Way back in the beginning of time, when I was in still in high school I heard a song by Joe Tex. He asks a penetrating question: “Who’ll take the girl with the skinny legs?”

It’s hard to remember but it seems that at the time (1967), having skinny legs was not stylish.

Flash forward forty years and all the girls want to squeeze into their skinny jeans. Which leads me to some deep philosophical reflections. Most of those poor skinny-legged girls from 1967 no longer have skinny legs.

They have grandmotherly legs.

Tragic isn’t it? When unskinny was the style they were skinny. And when skinny is the style, they’re not anymore.

And a lot of beautiful girls in 2016 try to shoehorn themselves into skinny jeans because someone said that was attractive. Beautiful these girls are; skinny they are not. They should have been born in 1967. 

Don’t worry, though, forty years from now plumper will probably be in style again.

It’s kind of a shame we can’t be happy with who we are, isn’t it? Oh, if too much weight or too much skinny threatens our health, we try to do something about it.

Our body style will never determine our value, though. I always wanted to look like Flash Gordon (actor Buster Crabb), but it didn’t happen.

Look at these cars. Both of these cars were once considered beautiful, one in 1959 and one in 2015. Wonder what the 2055 Chevrolet will look like?

Here is who we really are: intricate beings, planned and put on the earth by God Himself. Each of us occupies a place no one else can. We each have gifts that others don’t and others have gifts that we don’t.

Put us together and in the right place and we work like a powerful machine. We look like a breath-taking mosaic.

If everyone tries to be the same, though, the results are dismal. Have you seen some of those early episodes of America’s Got Talent or American Idol? Some of those people trying to sing could make it rain in the Mojave Desert.

They desperately want to be something they aren’t because they are afraid no one will want them with their “skinny legs.”

If you live to please others, you will be miserable, because beautiful, cool, etc change all the time. One day you “in,” then a few days later you’re hopelessly outmoded.

If you live to please God, you’ll do better. He’s like a doting daddy—he’ll love you even when you goof up; He’ll think you’re pretty even when you’re pug ugly. His love changes his perception. Or maybe only He sees us as we really are.

And when we goof up? He still loves us. He works with us to change. And yes, like a good Father, at times he corrects us in order to help us grow. But, as long as we keep running back to Him, we’re “cool.”

Here’s how He sees our beauty (and our warts):

“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;

    you formed me in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!

    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!

    I worship in adoration—what a creation!

You know me inside and out,

    you know every bone in my body;

You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,

    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;

    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,

The days of my life all prepared

    before I’d even lived one day.

Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!

    God, I’ll never comprehend them!

I couldn’t even begin to count them—

    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.

Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!

(Ps. 139: 13-22, The Message)

So, if you had skinny legs in 1967 or if you have not-so-skinny legs in 2016, don’t cry. Don’t think you are worthless. Your value comes from your association with the One who made you.

If you’ve put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, He’s changed you into His image and you’ve got an incredible value.

The Lord takes girls and guys with skinny legs. He takes those with ample legs, too. He just loves all who come to Him. He makes them His children.

Call out to Him in repentance. Put your faith in Jesus. He’ll take you. And once He’s got you, He’ll love you like no one else can.

________________________

Hmmm …

Speaking of a man in his church that was a “thorn in his flesh” Neil Anderson says, “God used that man more than any other man to make me the pastor God wanted me to be.” (Victory Over Darkness)