A Date with Miss Universe

There is something important we must remember about even the most famous of people.  It’s that they are human just like us.  It’s hard to believe it at times, because of the amount of fame that surrounds them, but they just have different problems, and sometimes those problems make life a little less enjoyable for them than us.

One thing that’s not as easy for someone that has some degree of fame is being able to choose when and where they want to be.  In this case, Jennifer Hawkins’ date with Daniel Dibley provides us with some instruction:

Daniel Dibley, 17, needed a partner for the school dance in the Australian country town of Bathurst, west of Sydney, and he decided to aim high.

He wrote to Australia’s best-known beauty queen, Jennifer Hawkins, to ask her to the dance, and was stunned when the 2004 Miss Universe accepted.

But in a decision that would break a schoolboy’s heart, Hawkins later pulled out of the date because the overwhelming publicity had overshadowed plans for the end-of-year dance, which is for students in their final year of high school.

Instead, the Seven television network said Hawkins visited Dibley’s Bathurst High School on Tuesday for a private lunch date with Daniel, and to speak to the school assembly, where she apologized for all the fuss.

“I didn’t want you guys to think I didn’t want to come to Bathurst, or I didn’t want come to the formal (dance),” Hawkins, now a television presenter, told the school assembly.

“I did. It just became too big. I just wanted a low-key thing.”

I sometimes feel for these people– and those of big politicians like Presidents and Senators.  Their life is truly not their own.  They’re constantly under a magnifying glass and their every step and statement is analyzed without end.  Though we occasionally believe we would like the glamor that goes along with these jobs, we would very rarely want the stress and pressure that also comes along with it.

Don’t get me wrong about what I think about beauty pageants.  I think we’re looking at the wrong things, since we should be looking at inner beauty that lasts.  What I am saying is that, regardless of how they got their fame, these people need our prayers that they will be open to the Gospel and that their fame doesn’t cause them to do something that would prevent them from coming to Christ.

Remember what Jesus said– it is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  May that be a sobering reminder for us!