Books, Their Covers, Photoshop and a Spiritual Application

I don’t use Photoshop or any of the other big photo editors. I have always thought that a photo should look exactly the way the original subject looked when you shot it. I saw something on YouTube yesterday that kind of freaked me out. It showed a photo from the beginning of the shoot to the end where the model ended up on the billboard. They changed her facial structure, eye color and all sorts of things about her. It was truly interesting to see that a person can make somebody look pretty much any way they want to. I have always heard that you should not judge a book by its cover—but I still do. I mean if the publisher can’t get you interested in the cover how can they intrigue you enough to picking up the book to read it? People are another story. There are some people who attract you because of the way that they look and when you start to talk to them you realize that is the extent of the attraction. Others don’t attract you at all through the eyes yet they captivate you with what is pouring out of them in terms of words and personality. I think the second group of people has been the ones that have drawn me in the most. They have been the ones that have the most into my life. As I took some more time and thought about the whole Photoshop video I saw, I began to think about how we all do this to a certain extent with ourselves in our daily lives. We try and change the way that we look or the way that we seem to those who are around us. We try to fix ourselves to be more appealing or we alter ourselves in ways in hopes of hiding our flaws. We try to represent ourselves in ways that are not true to who we really are. If we are not happy with who we really then I think we need to look inside of ourselves to see how we can reconcile who we are and how we feel about ourselves. If we are looking to change ourselves to be more appealing to others around us then I think we need to ask ourselves why these other people are so important to us that we would want to be something we are not for them. This has been something that I have struggled with my entire life. Never feeling good enough. Never feeling cool enough. Always looking for the next trend I could adopt as my own. I am working on this and have been for quite some time. I am thankful and remind myself that no matter how much I try to Photoshop my image, God isn’t fooled. He looks on the inside. He sees my heart. There is no using Photoshop there, that is constant and is only changed by filling with the Love of Christ or the lack of doing so.