My Body. It’s always been something that I have had. I was born in it. So, why then has it been my enemy for so long? It has two arms with hands attached that allow me to type on a keyboard, just like I’m doing now. It has two legs that take me anywhere that I want to go. What is it about this body that causes me so much frustration and distraction from the important things in my life? I just turned thirty years old, I have birthed two children and my physic didn’t just zap back to the way it used to be. I still focus far too much on the way that I look and whether my shape fits the “norm”, whatever that is. I worry about how I will look when bathing suit season hits. The little voice in my head asks if i look too old with this hair, too young with these clothes, too fat with this current shape I’ve taken on, too underdressed or overdressed and the list goes on.
I am not exactly sure when I decided that I didn't like things about my body, but I do know that it seems to be a phenomenon that hits around teenage years for every girl and never seems to stop. When I was about 13 I had decided that my nose was too big, and that I was too fat. I remember when I was in the 7th grade, a boy that I had a crush on told me that I looked like Pinocchio. Those words really cut me and I started to believe that I was ugly because of that. I can't even tell you how much time I spent worrying about what people thought about my nose. Still to this day I have to fight the urge to hide my profile. That is not ok! We are created exactly the way that we are supposed to be and we should not let other people define our beauty. I had also decided that I was too fat. I was not, but somehow I had convinced myself that what I saw in the mirror was unacceptable. I'm not sure exactly who I was trying to please. When we decide that we don't like something about ourselves, we get this "they" in our minds that we try and prove ourselves to. Most people around us do not really pay that close attention to the things we don't like about ourselves. We are never going to achieve the goal that we set out to reach, if that goal is about pleasing other people. There will always be a new opinion about how we look, fashion will change, the ideal body shape will take on a new form and these people (whoever they are) that we are changing for will never really care about all of our efforts to fit their mold. Because the crazy thing is, we are all those people! We are all worried about these vessels we are in. We can't be concerned with what "they" think anymore. We have to stand up for ourselves and tell our mind that we are beautiful just the way we are. We don't have to look in the mirror and tear down what we see, we can be a friend to our appearance because God molded us exactly the way he wanted us. When it really boils down to it, the issue is not really our body, it is our focus. Philippians 2:3-4 tells us
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should not only look to your own interests , but also to the interests of others.”
You see when I spend so much of my time worrying about my body, my hair, my appearance, my focus is solely on myself. Selfish ambition and conceit for me in this scenario is to trying to look a certain way, not for a godly purpose, but to glorify myself. Do I think it is ungodly to be aware of your appearance and to take care of yourself ? No. I do however believe that if we are constantly focusing on our own image, how are we showing others the image of Christ? How are we taking the time to care for the poor, the needy and the sick if all we can think about is our own body. May we always let our beauty be the inward person of the heart. May we let our time be focused on growing who we are, not how we look. Let us take our dedication to perfecting our appearance and place it on growing our relationships with those around us. We need to take the time to thank God for the bodies that we do have, and I believe in turn we will begin seeing ourselves in a new light. Focus on the Lord, on others, and on gratefulness and in turn we will see the body that has been our enemy in a entirely new way.
