The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. Isaiah 40:8

Vanity.
Everything old people do seems to contradict. Such as, my grandmother walking around and barely noticing the enormous amount of hair that has been growing off of her chin and upper lip for the past four months, yet, before we could even imagine stepping out of the house to go to the doctors, we must make sure she puts lipstick on...I mean, honestly.

She's a woman. I guess that's just the way we are. No matter how old, we will continue to try to enhance our looks and cover up our imperfections. Hopefully, I'll be blind enough not to notice how ridiculous I look, and senile enough not to care when I'm 78. Like my grandmom.

On Monday, she will be seventy-eight. She lived through Nazi occupied Germany, has seen all but one of her brothers die, birthed three beautiful daughters, passed her US citizenship test, became a great grandmother, lived to see not only a man walk on the moon, but also has seen a whole turn of a century...and now...she has had her face waxed (for which we are all thankful)

When I am old, I want to be beautiful. Not because I had a face lift. Not because I am still as thin as I was when I was a teenager (which right now isn't all that thin!). Not because I wear Light Pink Lipstick. But because I lived life to the full, and you can see it in my laugh lined, and sun wrinkled face. Because I loved and served, and you can see it in my bony, wrinkled hands that washed a million dishes and grew a thousand tomatoes and scrubbed miles of floor. Because I prayed and fought a spiritual battle, and you can see it on my calloused, arthritic knees.
That, to me, is a beautiful woman.