I sit across from her, this friend who admits she had a nose-job many years ago.  Her hair is dark, straight, short and spiked.  Her features are strong.  She doesn’t feel pretty, even after her nose-job.

Our male waiter comes to our table and looks at me.  Me only.  Asks what we’d like to drink.  Tells us he’ll be back right away.

After our drinks arrive, he takes our dinner order.  My friend addresses him, making eye contact, and says . . .

“I noticed you haven’t looked at me once since you’ve served us.  You keep looking at HER.  Am I invisible or what?”

He stands there stunned.  I sit there stunned.  Neither he nor I know what to say.  So he says . . .

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t realize . . .”

But she’s not done.

“Yes.  That’s the problem.  You didn’t realize.  People don’t realize.”

After our waiter turns and walks away, she tells me how she feels overlooked because she’s not pretty enough.  She tells me how I wouldn’t know.  I tell her I don’t think I’m very pretty but she argues with me that it doesn’t matter what I think.  It’s what other people think that matters.

In a world that values what we possess more than who we are, we can lose our souls in our chase for approval, for attention, for love and acceptance.

Money.  Beauty.  Intellect.  Achievement.  Talent.

Truth is, we’re already fully approved, fully attended to, fully loved, fully accepted, no matter what we chase to feel full.  We can stop our striving for the world’s stamp of approval (or our mother’s or father’s).  We can rest in the arms that stretched wide once, because He so loved us.  We can rest in Him now, because He loves us still.

Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear:  Forget your people and your father’s house.  The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is you lord.

Psalm 45:11

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.

1 Samuel 16: 7

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 11:28

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek:  that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

Psalm 27:4