The Cracked Acorn: Models

It’s about that time when ladies’ spring fashions will be paraded. I wonder what the models eat. Certainly, they are not having a BIG MAC or the all u-can-eat bar. The subliminal message is that slim is closely related to physical beauty.

Many years ago at Tabriz, Iran. We had a satellite tracking site at the university campus. We lived in the METROPOLE HOTEL and an army truck with an Iranian sergeant was our driver.  One morning he asked us to come over and watch him collect his lottery winnings,  he then went to an adjacent kiosk and bought black and white pictures of large fully clothed women staring smiling into the camera. He thought this was the most. He showed them to us and I noticed that there was not one who could have fit into a size 4.

This is the Middle East where Health care is non-existent as it was in Biblical times. Women are required to do lots of manual labor and bear strong and healthy children; this is very dangerous. Simliac and Gerber are unknown. Women must nurse their children or find a “wet” nurse. God intervened in Exodus 2:7 by providing the real mother to continue to nurse Moses at the age of three months.

Genesis 24:16 And the damsel (Rebekah) was very fair to look upon,virgin, never had any man known her:and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up. 17-And the servant ran to meet her, and said, Let me, I thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher. 19) And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they (ten camels) have done drinking. (A thirsty camel can drink 27 gallons in ten minutes.) Here we have a young woman who is willing to draw this water in the heat of the day to be kind to a stranger. This would have been physically demanding even for the strongest man. These qualities impressed the servant sent to find a wife for Isaac.

Genesis 29:16 And Laban had two daughters the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17) Leah was tender eyed:but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. 18a) And Jacob loved Rachel. 31) And the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb:but Rachel was barren. Leah could have been by our standards of fashion a small and very slim woman while Rachel was Jacob’s dream of what a woman should be to bare lots of children and be a very physically fit person to handle the running of a large household. Again this was the day of none of the modern conveniences that we have to keep the home running smoothly and also have our spare time “to find ourselves.” Again, the Lord knows best and blessed Leah and Jacob had to learn the lesson of patience.

My 6-month visit was during the reign of Shah Pahlavi (married three times). His first wife bore no male heirs. Likewise for the second wife but she brought into the capitol city of Tehran the fashions of style and dress from Paris and New York. Many of the Iranian women with affordable means copied the Shah’s wife with her European dress and hair styles but beyond the major cities the women still remained covered from head to their feet.

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.  Proverbs 31:10