Image:
I meet with quite a few amazing young ladies and this is something I know I need to post just out of my own experience and hearing each of their hearts. I struggled with an eating disorder for about two years and know the pressure that we can place ourselves under. If you struggle with any issues of self-image or self-worth, please follow these little guidelines for recapturing a right image of one who is made in His likeness:
Things to rid:
- TV: yes, I said it. I can't tell you how much my life changed when we got rid of TV at my last house (the Bachelorette Pad). It got rid of the constant mirror that I held next to my own to compare myself to anything and everything walking/sitting/catwalking. My husband and I also don't have one now and it means we actually talk and just love on one another (and really like each other more and more). The likelihood of us ever getting one is slim to none after experiencing life without it. That is what actually happens when you get rid of it :)
- Magazines: not Martha of course (although my husband would say magazines like that give women a false sense of what is physically possible-good man). I mean magazines such: People/In Touch/US Weekly (you don't know those people...), Vogue/Glamour/Cosmo/Mademoiselle/etc. This was also another step we took at the Bachelorette Pad.
- Friends: no, not really get rid of your friends but make sure you are surrounding yourself with people who have a right understanding of who they are (in God's eyes). Surround yourself with people who are encouragers and of course, be one yourself.
Words to rid:
- “not...enough”
- “diet”
- “if only”
- “but she”
Just a few things that changed my life and restored where my beauty lies.
xoxo, AnnaEnjoy the sun/clouds/rain wherever you may be.
Anna, first of all, CONGRATULATIONS on your growing baby! Online isn't my ideal forum for such congratulations, but I might as well go ahead and say that I'm excited for you and Matt, and will be praying for y'all. (Yes, I said y'all).
ReplyDeleteI am glad you've posted this, because it's so helpful for women to know that they can experience freedom and recapture the wonder of being beautiful as God's image bearers. And that they can actually be excited for how uniquely God has made them!
This is a subject that breaks my heart, and I constantly pray that somehow God would redeem the hearts of women so they can stand in front of a mirror and proudly declare, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made," with no 'buts and if only's' following their declaration.
Such wise words for our young women. I just spent a week with 12 of the most beautiful girls. I mean beautiful and not one could say they felt beautiful, based on the measure of this world.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot about "image" and "beauty" lately. Specifically the idea that we are made in the Image of God, the whole idea of a Creator, that women are "the fairer sex," and of all that today's media, magazines, clothing companies, etc. tell us women.
ReplyDeleteIt all started when I read on another christian woman's blog: "It takes a good deal of work for most women to look beautiful. There are few “natural beauties." I was disturbed by this. I have always loved the idea of a "Creator." I have always loved when people like you speak of the idea that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Now to think that we, supposedly made in his image, were not created beautiful — beauty is something to strive for.
What if it is a lie that women are supposed to be insanely curvy with a tiny waist like Marilyn Monroe or 5'7" or taller and a size 00 in order to be beautiful? What if we were meant to be just how we each individually were made? What if we really don't need implants and crazy crash diets and kill-your-self exercise programs? Nobody criticizes snowflakes as being more or less beautiful than the next one — whether larger or smaller, more intricate or less. Why people?
On the same line of thought, what if women weren't created with bright red shiny lips and colored eye-lids and extra black long eyelashes, not because their Creator didn't have as good of an "eye for beauty" as we do or because his hand slipped or because he didn't have the time, but because how we were made is true beauty — in spite of how our perspectives have been skewed by other fallen men's perceptions?
We tell our little girls that they are beautiful — fearfully and wonderfully made, even. But do we really believe it? Or does our 3 year old, our 9 year old, our 12 year old need to paint her face — and while she's at it, try to attain the ideal womanly/supermodel-esque figure — in order to be truly "beautiful"? Do we really believe that they are beautiful, just as they are? "Of course we do!" every lovely mother would protest in shock at my question — my insane and somewhat rude question. But then let me ask, at what point does a little girl stop being beautiful without anything added, changed, etc.?
Now, let me tell you, I was a 0 during all of my teen years — naturally, since I played sports. I also just happen to be pretty darn curvy at the same time. I was taller than most of my female friends growing up. And I have dyed my hair purple, highlighted it, and used some fun colors of eye shadow just for fun. But that's the thing — it's for fun. I should never have felt that I "had to" or wasn't beautiful in my sweats with my hair in a ponytail, with no makeup, while I was running my butt off playing sports with the boys. And I shouldn't freak out now when I am a size 4 — worrying what people will say, if they will still want to be my friend, if I will still get as many compliments, if I did something wrong by not eating healthy enough or exercising hard enough. I'm actually healthier now — I don't faint if I miss breakfast or have sweets without eating enough real food first. And yet I feel so inadequate, like such a failure, "ugly," as if I don't measure up to some standard of "beauty" unless I... [fill in the blank].