This Devotional About Supermodels is Not My Fault

This piece has a story behind it. At writer's club a few months back, one of the attendees was reading some riddles he had written. My response for all of them was "supermodel." Hey, it always made perfect sense, but I was the only one who thought so. Eventually, Jason ended up daring me to write about a supermodel for the next meeting.

So I did.

This Devotional About Supermodels is Not My Fault

So I was dared to write about a supermodel. While I know several girls who are pretty enough to be supermodels, they have chosen to devote their lives to more meaningful professions. I also don’t like to write fiction all that much. Therefore, I was left with only one option. I must write about a supermodel that I admire.

Finding admirable supermodels proved to be a laborious task. Yet, there is one model that I have had a “crush” on since fourth grade. Millions of people see her smiling face everyday, and she has been modeling for quite a few years. Despite this, she has completely avoided all of the scandals surrounding many of today’s glamour girls. No illegitimate children, no sex tapes, no anorexia accusations. Instead she provides young ladies with a positive, hard working role model.

Have I mentioned yet that she is gorgeous? She doesn’t look like one of those Hollywood girls, with lips the size of jet liners and artificial bosoms the size of…really big things. No, she looks like a normal girl you could see at the grocery store.

On top of all this, she was born in Fresno, California, just like me. While I have never actually met her, she is a prominent figure locally because of her international popularity.

I am talking, of course, about the Sun-Maid Raisin Girl. Ever since my mother packed those little boxes of raisins in my school lunches I have secretly admired her.

The media bombards us with images of what human beauty is supposed to be like. More often then not, it falls into the stereotype of a fit surfer styled man and a Playboy playmate. Physical appearance is made a major issue, to a greater degree towards young girls than boys. The media tells them that they must weigh a certain amount, dress a certain way, dye their hair a certain color, and et cetera.

I find the Sun-Maid Raisin girl very attractive. But a pretty face does not a happy marriage make. On the cover of the raisin box, her beauty lasts forever, but that isn’t the way things work in real life. In fact, having been in vineyards and having spent days picking grapes, I can assure you that if she continues in that line of work, by the time she is forty her face is going to look like the raisins she is pawning. Then, I hope that she has married a man who loves her for who she is, not because she has a gorgeous smile.

Our culture is a little confused as to what love actually is. Last year, National Geographic magazine ran an article about love. What do think made the cover? A picture of a young, attractive couple embracing in what appears to be a nightclub. This is not love, this is mere infatuation. Love is what you have after you’ve been married for fifty years. National Geographic should have shown a picture of two withered old people with canes and suspenders holding hands and called that “love,” instead.

Speaking of raisins, I believe a successful marriage is a lot like a raisin. Before you put this paper down and call me insane, hear me out.

Raisins start out as grapes, on a vine. Marriages often start out as a union between two young, naïve people. Consider a new marriage a grape. Not all grapes are created equal. Some are big, some are small. Some are perfectly round, others are downright deformed. Some are horrifically sour, some taste like mush, and some are wonderfully sweet. However, with few exceptions, all have the capacity to become a raisin.

Yet, grapes do not magically transform over time into raisins. A special process must be observed. If you throw a bunch of grapes into a closet and come back in a month expecting to find raisins, you are going to be wonderfully disappointed. You’ll find a pile of rotten pulp which at one point may have been grapes.

In order to create a raisin, two things must happen to a grape. They must be exposed to sunlight, and they must be kept dry. In order to have a successful, Christlike marriage, both the husband and the wife must expose themselves to the Son of God. As the grapes absorb more and more sunlight, they become dryer and the potential for rot is removed.

It is at this point, dear reader and or listener, that I abandon this paper. I say all of this with only the good intentions and wishful thinking of a single man who wants to be as Christ like as possible in his future marriage. Alas, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I am not qualified to say many of the things I have just said. But Jason dared me to write about supermodels and I thought about raisins and marriage and this is what happened. I will hopefully return to it someday when I have been married for some time and have some experience in such matters.