Cast Call for Cute

Our dog club sent out a note yesterday with a cast call for large dogs that will bark on command in the back of a pick up, and for cute little fluffy dogs to just sit. We have 2 dogs, but neither fit the bill. Our dogs bark all the time, except on command and neither is fluffy and little. This is too bad because commercials pay well, and we have a lot of expenses coming up.... not the least of which is a new fence to keep the barking dogs from getting out to bark in adjoining streets.
I should not be anxious to return to the life of TV stars however, since the last commercial we did with Lucky resulted in me losing toenails.

But it got me thinking about how easy it is to be cute. I mean, not if you are not... then it is impossible. But if you are cute, life is handed to you on a silver platter.... at least for a time. Nothing is required of you except to be cute. You don't have to bark on command, you don't have to remain seated obediently in the back of a pick up.... you just have to be cute, something that requires no effort and you had no part in developing. It seems grossly unfair, don't you think?

But in my ongoing quest to understand our precious Lord and why He made wrinkles and sunspots, I pondered this issue of cute. Cute usually doesn't last. And since all you have ever had to do is sit there and let people gaze on you, when cute goes away, people have nothing to gaze at. They can tell you, "OK Mr. Former Cutie-pie, BARK!" But you will never have developed the skill that might have held their attention. You are a shell without any goodies inside.

When I was a Nurse's Aid at a Nursing home, one of the absolute hardest jobs I ever did, there was an old lady who we all despised. She was mean, and bitter, and ungrateful. She was a former Broadway Rockette. There were photos of her on her dresser. She had been drop-dead gorgeous. Many husbands and neglected children later, she was now shriveled, wrinkled, grey, and all alone in the nursing home. She ranted and raved about her lost beauty, and the family that had once waited hand and foot upon her, but in the year I was there, never visited...not once.

I am not saying beautiful people cannot be beautiful in character. I know plenty that are. But I think it is easy to rely on and take pride in things we have nothing to do with, like our God-given looks and body type. I think it is so easy to lose focus and to cherish the things that have no real significance or value, and maybe in the process lose those things that do matter.

Hebrews 11:26
He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.