy was it getting interesting… After quite the search we stumbled upon a show called “The Price of Beauty by Jessica Simpson”… hmmm now that sounded interesting! We watched as Jessica visited France and submerged herself in French culture trying to discover what beauty meant to French women. The episode ended and then came the Philippines. We watched intrigued at what beauty meant for each country and how drastically different each countries beauty standards were. (Might I add, we all loved the show; it was interesting and exploratory) So we all began to watch the season, we all wanted to know what beauty meant to each country, there was; Uganda, USA, Japan, France, Brazil, Philippines and Morocco. All were intriguing BUT Morocco’s definition of beauty was one of my favourites because it had so much meaning! Beauty for Moroccan women (& men I guess) was all in the eyes, they said they covered up and what you saw was their eyes.

Hmmm… I thought how so, why just the eyes? Then I remembered a quote “the eyes are the window to our soul”. Eyes have a huge significance! I once was told by a guy friend, you’re smiling but your eyes aren’t. I thought that was the most intriguing thing (of course until after, at the moment I wasn’t too pleased); you see your eyes reflect what you are or are feeling deep inside, there is something about the eyes, if you’re sad they show it, if you’re happy they do also. I once watched “America’s Top Model” and one thing I heard the camera people repeated over and over again was smile with your eyes. It’s all about the eyes… interesting*… Oh yes, & I sort of paid much attention to one thing… I noticed (on public transit) that when a guy wanted a girl to notice him; his mission was to get her to look at him, to catch her eye. If she was not interested she simply did not look at him, she looked at everything else but him (it was a few that I saw loll… use your life for good n’est pas?). If he did catch her eye then he’d conquered part of his mission.

There is a story in the bible about two sisters named; Rachel and Leah. The bible goes on to describe that Rachel was beautiful BUT it stops at Leah and all it mentions is her eyes, Leah’s eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance. Genesis 29:17. There was something in Leah’s eyes that Rachel did not have.

The perception of beauty in North America is far off & very different to that in Morocco. While in Morocco it’s about covering up and letting your eyes do the talking, in N.A .it’s all about being exposed and letting all eyes be on you. Now I am not saying you have to cover up. However there is one saying I hear often “why is he looking at me like that, why can’t he look at my eyes or into my eyes”. Women want to fall with a man who gazes into her eyes and will tell her he loves her… but is it possible when your bringing so much attention to other areas?.. The question here is what are you emphasizing?

That’s where modesty kicks in! I was once talking to a group of my close female cousins and friends about how our faces really count, because young men when they meet us will go by whom we are and how pretty our face is jejeje! They look at our faces and not all else because we are dressing modestly, making the focal point our faces… our eyes… You see modesty promotes you being looked at exactly for whom you are; personality and character. Not at what you have to offer. The young man who will love you will fall in love with the ~WHO~ you really are as a person and with those eyes, as Jacob did end up falling in love with Leah and spent eternity with her! (from the book Cheated- DO READ!!)

The last story I’d like to tell you… so you may see how important modesty is; about one of my young aunts. She mentioned she had been discussing modesty with some female colleagues at work but she said she wanted to investigate further; she wanted to know what the men thought about modesty, so she went to ask one of her friends at the office. When she asked him he mentioned to her these words “you think you’re not attractive the way you dress, you are, men wonder what you look like, good gifts come well wrapped”. I mean his words aren’t the easiest to soak in, a bit blunt much!!!! BUT they have a great truth! Modesty is beautiful, not ugly! It makes you stand out in a crowd and shine with great difference. As he said, which is true... GOOD gifts come well wrapped!! Something worth keeping is beautifully kept and packaged!

In essence… Beauty is in the EYE of the beholder, beauty is not about what your showing and what you have to offer, it’s about YOU, who you are inside. With age we all change and the beauty of youth leaves us, but who we are inside & those eyes you have stay with you forever. In youth Modesty makes you shine in a different light and makes you stand out in a greater way, not just for men alone but for our God, who loves us even more!!