1 of 2
It's the first thing people notice about me when we meet. They get this glazed, deer-in-the-headlights look in their eyes, then spend the rest of the conversation pretending they don't notice. As they finish our conversation and move away, I see them surreptitiously glance back and whisper among themselves. I know exactly what they're saying.
"Can you believe how much she looks like Cindy Crawford?"
OKAY, OKAY. I'm not being entirely honest. All right, fine, none of it's true. Period. I bear absolutely no resemblance to Ms. Supermodel, or she to me. I'm a 30-something suburban mother of 4 who drives a minivan, for goodness' sakes. I've been known to, well, fib about my weight on my driver's license (God doesn't really count that as lying, does he?). I pretend to highlight my hair when everyone knows I'm covering the gray. And my idea of a successful photo shoot is when no one in the picture is holding two fingers behind his brother's head and my teenager agrees to wear anything besides baggy jeans and an even baggier T-shirt.
Cindy and I don't just move in different circles, we move on different geometric planes.
Still, we do have a few things in common, such as breathing. And we're both brunettes, although Cindy has a tawny mane of stylishly tousled locks and I have a conservative bob I hide under a baseball cap when the humidity is high.
Each of us also went through a Richard Gere phase. One of us married the movie star (it wasn't me); the other merely adored him from afar. In fact, when Mr. Gere swept actress Debra Winger off her feet in the film An Officer and a Gentleman, I was ready to march my husband down to the Naval recruiting office. Now that he's into the Buddhist thing (Mr. Gere, not my husband), the passion's gone. Sorry, Richard.
Furthermore, I have a small white scar near my mouth where the doctor removed a horrible warty-looking growth a few years ago. Cindy has a big brown mole in almost the exact same spot. We both have two eyes, two ears, a mouth, and a nose. I'm almost five feet tall; so are her legs. Guess I shouldn't bother auditioning as her body double!
YET I KNOW one thing Cindy and I—and every other woman on the planet—do have in common. It's something that transcends time, distance, culture, and creed. It has nothing to do with how wealthy, important, or physically beautiful we are. We can't earn it, buy it, or even ask for it; it's given to us at conception, and we carry it with us for eternity. It's simply this: We each bear the imprint of the Divine Creator. God Almighty, the Holiest Being in the universe, consciously and deliberately made you and me—and Cindy—in his likeness! We can look at one another and know, This is what God looks like.
Sometimes we women think of ourselves as the postscript at the end of the creation account. Although the details of Eve's creation appear at the end of Genesis chapter 2, God includes us in the broad outline of creation in chapter 1. Right there, in Genesis 1:27, we read that "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (emphasis added).
 E-mail this page   Print this article  Post a comment |
