How To Embrace God's Standards For Beauty In A World Obsessed With Body Image
Body Image
To be quite honest, I didn’t want to write this blog. To write about body image, when I often struggle so much with my own body image, seems almost hypocritical to some degree. What God has taught me is I will never be able to talk, counsel, and/or write about anything, if I wait until I get to the place where I believe I need to be completely fixed to discuss these things.
So, as you read this keep in mind that I am speaking to myself as much (if not more) as I am speaking to you. Sometimes we just need reminders about what is important. Although our physical bodies and our body image is really important, it pales in comparison to the importance of the state of our hearts and souls.
Just about every time I get onto any type of social media I find an ad promising to help me lose 15 pounds or a miracle serum that will take ten years off of my face. We are inundated with the message that what we look like on the outside is most important. Because we live in a world completely obsessed with our physical beauty, we will struggle with these earthly things.
Sometimes we buy into that lie. I know I do. We believe if we can look a certain way then we would be fulfilled and happy. Beauty and the striving of beauty can be just as much an idol as anything else in our life. Unfortunately, this hits women far stronger than men due to how we are wired.
Wired To Be Desired
We are wired to want to be desired. Yes, men want that too, but it is so much stronger for women. Think about every movie with any beautiful actress. There is almost a scene in every movie where she is all dressed up and looking beautiful where the man is completely taken back by her beauty. Inside of us, we all yearn for that same thing in our own life, and the world has told us that we must be beautiful to receive that.
So, we buy the miracle serum and fitness plan, because it promises us we can get to that place where we can be desirable to. That where we are, is simply not good enough. But, if you have this amazing product, then you will be.
As I am writing this, I am thinking, “I sure hope I am not the only woman that I am speaking to”, because this reality feels so strong in my life at times. To be quite honest, it has become an idol, and I hope you would take some time to wrestle with this reality as well.
Has this striving for the world’s standard of beauty become an idol in my life?
Please know that I don’t believe there is anything wrong with buying serums, makeup, or fitness plans. We have freedom to purchase and use these things. It is more about the motivation of your heart than the actual use of these things.
What We Dwell On Matters
The problem is when we begin to use worldly standards we can never actually meet, but this is what we expect the miracle serums and fitness plans to do for us. Then we become disappointed and try even harder. Or, we just give up. Either option is not good for our hearts or our souls. So, what then? If it is not good for us to simply give up and not care but also not good to simply try harder, where does that leave us?
It leaves us with changing our focus. How that looks will vary from person to person, but I believe we all can find ourselves in two camps. One camp is where we care too much. Our physical beauty is all we can see. We are doers and fixers. We see imperfections and do something about it. We buy the serums, workout, eat healthy, etc. Our life in some ways revolves around our outward presentation.
Then you have the other camp. This camp is just as unhappy with their outward appearance, but it causes them to give up. So, they avoid the mirrors, avoid clothes shopping, and avoid certain activities (i.e. swimming, working out). Although it seems from the outside they don’t care, the opposite is actually true. They care greatly, but their response is avoidance rather than action.
The reality is that neither of these two camps are healthy. If you constantly focus on what you can do to make yourself look better or you simply avoid the thought and/or action of it, both of these responses have a focus issue.
Focus On The Right Things
Instead, the focus is on dwelling on the right things. This doesn’t mean you don’t think about your outward appearance or do things to enhance it. It simply means that this isn’t your sole focus. So much of this process plays inside of your head. A great indicator of where you fall is to sit in front of a mirror, look at yourself, and take awareness of your response.
Is it to see wrinkles and look up a serum or to see cellulite and look for low-calorie recipes?
Is it to want to run away as soon as you look at yourself in the mirror? To simply avoid rather than to face the issues you notice?
After you have been able to take inventory of this, it is also incredibly important to take notice of your inner dialogue. Are you simply taking notice of all of your “flaws”? Are you calling yourself ugly names because of how you look? Are you obsessing about a certain flaw that you simply can’t get past when you look at yourself?
If we answer “yes” to these questions, we have a focus issue. We can’t allow our thoughts to take over and tell us how incapable, ugly, fat, etc… we are. Instead, we push back on those thoughts by identifying things we appreciate about ourselves both physically and from a character perspective.
When we dwell on the negative aspects of our physical presentation and that is all we see, we can’t appreciate the positive gifts God has given us.
Embracing God’s Standard of Beauty
Whether we like what we see when we look in the mirror or we don’t, the reality is the image looking back at us will change. Nothing in this world is permanent, especially our physical presentation. A huge part of embracing God’s standard is also embracing the reality that everything is temporary.
We only have so long on this earth. How do we want to live it? Do we want to live hyper-focused on the image looking back at us in the mirror, or do we want to live our life fully alive and focused on the things that matter?
The problem with the world’s standard of beauty is that it keeps us from living. Everything has to be in the right lighting, with the right filter, and posed in the right way, rather than embracing the moment you are in.
For so many of us, aging is incredibly scary. For those who that isn't the case, it is probably because they are not old enough yet. We fear the future and what it might bring. But for the woman who chooses to focus on their positive traits, to challenge negative thoughts about her physical body, and embrace God's standards of beauty, she doesn't fear. She is confident.
“Strength and honor are her clothing; she is confident about the future”
Proverbs 31:25
Defined By Christ
She is able to be confident despite her aging face and body because of what she is wearing. No, I am not talking about physical clothes. I am talking about her strength and honor. Clothed with Christ's righteousness is what really defines her, not what she looks like, what size clothes she wears, or the amount of wrinkles on her face.
She is defined by Christ. His standard becomes her standard. She can workout, eat healthy meals, and use anti-aging serums, but this doesn't define her. If we want to embrace God's standard of beauty, we have to be defined by the right things. Ultimately, that must be Christ, and Christ alone.
In Christ,
Taylor Draughn, LPC, LMFT
