The Difference Christ Makes
In Your Appearance

What difference does it make in a woman's appearance whether or not her personality is Christ-controlled?

   I am well aware that what I have to say in this chapter will be cause for some criticism and some rejoicing. This is a subject which I have discussed with more women from all backgrounds, than any other subject.

   If you do not agree with me in all that I have to say, please know that I fully respect your thinking and your right to it. And I trust you will do the same for me.

   For a long time women have been asking me to write a book on how to lose weight. I admit, I did consider a separate book on the subject. However, it seems to fit the content of this one, so this is the chapter in which I will share my thinking and my methods of losing weight. At this writing I had lost a total of sixty pounds since my conversion. I need to lose about twenty more. Because of my heavy schedule, I have been advised by my doctor to do this quite slowly. I share these secrets with you so that you who are

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overweight, too, will know (in case you've never seen me!) that I am totally in this thing with you. I don't have to try to identify with you. I'm there.

   But for those of you who need to count your blessings because you are not overweight, there will be much which will interest you here too. You may not agree with me, but if there is a woman who pretends she doesn't care about her appearance, then about her I'll have to say she is doing just that — pretending.

   We will look at three aspects of a woman's appearance as we attempt to find out what Christ's control of her life really has to do with the way she looks.

   First, general grooming.

   Second, adornment.

   Third, weight.

   It is still unfortunately true that many of those outside the Christian world feel that Christians are people who couldn't make it any other way! Actually, they are quite right in the deepest sense. Christians are the relieved of this world who have found out about human helplessness and everyone's need for God. But, I'm afraid this is not quite what our non-believer friends see or look for. They see active Christians as probable social misfits. Strange, ungainly personalities who live depressed and depressing lives. Offbeat "characters," if you please, who have turned to religion as an escape. Or unattractive people who have taken refuge in their own shut-away world made up of other equally unattractive and peculiar individuals.

   Much of this has been dispelled in the last ten years. It is a great deal easier to talk about Christ now than it was nine years ago when I was converted. But the general stigma still holds and I believe Christian women are somewhat to blame.

   I well remember one conversation I had about the appearance

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of Christian women, with the friend who led me to Christ. She made her first inroad in His behalf upon my consciousness by the very fact that she was well dressed, carefully groomed and altogether smart looking. We were on the subject (or I was!) of my girlhood memories of the "devout." My mother was always well dressed and she was a Christian, but to my mind, she must have been special. I remember saying to my friend, "You don't figure. You can't believe all you say you believe because you don't look the part. Your slip doesn't show!"

   Ruth and Billy Graham have done more to dispel this myth about Christians not being normal people than perhaps any other Christian couple because they are both so much publicized and because they are both so attractive and well groomed. And I believe our appearance as Christians is as great a responsibility as any other.

   Jesus Christ has brought a great amount of order into a world still only partially Christianized. Where His touch is felt upon a nation, that nation is far ahead in sanitation, conservation of natural resources and orderly government. He is not the author of maladjustment. When a woman's twisted personality is straightened out, so will be the seams in her stockings and the part in her hair! He is interested in the total personality and this certainly includes our looks as well as our insight.

Grooming

   I feel it is my Christian duty to be at least as careful in my personal grooming, if not more so, than before my conversion. You may have dry hair and my habits may not be workable for you. But shampooing my hair twice a week is as much a part of my spiritual life as my daily quiet time.

   A Christian woman in a baggy skirt and a blouse that isn't fresh is a bad witness, no matter what else she does.

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   If you can't afford frequent dry cleaning bills, then buy clothing which is washable. If you can't go to the hairdresser often, then have your hair styled so you can handle it yourself. I don't visit my hairdresser once between permanents. She has styled my hair so that I can shampoo and set it myself without benefit of one single bobby pin!

   Americans have been accused of overbathing. Sometimes when I am pressed into the middle of a crowd of people after a meeting, I think this is an unjust accusation! I think I'm too tired for a shower sometimes, too, but I always feel alone in the average twentieth century woman's life is adequate reason for a daily bath. And if your best friend won't tell you, I'll tell you that there are excellent deodorants on the market. And they are not on the market to keep TV stations in operation, they are on the market for us to use — regularly. Women, I must say, are not as adept at offending in this way as men. At least this has been my experience in crowds. But we all need to remember, as Christians, that we not only "present our bodies" unto the Lord, we present them to those who don't yet know Him, too! No matter how many Bible verses you can quote, no matter how well you have all your points assembled for winning a person to Jesus Christ, if you offend that person's finer senses, you may slam the door of the Kingdom in his or her face.

   A few good poems and thousands of bad ones have been written about a woman's hands. About the touch of a woman. It can be a soothing, creative experience. Or it can feel like a brush with a piece of number two sandpaper. I know all about the detergents in the dishpan. No wonder they cut grease on dishes and skillets so quickly, look what they do to the natural oils in our hands! Mine show it immediately. But, no reason to blame detergents. Make more frequent use of your hand lotion. Keep a bottle at the

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kitchen sink and keep using it. I know what housework and packing and unpacking heavy suitcases from a car can do to fingernails, too. But this is no excuse for poorly groomed nails on a woman's hands. Any leading manufacturer of nail polish also manufactures nail cream. And the ads are true which claim that extra-heavy portions of protein in gelatin form prevent breaking nails. Typing as much as I do, I am speaking from experience when I speak of broken nails.

   My eyes go involuntarily to two points of a woman's anatomy when I meet her. Her hands and her teeth. Glamorous, long, regularly formed nails and while even rows of teeth are found only rarely except in the ads for toothpaste and nail polish. But teeth can be clean and nails can be clean and both can, and must be, regularly cared for it we are to be good for the reputation of Jesus Christ in our daily contacts.

   Quite some time ago, I learned that after thirty minutes of talking, the human throat dries out to such an extent that the breath is bad as a consequence. As regular a part of the mysterious contents of my purse as a comb, is a bottle of breath sweetener or a roll of mints. No one is safe from offending in this way. The slightest tip one way or another in our body chemistry, from fatigue, overeating, or overtalking can cause halitosis. And quite often lack of proper dental care causes it. The use of dental floss and a rubber massage tip on your toothbrush will help wonderfully.

   I am very much aware that you already know these things. I am not writing this book for bush women. I am writing it for you. And I am writing as I am in this chapter more as a reminder that we owe careful grooming to the Lord as part of obedience. Polish your shoes, clean your galoshes, shampoo your hair, care for your skin and nails and teeth, and bathe frequently to the glory of God! All of these things, too, can be meaningful sacraments if we really love Christ.

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Adornment

   I am marching now, right into what some of you may not even know is a battlefield among women. Christian women, that is. I know I am suspect with many groups and will be more so, no doubt, because of what I am going to say here about woman's adornment if she is a Christian.

   And before I begin to say it, I want you to know that I know the particular verses in the Bible which many sincere people feel prohibit a Christian woman from adorning herself at all. I fully respect this thinking. I respect the willingness of these persons to be "different." Being different isn't an easy thing for most of us. And I also want to express in print my gratitude to the dozen or more people who have written to me (a few quite kindly!) about the fact that I do use a moderate amount of make-up and I do wear small earrings and I do occasionally wear a ring. I am well aware that my critics are oftentimes the unpaid guardians of my soul. And I pray about every letter that comes, in which I am criticized for any reason.

   I am thinking now of several genuine Christian women whom I love and whose lives show their love of Christ. These women don't wear make-up at all. Some never have. Others have gotten "guidance" to stop wearing it. This "guidance" I respect deeply. I simply have never gotten it. In no way do I intend this to be an argument for wearing make-up and jewelry as a Christian. I am stating my beliefs and my reasons for holding them. You are free to take them or leave them. One dear friend of mine, who feels "led" not to wear earrings herself, had humor enough to send me a lovely pair for my birthday last year! Women are a strange lot. On this the men will agree. And I think we should, too. With our humors in full operation.

   Most of the persons who write to me (kindly or unkindly)

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quote Peter on the subject. I have before me as I write two translations of 1 Peter 3:3, 4. One is the King James translation and the other is the contemporary and fine Berkeley translation. Here they are:

   King James: "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden person of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."

   Berkeley: "Your adornment should not be on the outside — braided hair, putting on gold trinkets, or wearing attractive dresses; instead, the inner personality of the heart with the imperishable qualities of a gentle and quiet spirit, something of surpassing value in God's sight."

   The italics used in printing the word "instead" in the Berkeley version are mine. This, to me, is the key. It is not so clearly said in the King James version, but it is still there in meaning. In other words, this does not necessarily mean that women are not to adorn themselves at all. As I see it, and as many other Christians see it (including Dr. Verkuyl who edited the Berkeley version), it simply means that our most noticeable adornment as Christian women must be inward! If my make-up and jewelry and extremely cut clothes call more attention to me outwardly than does my Christian spirit, then I am wrong.

   Christians of either sex are not to call attention to themselves primarily. Jesus Christ lived a normal, unobtrusive life on earth. He dressed the way other people dressed. He did not make eccentric use of His religion. He moved easily and naturally among the people whom He had come to save. He did not draw away from them at all. He did not compromise His holiness for one minute, but neither did He do anything that made Him appear odd or peculiar.

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   At the time of my conversion, I wore much too much make-up. Heavy, overdrawn mouth, eye shadow, mascara, and very, very dark pancake make-up on my face. No one told me to stop. My heart just wasn't in calling attention to me any longer. I toned it all down. Way down. I'm not against discriminate use of it, but I have large eyes and didn't really need eye shadow anyway, so I dropped that altogether. All excess seemed to drop away. And for the first time in my entire life I found myself hating to call attention to me. This, in fact, was one of the first strong inner impulses which the Lord used in convicting me because I was so much overweight. Overweight women call attention to themselves. Heavily made-up women call attention to themselves. Women dripping with large, glassy jewelry call attention to themselves. And, by the same token, in the twentieth century, women devoid of any color in their faces also call attention to themselves.

   It is the inner life which must glow and attract. Dr. Verkuyl, in one of his excellent footnotes in the Berkeley translation says of the oft-quoted 1 Peter 3:3, 4: "(Adornments) not forbidden; Sara and Rebekah wore them; but minor in comparison with Christian character traits."

   I want to say once more, however, that no one should take my word for this. For that matter, not even Dr. Verkuyl's. Go to the Lord. And if you honestly believe He is telling you to leave off all adornment, then by all means leave it off. Some women in certain groups seem to feel that it is all right to wear jeweled pins, but not earrings. Others that it is all right to wear necklaces, but not earrings. Earrings have it hard. Why, I don't know. They're usually made up about the same as necklaces and brooches, but they are much discriminated against in certain groups. There are even some who feel they should not wear their wedding rings. This, too, is a personal matter. But Jesus apparently

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didn't disapprove of rings. In the prodigal son story (which Jesus told as a parable) He is attempting to show us what the Father's heart is really like. Attempting to convince us that our heavenly Father is capable of making merry when one of His loved ones comes home. And one of the ways in which He illustrates this point is to say that the father in the story called to his servants ordering them to "put a ring on his finger." But again, I am not arguing for the wearing of jewelry or any other adornment. I am simply attempting to force us as women to look at what the Bible says is the central issue: our very inner natures themselves. Let not your main adornment be outward — let it be inward.

   One well-meaning and devout Christian gentleman wrote to me several years ago telling me that my Christian witness would be much more forceful if I stopped wearing lipstick at all. I didn't get into a discussion with him. I simply thanked him and left it there. But to whom would it be more forceful? At the time he wrote that letter I was directing a dramatic radio program on which I hired professional actors and actresses all of whom had known me in my old life. They all knew, straight from my own lips, that I had given my life to Jesus Christ. Seven of them became followers as a result of their contacts with us on that program. But, speaking from my own knowledge of myself as I was before my conversion, I, had I been in their places, would have thought me excessively queer if I had suddenly turned up for rehearsal sans any color at all.

   I believe God guides us on these things according to the particular people to whom He has sent us. This may appear to be unscriptural to many. But He did say that we were to go into all the world. And much of the world today is frightened by peculiarities in human personality and appearance. I long to be made a truly natural person. I long to make identification wherever I can without compromising

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the holiness of the One who died for all of the so-called shocking people in the world.

   Within the bounds of what I know of God's holiness I want to "be all things to all men." He has made we want to embrace the world and love it into loving Him. He has knocked down exclusive barrier after exclusive barrier in my personality. He has made me care, painful at times, about those who are downright afraid of so-called religiosos! Afraid of church people. Afraid of their strange exclusive language. Afraid of their peculiarities. After all, Jesus was called a "glutton and a wine-bibber." I have no questions whatever in my mind about His overeating or overdrinking. But He evidently spent His time with the people who did. They were the ones who needed Him.

   After nine long years, I have at last discovered how to be with some of my old friends and still remain loyal to Christ. And now that I have gotten off my "don't touch me, I'm holy" pedestal and am just another human being again, they are more and more interested in knowing this Jesus Christ whom I love. And who loves and longs over them with all His great heart.

   As for jewelry, I don't happen to care for the current trend in large, flashy stones. My ears are so funny I can't wear large earrings even if I liked them. I still prefer what I have always preferred, a few pieces of fairly good, but small, jewelry. This is no virtue. It is just my taste. Thanks to a few generous friends and my mother, I now own some nice pieces. But they are conspicuous only to those who can recognize the difference between junk and nicely made jewelry.

   Genuine good taste has to stem from God! After all, He is the one who had the infinite good taste to create crocuses, rainbows, small orchids and green ocean waves at sunset.

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All real beauty is His. And He will guide you. He knows where He has placed you and with whom.

   And once again, the whole matter hinges on the one often repeated baseline of this entire book: Is your personality Christ-controlled?

Weight

   To those of you who are so strangely created that you can eat all you want to eat of anything without adding pounds, I will only repeat: Count your blessings. But I think you had better tag along with us through this section of this chapter simply because many of you are just fortunate. Not necessarily more spiritual than the rest of us whose every mouthful seems to lodge, not inside, but outside our stomachs!

   My dear friend, Ellen Urquhart, with whom I lived for eight years before her recent marriage, once gained ten pounds during an illness. Her lifelong weight had shattered the scales at a wicked one hundred pounds. Suddenly she could no longer get into her clothes. And she joined me for one month on my usual diet. In the joining, she found in herself deep, otherwise hidden rebellions. Food became so important to her, she set our dinner hour up to 4:30 P.M! Bright and early every morning she was up teeming for breakfast. And, being a genuine Christian, she saw that she had been guilty all her life, not only of pride in her figure, but of spiritual pride because she wasn't overweight!

   To those of us who are overweight, the same principle applies. But we have an extra hurdle to overcome. We must overcome our rebellion at being put together metabolically as we are. There is nothing accomplished whatever by complaining bitterly that your husband can "eat like a horse and stay thin as a rail." If you can't, then just proceed from there.

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   In losing weight, acceptance of yourself as you are, is the first and probably the most important thing of all. Remember, during the losing of my sixty pounds, I was living with Ellen who weighed (except for that brief month) one hundred pounds. And stayed that way, even though she sat across the table from me eating large spoons of mayonnaise and piles of whipped cream. I, on the other hand, sat on the other side of the table eating diet mayonnaise or vinegar and Sucaryl and limiting myself to one glass of skimmed milk a day. She ate ice cream while I ate yogurt, artificially sweetened and mixed with unsweetened canned grapefruit.

   As long as I stayed at home in Chicago, my excess pounds slipped gradually away. When I traveled, some of it invariably went back on. Until I began staying in hotels and motels and eating my meals alone, under doctor's orders, to protect my voice. When I did that, I found that I continued to shed the pounds. Why? Because I was no longer being entertained in the homes of Christians.

   Before I say more, let me make it clear that much of the joy of my Christian life, especially back in the first years, when I still felt somewhat strange among you, came from the warm love and hospitality which you showed me in caring for my every need. I thank you from my heart.

   But here is an interesting fact. Only three times in all the years in which I have been dined in the homes of Christians, and especially during those after-meeting fellowship hours, have I ever been served a dessert that was not literally packed with calories! Now, don't get the idea that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the hundreds of other meals. Why do you think I'm overweight? I enjoy eating. I am a gourmet by nature. But the interesting fact which has struck me is that with rare exception, we as Christians seem to be trying to compensate for some of the so-called taboo pleasures of the

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world at our dining room tables: and on top of that we thank the Lord profusely before we do it!

   Instead of overdrinking or oversmoking, we are overstuffing. And gluttony is listed in one of Paul's careful lists of sins.

   My brother, Joe, who had been far overweight all his life, suddenly came to himself after his conversion, and in order to qualify for a certain fine position which he felt God had sent to him, got busy and lost seventy-eight pounds in six months. This is too fast for good health, but he got the job. And he has held his weight — give or take five pounds — for five years now. It so happens that he is still smoking. And some of the people in his church give him a bit of a rough time over it. His rare sense of humor and his inherited outspokenness and what I believe to be his genuine Christian character hold him in these times of criticism because he still smokes. He knows the people are praying for him and he is grateful. But the people who pray regularly for him to "straighten up" are at least fifty or more pounds overweight!

   Joe looks them in the eye, smiles broadly, and says: "When you lose some weight, come back and we'll talk." He is a comparatively new Christian. His accusers have known the Lord for many years.

   Excessive smoking is harmful to the human body. But no more harmful (and I have checked with doctors on this) than overeating! If you and I are overweight, we have absolutely no right to disapprove of someone else's smoking or dressing this way or that.

   Not once has the Lord given me peace about my size. I have come down from a size twenty to a sixteen, but as one perceptive friend said to me not long ago, "You can't justify yourself on how much you've already lost. You can only afford to get busy on what there is still left to lose!"

   And she is dead right.

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   Now, how do we do this? Where does Christ come into the picture?

   I had thought of including some of my favorite diet dinner menus. But these are so accessible to everyone that I will just recommend two excellent books to you and then speak of the underlying principles involved. If you purchase and read and follow the reducing plans in either of these well-known books, you will lose the weight you need to lose:

(1) Eat Well and Stay Well, by Ancel and Margaret Keys (Doubleday).

(2) New Guide to Intelligent Reducing, by Gayelord Hauser (Farrar, Straus & Young).

   Of course, no one should attempt a rigid diet without a doctor's examination. I am under a doctor's care for the first time in my life right now. I am one of those disgustingly healthy creatures who has darkened a doctor's office only once before in her whole life. But I am serious about reducing my size and since my body belongs to Christ, I mean to do it intelligently. And so I am regularly visiting a doctor who specializes in weight reduction. He keeps check on my blood pressure (which tends to be high) and my heart. He also keeps check on the inches I have or have not lost! And this helps, too.

   On my doctor's recommendation, my breakfast is always two raw eggs beaten in a glass of orange juice or pineapple juice, and black coffee. The idea of raw eggs sickened me, too, at first. Now, I find I never tire of it! Unless I add plenty of artificial sweetener (such as liquid Sucaryl) I can't take it. But when I do, I love every drop.

   If you think you can't drink black coffee, put a dash of skimmed milk in it for the love of Jesus Christ. Just a couple of days of coffee with skimmed milk and you'll like it just as well as that fat-filled cream you've been using.

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   For lunch I major on cottage cheese and yogurt. All I want. Many people hate the thought of yogurt. And alone, it is sharp and unappetizing. But mix equal portions of cottage cheese with it, add some fresh or unsweetened canned fruit, more liquid sweetener, stir it up and I promise it will satisfy that emotional urge for gooey sweet things! It is creamy and delicious. But don't forget the liquid sweetener to your taste.

   Fortunately for both of us, my new associate, Rosalind Rinker, also fights the familiar battle of the bulge. When we are at home and most of the time when we are traveling, we stick to this raw eggs, yogurt and cottage cheese ritual all day until dinner. I mention Rosalind to shake any possible idea which you might have that I must be peculiar or I couldn't eat this way. She loves it, too.

   Buy a copy of one of the two books I have mentioned, or any good reducing diet book for your evening meal. And if you have followed my diet all day every day, you will find that your appetite for overrich food for dinner has greatly diminished.

   But the glorious open secret which I have learned is that when we are doing this for love's sake, it is not hard! I am losing weight for Jesus Christ's sake. I want to be good for His reputation and I feel I would do equal damage to it if I walked on a platform smoking a cigarette or if I waddled onto a platform hauling along a shameful excess of ugly poundage. I know of only one overweight woman whose extra pounds are directly traceable to a strange incurable glandular imbalance. There are a few others, I'm sure. I want them to know I am not speaking to them in these pages. I am speaking to the rest of us who can lose our excess baggage and glorify Jesus Christ if we choose to.

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   There are three spiritual exercises involved:

(1) We must accept ourselves as we are. We must stop pitying us by a continual wondering, "Why it is that every bite I put into my mouth goes to fat!" If we remain in this attitude, we are secretly blaming God for creating us as He did. We may not admit it, but it's true. And as long as we resent Him, even subconsciously, we will not be able to do the next thing. We must know Him and we must love Him. Not a whipped up "love" that stands up long enough for a public testimony or a declaration of Biblical doctrine. But a love strong enough to make sacrifices for His sake when no one is looking.

(2) We must be willing to begin making these sacrifices. He has given us all "choosers." Our part is to use them. I have never lost weight on a diet I started tomorrow. The only time I've ever been able to lose weight is to choose to start now.

(3) The love-offering. Make a list of all the rich foods you love with an unholy passion! The list is necessary only in nailing down your determination. So much as been written about caloric content of food, no one really needs to do any research here. The spiritual point is this: When you bake a cake or a pie, or when dessert is passed at a dinner or a banquet, smile and say, "No, thank you." It's really just as easy to say as, "Yes, thank you." And in your heart, right at that moment, make a picture of yourself handing that rich dessert or that bowl of mashed potatoes or that homemade roll directly to the Lord as a love-offering!

   When we deprive ourselves of something we love, we feel put upon. But when we give something we love to Someone we love, it is a different thing. I can

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promise you this will work. It has worked sixty pounds worth for me and I expect it to work for the remaining twenty.

   This, I assure you, is much easier to do in public when there are people around to impress. And those of you who are homemakers have a difficult problem here. But the answer, once more, is spiritual in nature. Is Jesus Christ real to you?

   Are you convinced that He meant what He said when He said, "I am with you always?" If you are, then half the battle is won of an afternoon in your kitchen when no human being would know if you sneaked a piece of mince pie! Jesus will know. He is there. And it is for Him that you are doing this anyway, isn't it?

   Does it make a difference in a woman's appearance whether or not her personality is Christ-controlled? Yes. And He is not an eccentric. He wants us to look our best. I believe we are responsible for what our faces and our bodies say to those whom we meet, particularly after we are thirty-five. We can't all be cover girls. But our outward appearance is again only a manifestation of what is truly inside us.

   A woman's grooming, her adornment, her size are definite indications of who is at the controls of her life.

   Is Jesus Christ at the controls of your life?

   Or are you?

Chapter Eight  ||  Table of Contents