Cows Don’t Care If They Get Wrinkles

Cows don’t care if they wrinkle. At least I don’t think they do…maybe when we’re not around they discuss the latest mud mask…who knows!! Anyways ladies, I am here to tell you it’s a tough battle. It’s like you go to bed one night and the next morning you stagger to the bathroom trying to get awake….when all the sudden you catch a glimpse of a scary image of a much older woman in the mirror. You jump…”What’s she doing here?” and then you realize it’s you! What happened? My mom never told me how hard it is to age. Maybe because it was an age of a little more humility. My mother’s generation was less into looks than woman today. I mean I know she cared how she looked but she never said..”Hey girl, one day there will be this strange woman in the mirror….just saying!

I remember a friend telling me when hitting a certain age men just looked past her like she wasn’t even there. Not that she was seeking the attention of a man…don’t get me wrong. A statement like that is a bit frightening.

It’s the inside of us that we need to keep free of wrinkles. Free of thoughts wrinkling the purpose for which we are on this earth. Besides isn’t God’s view that we seek  instead of the worlds? If our bodies were suddenly turned inside out…which that’s kind of a gross thought but let’s just say for example they were….would the inside of you be as beautiful as the outside. Some of us would be embarrassed as to what was really exposed about us. Yikes…I’m there with ya!

Besides, each dimple, wrinkle, and spot is there for a reason and marks a time in our lives. Each scar tells a story….like when you’re boys left their drinking glasses on the floor and in a mad dash to make it back to the movie during the commercial break resulted in an ER visit and fourteen stitches. Oh…oops I mean that might have happened to me. As for the dimples…probably too many taco! But give me uno mas cause I’m not gonna give those babies up!

I’ve earned every “imprint” thus far.

The laugh lines carved from literally hours upon hours of laughing at my kids, my husband, my girl friends, great stories, mishaps and embarrassments….and good movies. I’ve also earned creases from crying….while praying for help, while loosing both my parents, losing our home, crying when I couldn’t understand the death of a little boy I loved very much. The wrinkles also from squinting at the sun while working horseback beside my family…or baking for hours as a teenage girl, hoping for the “perfect” tan.  BIG MISTAKE!!

The lines…I’ve earned them all. Even my hands remind of how they got this way, mostly from work….some work great, like rebuilding a house, or small….. in teaching my boys how to tie their shoes. They have been full of purpose and they too show wear from where they’ve been. So in a way….yes…I’m getting older, I will face what millions of woman have faced before me. And it is in this pivotal moment that I will have to define what beauty truly is.

Let me leave you with this last story….

I’ve been held in the arms of woman who was my grandmother. I studied her hands and her face with complete adoration of her beauty. I was captivated by her heart and generosity. I was entertained by the thought of being like her someday. Her hair, thin and gray always smelt like a spritz of perfume and fresh baked cookies. Her smile ignited a room and never once did I see her wrinkles. Never once did I think my grandmother was “old”. Just one day she disappeared and I missed her and longed to crawl up in her lap and stare at her clear blue eyes with her soft eye lashes encasing them. She was the most beautiful women I knew.

Growing older must be as if we’ve been handed a baton from the past generations, an opportunity to show Christ, to share wisdom, to visit the sick and the prisoner,  to teach the importance of God’s Word and being His disciples.  It also needs to be about redefining what beauty really is to a society that is stuck in the “me” generation.  That’s the kind of beauty we should be more obsessed with. 

Besides….the cows got it right! That’s why I love ranchin’!

With that….I think I’ll go bake some cookies.

Thanks for reading…..thecowboypastorswife