day no. 15,725: the pluck and the pick

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
-- William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets (94)

There are few things uglier than beauty gone bad. An ugly expression on a beautiful face reads particularly unsightly. It does not befit its setting like a kidney stone in place of a diamond. Rotten flowers smell worse than thriving weeds.

Proverbs 25:26

Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain

is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.

Good things gone bad are worse than those that were bad from the beginning. A spoiled spring is worse than soiled swamp. The swamp water was never good for drinking, whereas the fetid fountain once was. The end is the same, worthless water, but the one embodies the forfeiture of worth.

1 Peter 3:4
Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Women were made to be beautiful and to pursue it with proportion. The amount of time and effort put into plucking eyebrows in order to be on fleek should not be disproportionate to the time spent picking out the speck from one's eye underneath. While applying eye shadow to the lid, one must be sure to let light in through the iris. 

Proverbs 31:29-31
Many daughters have done virtuously,
but thou excellest them all.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain:
but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
Give her of the fruit of her hands;
and let her own works praise her in the gates.

A woman's good works should match her good fortune in being God's handiwork. If His hands have made such beauty for her, she must work hard to keep pace. Beauty is grace in that you can be praised for something you did not do and good works also acquire praise for the one who makes them possible. But the woman of God thanks her Creator for her outward appearance and demonstrates her gratitude by using it to cultivate faith and good works.