I really did try to write this post last week, but I got so caught up in wanting to cover every aspect of the topic, and I just couldn't do it in one post. Thus, I resolved to write another post at a later date. So stay tuned. Also, I think I needed a little extra time and courage. So here goes...
Do you ever have one of those weeks when every time you look in the mirror, or every time you see a picture of yourself, you just want to cringe? I do...frequently. There's always something wrong, always something to critique. Just a few weeks ago, I was having a particularly bad week. And that's when I heard this song:
The first time I heard this Boyce Avenue version of That's What Makes You Beautiful, I was immediately hit with a wall of emotion. It was as if this man were singing to me. But he wasn't. And I wanted someone to sing it to me, someone I loved, someone who loved me, someone who meant it. But no man was. I just wanted it to be real.
And I quickly convinced myself that if I had some amazing man declaring to me and to the world that I was beautiful (preferably through song), then that would make it true, and then I would believe it always, and never have any trouble feeling beautiful ever again! I then proceeded to berate myself for letting go of all my opportunities to have this kind of affirmation, security, and love.
But then a still small voice inside of me said, "Sarah, it's not worth your soul."
In Matthew 16:25-26, Jesus says, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?"
And in that moment, I realized that I was believing a terrible lie - that instead of finding my salvation in Jesus, I was believing that all of my hope was essentially wrapped up in having a man to love me, affirm me, and make me feel beautiful. And in the past, I used to build my life around this lie, so on many occasions, Jesus has called me to purposefully let go of the affirmation, love, and security that come from a man for the sake of following Him, but the lie just so easily creeps into my head.
What's so ridiculous about this whole thing though (and it's the part that I forget when I'm all caught up in believing this terrible lie) is that even in the past, when I've had all the affirmation I wanted from guys, it was still never enough. I still struggled with the mirror. My 15-year-old-self still begged my mom to let me take diet pills even though I only weighed 120 lbs; I was convinced that I could never be skinny enough. (Thankfully she didn't let me.) And even when guys were literally fighting to date me, I was never convinced that being the way that I was could be good enough. (And I'm not telling you that so you think I'm awesome, but so you know the praise of man is empty.)
Because I still long to be flawless, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot be flawless! And the most annoying part is, I don't even know why I care so much. It's just completely illogical, and the only way I know how to explain it is that God just put this desire in women to want to be beautiful to somehow reflect who He is. But it's a broken desire, in a broken world, as we wear these broken bodies that are decaying because of sin. So I know that it's the inside that matters most, that any outer beauty I have will not last, and no amount of praise from others will certainly ever be enough.
But I think the Lord knows that I'm weak, that I need some help when I'm struggling to see myself from His perspective - that I'm loved and completely accepted in Christ. So thanks to those who have recently helped me to remember that God sees me as beautiful - Mary Elizabeth, Abby, Elby, Will, Donald, Brittany - even if you didn't realize it, and even though some of you were complete strangers!
Even more than that, I've come to realize that the truth is, I do have it wrong. And I need someone to tell me the truth - someone whose opinion matters most. And so do you.
Jesus tells us that He loves us, that we belong to Him, and that it's enough!
Now do I still want someone to sing me that 1D song? Of course. Do I still want my future husband to think I'm beautiful on the outside and love me for who I am on the inside. Obviously. But do I need it? Naw. Not worth my soul.
So...
Ladies - Having a man in your life to affirm you and tell you that you're beautiful will never satisfy or make you feel truly secure. It's surely a good thing and can help you to have a better picture of how the Lord views you, but it is not worth your soul. So stop running after it. Instead, pull yourself away from the mirror and ask the Lord to help show you how He sees you. And stop comparing yourselves to the rest of the ladies around you - God made them and thinks they're beautiful too - so tell them that!
Men - Having a beautiful girl on your arm (or on your computer screen) to make you feel awesome and manly will not give you real lasting confidence. It's not worth your soul.
Is there a girl in your life looking to you for affirmation? By all means, affirm her when appropriate. But do it in a way that points her to Jesus. Your affirmation of her will never be enough. But Jesus' is. And it might be really annoying to her the way you point her to Jesus, but keep doing it anyway. She will thank you for it later.
And even when you don't feel beautiful, Loving Him is Red!
Alright, friends...I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this.
So what does it look like for you?
What helps you in the midst of your struggle?
How does the Lord remind you of His perspective of you?
First let me say I had never heard that version of the 1D song but I love it-it's gorgeous, emotional, & perfect to harmonize to. Second, I wish I could go back to conferences & make myself take more time to talk & bond more deeply with people. I'm realizing how much of a struggle that is for me, not because I don't want it, but b/c it takes a lot of effort & I never made time for it. I wish I had spent more time getting to know you...I had no idea all you had gone through. Anyway, thirdly, this touches somewhat on what I was reading about in my devotional today about accepting yourself & focusing on your status of perfection through Christ rather than the successes/mistakes you make as Christ grows you into perfection/Christlikeness. For me, my struggle has not per se been w/ outer beauty (though I have struggled w/ that at times) but with finding myself beautiful-mistakes/faults, good/bad, & all. I have found myself weighing myself against others, against what I would like to be, & making myself miserable all the while b/c I wasn't weighing myself against who God says I am & who He calls me to be. So I guess, in the end, we all struggle, but only in Christ alone will we ever be filled & we daily need to meditate on this & seek contentment & peace in Him. Keep up the good fight & thanks for all your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteJanel, thanks so much for your continual encouragement, as I know you've been reading pretty faithfully :) I know what you mean about taking the time and effort to get to know people - it is definitely hard work! But it's not too late! I'm sure the Lord has put people all around you right now who you can point to Jesus and who can point you to Him as well. Have you ever read Relationships: A Mess Worth Making? I would definitely recommend it!
DeleteAnd you're so right that it's futile to compare ourselves to others or even to our own ideal versions of what we think we should be like, because when we compare ourselves to Jesus, we're ruined. But He's the One that offers us His perfection and righteousness in place of our own sin and hopelessness. So amazing! And then He transforms us to be more like Him! Wow! It gets me so excited for Heaven!
Thanks again, Janel - I look forward to hearing how the Lord keeps working in your life :)
"And I quickly convinced myself that if I had some amazing man declaring to me and to the world that I was beautiful, then that would make it true, and then I would believe it always, and never have any trouble feeling beautiful ever again!"
ReplyDeleteBut you do have some amazing man declaring to you and the world that you are beautiful. Jesus does it. He covers your sin, daily. Every flaw we have, physical, mental, emotional is a result of the Fall into Sin; the best kind of beautiful is sinlessness but even more beautiful than that is that something sinful is made sinless by Christ's death.
That desire, that ache you have to have the love of your life declare you beautiful is God-given. (Romans 1:20. See also CS Lewis, Mere Christianity) The desire that a woman has to be made beautiful by her spouse is an allegory (an icon, a picture) of the yearning the church has for Christ, who is her Bridegroom. (Ephesians 5:25-32, which is a section of Ephesians 5 that too many people gloss over. It's AFTER the "Wives Submit" section.)
I disagree that our desire to be beautiful is to reflect who God is. Who God is is best displayed in our weakness and brokenness, not in our beauty. (2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 8:26, 1 Corinthians 1:27, 2 Corinthians 11:30, etc.)
It makes me a little sad to see someone take an aspect of the way God wired women and say that it's a bad thing. Of course such a desire to be made beautiful by a man can be twisted into sin, into idolatry, but I think it's helpful to know that at it's core, it's a good, right, and salutary thing.
In short, our female desire to be physically beautiful is vanity. But the yearning for a man to declare us beautiful despite our known faults, for our beauty to come from outside of us, declared as fact by someone else, is nothing other than an aspect of God's law written on our hearts, just as Christ declares us righteous not because we're righteous, but because He has decided it is so.
Hello Elephantschild! Seems like I've done a poor job explaining myself again. Thanks for your patience! I think we might also think and communicate pretty differently. Are you familiar at all with the Myers-Briggs personality test?
DeleteJust so you're not feeling sad unnecessarily, I don't at all think it's a bad thing to want Jesus to declare that He sees me as beautiful. I actually think that's good and part of the conclusion I was trying to get at. At my core, I deeply want and need Him to tell me who I am and how He sees me. But the problem I was getting at is what you mentioned - my sin and idolatry. "I realized that I was believing a terrible lie - that instead of finding my salvation in Jesus, I was believing that all of my hope was essentially wrapped up in having a man [a created man] to love me, affirm me, and make me feel beautiful." So I need to repent and trust in Jesus' mercy and forgiveness as we talked about before.
I also think there's a sense in which as the Lord transforms us, we become less and less consumed with ourselves, wanting affirmation and praise, and we are just increasingly captivated by Jesus' beauty and want to simply reflect who He is and lay our lives down as He did. I didn't necessarily have the time to get into all those things in this post though. I really love Ed Welch's book When People Are Big and God is Small for thoughts on that topic.
I really agree with some of your other points that there's a beauty in sinlessness and being made pure by Christ. (And I really love that Ephesians 5 passage.) As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I will write more on the topic of beauty a little later, since it seemed a little daunting to try to fit it all in one post.
Oh yeah, His power is also obviously displayed in our weakness - hooray! Man, I'm so weak...
I'm not sure though that the desire to be outwardly beautiful must mean vanity. Because God made women beautiful for a reason, and I really believe that the Lord can redeem our desires so that we can long for our outward appearance to reflect His beauty. But there's also the idolatry that we mentioned. Because of our sinful state, we can easily attempt to steal glory that belongs to the Lord by attracting attention to ourselves, and that is pride. And the Lord obviously hates and opposes pride, but gives grace to the humble. And that's really good, because He's glad to save us even though we have nothing to offer Him!
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. I still have a lot of thinking, praying, and Scripture exploring to do on this topic.
I'm so thankful for you, Sarah! I've definitely fallen into this trap of believing that my worth is in if others find me beautiful. Honestly, the hurt is so deep that I'm not even striving for beautiful... I'm convinced that beautiful is out of reach, so my heart chases after the "okay"s of beauty - "cute," "pretty," etc.. It's so difficult to separate oneself from the belief that as a woman, if I am not externally beautiful and desirable, than I am not worthwhile, or worth anything.
ReplyDeleteI've seriously been wrestling with this. But the wrestling part is always a good sign for me. It means that God is at work. The glorious and grace-filled part of it is that no one can actually be satisfied by the validation of self-worth that being beautiful or handsome or successful in any way brings. It's possible to be deceived into thinking that those things make oneself valuable just as easily as we are deceived that if we aren't beautiful or successful that we aren't valuable. We are easily deceived. But God is faithful! And He is ever revealing the dark, hurting places in the hearts of His people. And in His pouring out of grace over me, He speaks softly and gently at times saying, "Child, you are mine. You desire to be known and accepted by people, but I, your Father and Creator, know you more intimately than you can ever imagine. You are fearfully and wonderfully made and even when you believe lies that lead you to the pits of despair, you cannot escape my relentless love and pursuit of you." Other times, He roars and it comes at me more like, "Child, you are mine!!! Put away those lies and all of your scheming to feel worthy and worship me. I alone am worthy of your whole heart. Come to me and see yourself as I see you!"
Really, when I mull all of this over before the Lord, He reminds me that not being good enough is the entire point. That is the gospel: I am broken, God is mighty to save, Jesus is my Savior. I want my life to show the abundance of God's grace - His beauty. It seems silly when I stop and investigate the thoughts-emotions-actions cycles and realize that I'm acting from a place of thinking/feeling a need to appear beautiful to others. What I'm really doing then is trying to grow my kingdom, to create followers after my glory. Lord, stay my heart, soul, and mind against this! I need help in crucifying these desires - because Jesus is better. Jesus is the only One who I want to point others to. Jesus is better than the approval of people or the affection of a man. Jesus is better than me feeling like I'm pretty. Jesus intimately knows me, relentlessly pursues me, and is ever jealous after me. Lord, help this to be the light that floods out all of the dark places of lies. Guard our hearts and make us fervent after You. Help us to see Your beauty and glory. I want to bask in who You are and have every thought about myself be enshrouded with the forethought of "This is who made me and I am _______."