One day a woman told a story of how her husband had left her for another woman and was tied up in an affair. The woman who told the story was young, vibrant, beautiful and she met all the standards of what we would call a clean-living, godly woman. She sat weeping and then in her frustration as she told what had happened, opened up her pocketbook and pulled out a photograph and said, "Just look at her!" nobody wanted to look...they didn't need to look in order to understand what was happening. She insisted. "Just look at her! He left me for that!"

The tragedy, is that what we have been trained by our society to think what is important, really isn't all that important. Appearance doesn't mean all that you think it does-outer appearance isn't always the issue. If you don't believe that, I encourage you to go to the nearest mall and sit for a while and watch the people go by. You'll see some of the strangest couples holding hands!

Our society spends billions a year to persuade you to buy hundreds, even thousands a year worth of clothes and makeup in order to fix up something that doesn't really matter all that much. We spend countless hours at beauty salons and spas and malls in order to buy, acquire, or create the very things that we think will draw other people to us, but which actually have very little drawing power.

What you create or design on the outside of yourself may turn a head or two, but it has very little power to turn a mind or a heart. We are bombarded on a daily basis with messages that tell us that if we only go to the right weight-loss center and get down to the right size and dye our hair the right shade and go to the right spa and use the right toothpaste and put on the right makeup and wear the right outfit at the right time and be seen in the right places with the right people; then we most certainly will be able to get for ourselves the right man and have the right children and live in the right neighborhood and enjoy the right kind of life! When we do this and nothing 'right' happens for us, we are puzzled. We sit back and ask, "What went wrong?"

What went wrong was this:

* we became merchandise for those who were selling us merchandise!

* The average woman, yes, even the average Christian woman will spend literally thousands every year on hats, nails, tints and weaves, earrings and dresses

* sadly, we spend virtually nothing to build up and support those inner qualities and character traits that truly are what attract others to us.

* If you are only concerned with your outer appearance, you are going to be a very shallow, superficial person.

* People are going to find that once they have quit playing with you, the box in which you came was beautifully wrapped-but empty.

Now, I believe in a woman looking good, she must look as good as she can look. Not only will her man appreciate looking at her, but he will like the way people look at them when they are out together. When she's looking good, she makes her man look better than he would otherwise look and most men know this, by the way. They know they look better to other people when they are seen in public with a woman who has a great-looking outer appearance. What most women don't know about most men, however, is that outer looks don't matter nearly as much as inner qualities once that man is home alone with his wife.

Good men do not have wives for their good looks but they marry them for their true selves which weighs much more than their good looks; before you lose that which you have while trying to be better outside get in touch with the real you and try to be better inside instead.