Last Sunday, our seven-year-old granddaughter, Sarah, and I were greeting people at our church. We were at the door that not many people use so we had time to chat. She was admiring my Ginger Snaps bracelet, which I don’t wear often, as we tried to read the fine print on the Snap.
The larger print read True Beauty… To Sarah’s astonishment, I pulled off the Snap to get a closer look. After I showed her how the Snap worked, we saw that the fine print read: comes from within.
“Do you know what that means, Sarah?”
She shook her head.
“It means that you can put on all kinds of make up and pretty clothes so that you look good on the outside, but if you’re mean and nasty to people, you’re not truly beautiful. True beauty comes from your heart.”
Sarah got a far-away look in her eyes, and she began to speak slowly. “So being kind…is…more… important…than… being beautiful.”
I was overjoyed. “Oh, Sarah, you remembered!” Seeing her puzzled expression, I added, “I used to ask you fairly often, Is it more important to be beautiful or to be kind?”
“I didn’t remember that you asked me that. I thought I just figured it out for myself.” Sarah looked thoughtful. “What did I say when you asked me?”
“You always gave me the right answer, but…” I smiled into her lovely blue eyes, “sometimes you had to think about it a long time.”
On the way home from church, I continued the conversation. “Do you know which character in a fairy tale didn’t believe it was more important to be kind than to be beautiful?“
Sarah looked puzzled, so I reminded her, “We watched the movie a couple of times.”
“Oh, I know, it was in Snow White!”
“Yes! And who said, Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?“
“The evil witch”
“She acted like a witch, didn’t she? But she was the evil queen. And she certainly thought it was more important to be beautiful than to be kind! Even if it meant killing the person who was more beautiful than her!”
I looked at my beautiful granddaughter with her long strawberry blonde hair that Papa had brushed for her this morning and her sparkling blue eyes…. and I remembered why I started asking Sarah that question. Complete strangers used to stop us in the store to tell us how beautiful our granddaughter was. Eventually, I began to worry that being told this so often might cause Sarah to become conceited and proud.
Later, I read that we should never praise a child’s looks more than we praise their character. That resonated with me and my concern about the effect it might have on Sarah to be told so often that she was beautiful. And that’s the day I decided to start asking her whether it more important to be beautiful or to be kind.
It didn’t really matter that Sarah didn’t remember I’d asked her that question. What mattered was that she remembered the answer!
Father, show us how to develop character rather than vanity in our children and grandchildren. Help us plant seeds that will result in a harvest of good character traits. Amen.
Health Update
In spite of my cardiologist having increased my blood pressure medicine substantially and having begun taking a nutritional supplement to support stable blood pressure, my readings continue to have a lot of ups and downs. We leave for New Mexico on July 1 to attend our granddaughter’s wedding. Please pray for wisdom for my cardiologist and for my blood pressure to stabilize. Thank you so much for your prayers!