My Shell

    (I wrote this in August of last year, and while there's more I could add to it or change about it, I'm going to leave it as is. This is my effort to not pick apart things I've written but instead just to get to the point of finishing them and being brave enough to hit publish, however imperfect.) 

 As an early and mid teen, I used to look at pictures of other girls my age and notice that their arms were more toned than mine, their legs were smaller, their faces cuter, their teeth straighter, their hair smoother. All of them looked better than me, and I kind of wondered how they had gotten such lovely packaging and I had not. It wasn’t that I was insecure, I just truly believed that I wasn’t very pretty at all, and in a sad way, I just accepted it as fact and tried to make the best of it. I wanted to be smaller and skinnier but it never bothered me enough to diet or deny myself of food at any time. Thanks to one comment from an unguarded tongue about my hips being big, I spent year after year thinking that I could never look like a normal person and I would always look abnormal and weird. That one comment struck me so deeply that I believed for years that any time I walked through a door, the first thing people noticed was probably the size of my hips. I hated it. I thought that since one person had mentioned it, that meant that everyone else in the world had noticed them, too. I was destined for a life of being the ugly girl and just getting through every social event hoping not to be noticed.

     (This would be a good time to stop and say that we should NEVER tell a young teenage girl that any part of her is too big, too small, weird, or unusual. In fact, we shouldn’t make comments about people’s physical appearance at all, especially pertaining to things they can’t change. All it takes is one stupid little comment from someone to plant seeds of major insecurity that don’t need to be there.)

     Fast forward many, many years, and I eventually realized that I didn’t actually have the worst hips ever, in fact, they were pretty much normal. It relieved me, and I was thankful to finally see myself objectively, but it also saddened me to realize just how much that one comment had affected how I thought of myself, how I carried myself, and how I interacted with people all of those years. When you think that you are way uglier than everyone else, sometimes you don’t feel worthy to be their friend. You feel like all people see in you is the ugly parts and they must hate them as much as you do. In my teenage years, I didn’t have the maturity to ignore a negative comment. I didn’t have the maturity to understand that even if I was ugly, it honestly didn’t matter. I didn’t have the maturity to realize that small or big, skinny or not, frizzy-haired or model-worthy, I was viewed by God as an equal to all my fellow brothers and sisters, and I was loved and valued because I was created by Him. As my pastor recently said, “We feel superior or inferior because we measure ourselves in the context of others, not Christ.” It took a long time to truly understand that God doesn’t see my hips or freckles or scars as much as He sees my heart, my mind, how I live my life for and before Himself. 

     The Bible says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made; made in the image of God Himself. The world tells us to love ourselves and to be comfortable in our own bodies because we’re amazing and perfect the way we are. (But if you don’t look a certain way, you probably won’t be as popular. Irony, much?) It’s not a huge surprise that sometimes it’s hard to remember what God says about us when the world is screaming something so opposing from every direction. It's no surprise that we never find the confidence in ourselves the world tells us to, because it simply doesn't exist within ourselves but can only be found in Christ. I can only say what so many before me have said: we judge ourselves by standards of beauty and appearance that were never ordained by God. We have been fed a lie of what beauty looks like, and we’ve been foolish enough to believe it. It is an empty and selfish pursuit to try to find worth in what we are alone, and even more so in our outward appearance. We can boast in nothing but the Lord. Just as being discontent with our bodies is ultimately ungratefulness towards God, taking pride in any part of ourselves is to disregard the fact that we are nothing apart from Him.

     Praise God for His mercy and His word. We have to pray for faith and the ability to believe and take to heart what God tells us is true, and He tells us that we are wonderfully made. That’s not just for the people who post beach selfies and look like their greatest life achievement is getting the perfect tan. It’s the gospel truth for all of us. We are not loved by Him because we are beautiful, but as His love changes and sanctifies us, His light will shine through us and that is what truly makes us beautiful. 

     A year or two after I realized that I wasn’t actually a ginormous ugly duckling of a human being, I had an epiphany that I should totally lose 10 pounds. Because, um, I just should. I started skipping lunch a few days a week, which worked out perfectly because my schedule didn’t really have a lunch slot anyway, so it’s not like I was doing it on purpose. I made a point of working out for at least 40 minutes as many days a week as possible and started denying myself of a lot of food I had previously indulged in. I lost five pounds! I was pretty happy and amazed that I had such self control! I had always loved good food and found joy in gathering around food with family and friends any time of the day or night. The thought of losing weight crossed my mind but was never an actual desire or goal, because good food and good times were more important. But, at some point, being 5’ 4” and a completely average weight wasn’t satisfactory and I needed to do the adult thing and care about being the skinniest version of myself I could be.  

     This honestly is such a sensitive subject, and I know I’ll probably never figure it all out until I get to heaven. But in my journey of loathing parts of me/trying to be better/comparing myself to others, etc., I’ve noticed one thing that all of these vain strivings have in common: self-focus. When I spend time thinking about my flaws or how I could shed another few pounds, how can I possibly do those things and glorify God at the same time? When I spend time wishing that something about my physically appearance would have been just a little different, how can I praise God for all of His manifold blessings at the same time?? I can’t. 

     I have been convicted ten times over that to be ungrateful for anything God has given me is to say that He could have done it better, to say that His ways are not perfect. And when you look at it that way, you view yourself differently - you view yourself with thankfulness. You are grateful to have limbs that work and taste buds that allow you to experience the thousands of flavors He’s created. And suddenly, you realize that He has not only given you everything you need for life and godliness, but He’s given you the exact body He wanted you to have; the exact body He foreordained for you to inhabit during your time on this earth.

     Taking care of our bodies is indeed biblical, and that probably looks a little different for everyone. But so often the fine line gets crossed, and “taking care of our bodies”  turns into borderline obsession over just losing the few pounds that make us ugly and pure self-focus and selfishness. I know it can happen because it’s happened to me. 

     When I get to heaven, God isn’t going to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, for losing that weight and staying trim.” In fact, I don’t think my hip size is going to matter at all in the long run. I do hope and pray He’ll say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” for a life lived completely surrendered to Him, for a life viewed as He views it, even down to my earthly shell - my body.