“In sin-twisted kingdoms, to be beautiful is to be attractive to as many human eyes as possible. But beneath those eyes lie hearts whose visual appetite is insatiable. They flit from post to post, screen to screen, trend to trend — idol to idol — waiting to be satisfied. Nothing will do.” Tanner Swanson
Nothing will do
Another day of looking in the mirror and only seeing faults. The odd pimple on your forehead, the nose with one too many freckles, the smile that would not measure up to a Colgate ad. The curves of your body in all the wrong places, your complexion too pale or too dark. Another day of hearing the mocking voice say, “You don’t measure up.” Another day of trying everything the cosmetic world has to offer. Contouring, collagen, Botox, implants, and anything from waxing to shaving to epilating to laser in the quest to remove unwanted hair.
Try a cat eye to make your eyes pop or a new base for fuller coverage. Wear baggy clothes to hide the shape of your body. Wear clothes that make you feel good and become an object to be conquered. Another day of wishing for a flatter tummy, or a peachier bum, the summer body that makes heads turn. And strangely we cannot seem to figure out why lust and love get confused. You criticize yourself with demeaning words, trying any fad that is out there. You compare yourself to movie screens and filtered pictures and unrealistic beauty standards. You know that physical beauty brings with it a certain privilege.
Another day of trying to solve your problems with a relationship. My guess is that you still feel like an object used for someone else’s whims and pleasures. They only call when they are lonely, or claim to be emotionally unavailable and not ready for commitment, because social media and endless dating apps sell the lie that maybe there is perfect out there.
So, you try to fix yourself, you try to look better, be skinnier, dress nicer, dye your hair, microblade your eyebrows, you post on Instagram and you BeReal in unrealistic settings; all to what? To try and prove your worth? Your value? Your beauty? You try your very best to rid yourself of all the things in the mirror you dislike, and you miss it.
We all miss it.
“It comes at us from virtually every angle: television, movies, music, magazines, books, and advertisements. In nearly perfect unison, they paint for us a picture of what really matters. And what matters most for women, they insist, is beauty – physical beauty.” Nancy Leigh DeMoss
What makes someone beautiful?
Something that is beautiful delights your senses or your mind.
We use the word to describe scenic landscapes or glorious sunsets. The newest sportscar, classical music and art. A plate of food, photos, the movie we saw on the weekend. It is almost as if beauty has become synonymous with perfection and anything less than falls short.
What if we have understood beauty wrong? What if we have made it something grounded in ideas lower than what it is? Is someone joyfully suffering through cancer beautiful? Is the cocoon of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, beautiful? Is a farmland, freshly ploughed and planted, waiting for seeds to sprout, something to behold? What about a worm, or a slug? A newly born baby covered in placenta, its little face swollen from the birthing process. A tree that lost all its leaves in winter. A body in a wheelchair. A face that carries the scars of abuse. Would you use the term beautiful to describe these things? At a surface level; no. But if you look beyond the surface, dig a little deeper, remember the purpose it was created for. If you behold it through the eyes of the One who created this thing, this person, this process of nature, would you maybe dare to say yes? YES, it is beautiful. Why? Because it displays the glory of its Creator.
When I think about my parents I rarely think of outward appearances. I do not see faces or bodies. I look at my mom and I see a woman who chases after God daily, seeking to serve Him in all she does. A prayer warrior dedicated to making sure her children know that they are loved. A grandma who never neglects a moment to play with her grandchildren. I see a safe space to run to, where tears are accepted. I see a woman who cares, who thinks of others as more important, who happily gives more than she takes. And I do not doubt for a moment that she is stunning. Never mind the number of times she complains about her skin showing signs of old age, and her hair that is greying. Never mind that her body has birthed and breastfed children and has been altered by that. Never mind that she cannot afford all that the cosmetic world sells.
I look at my dad and I see a man of strength. Of courage. Someone who loves his family and who will gladly lay down his own life for the lives of his wife and kids. A man who looks difficulty square in the face and challenges its power. A dad who has shown me in a human measure what it means to have a Father. And I have never wondered why my mom still loves my dad after 35 years of marriage. No matter how much his waist circumference has changed. Or how his hair has thinned. Or how his arms no longer carry the strength of his youth.
“The deception that physical beauty is to be esteemed above beauty of heart, spirit, and life leaves both men and women feeling unattractive, ashamed, embarrassed, and hopelessly flawed.” DeMoss
Where does a wrong view of beauty leave us?
I have come to desperately dislike the way we judge people based on what they look like. I carry scars of moments where I have not measured up physically. It has bled deeply into the way I view myself. The thoughts in my mind would probably be able to convince you that I do not believe that my identity lies in being a child of God. That I do not believe that I have been created in the image of my Lord.
“We treat beauty as a means to self-worth: how we look is who we are. But if we would only gaze upon God’s word with the eyes of a child, we might unlatch beauty from its worldly contortions and fasten it instead to the God who is Beauty himself.” Swanson
Reminders come up of when that boy commented that you were ugly. Or the time when someone did not want to date you, but they wanted to use your body. Or when your boyfriend broke up with you, because, in his words, nothing was stopping him from cheating on you. The countless times of working in an industry that judges you solely on what your body is capable of. And often, ruthlessly, what you look like. Every time an opportunity comes and you are not chosen you wonder, am I not aesthetically pleasing? Am I too fat? Is my face too unsymmetrical? When you are not chosen because you do not look a certain way, it reminds you of the times when you were called a big girl. Or when someone told you that your legs are too muscular. And with every single slice of pizza or bite of cake you wish that you were eating something else while loving the taste and wondering what it must be like to not deeply dislike what you see in the mirror. What it must be like to be deemed beautiful or skinny or perfectly built. To be desired enough to be chosen above anyone else.
And you realize that you feel unworthy because years of just not being good enough has made you believe that you would only be worthy if some broken, sinful, changing human chose you for something. Chose to love you. Chose to use you at work. Chose to be your friend. Wanted to be around you. Valued your opinion. And the devil managed to deceive you, slowly but surely. Because finding your worth in the opinion of people will never deliver. It is an empty promise. A culture whose beauty values are constantly changing. The subjective views of people with their own selfish motives. A world that is always coming up with something newer and better.
“Comparison, envy, competitiveness, promiscuity, sexual addictions, eating disorders, immodest dress, flirtatious behavior – the list of attitudes and behaviors rooted in a false view of beauty is long.” DeMoss
Guess what my dear, at any given day you could find countless women with better figures and prettier faces and more feminine mannerisms. Who have mastered the art of natural makeup and the perfect wardrobe. Whose skin is just sun kissed enough and it looks like a pimple has never even been a thought to worry about. And maybe you will not find them in your immediate surroundings, but you will find them on perfectly filtered photos on social media. A constant reminder of just how unworthy you are. And you forget, you completely forget, that a person is more than just their body and their face. You forget, because the world has managed to convince you that that is all that matters.
“We craft our image digitally, championing the appearance of who we are above and beyond who we really, truly are.” Jen Oshman
What does Scripture say?
And yet when we turn to Scripture, it is very clear that outward beauty should be one of the last things we look at to determine someone’s worth. Truthfully, we do not even get to “determine someone’s worth.” Why? Because every single face you see and body you encounter is a person created in the image of a holy, eternal God. And what would He say about beauty?
“But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” - 1 Peter 3:4.
And when Proverbs 31 speaks of a woman that is more precious than jewels, it speaks of a woman who is hardworking, faithful, strong, wise, creative, generous, fearless, dignified, joyful, kind, loving and then, “charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain BUT a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
How to reshape your thoughts
When you try to be someone else, you rob the world of the beauty of your uniqueness. You rob your friends, family, husband, children, employers, colleagues, the people you are called to minister and witness to. You rob them of a vessel, created by a Father, knitted together in love. How? Because there is no one else like you. No one else with your special blend of talents, gifts, personality, and character. No one else with your levels of faith, or life experiences and trials. No one else who views the world exactly through your eyes and thoughts and reasoning. No one else who laughs like you do. Or cares and loves like you do. No one who can speak words with such wisdom or encourage at the right moment. No one.
Go look for them on Instagram, TikTok, Bumble or Tinder. Go swipe or scroll or stalk or search all you want, and you will not find a single person in this world that is exactly like you.
The Sovereign Creator of this universe has spoken life over you and knitted you together in your mother’s womb for His plans and purposes. And they are plans and purposes and spaces and relationships and ministries and jobs that your unique little puzzle piece fits perfectly into. Find the people who look beyond your face value. The people who long to know what makes you special. Who learn about your quirks, your banter, your moments of wisdom. Who recognize that your silence points to a heavy heart and an overthinking mind. That your laughter lights up a dull day. That you love talking about things you are passionate about. That you enjoy deep conversations. That you struggle to trust and who try to not break that trust. Find the people who deem it a joy to know you and not the ones who only want to be around you because it makes them look good. AND, be that person! The one who looks beyond the surface to the hidden treasure behind it. Not every treasure will be yours to find, or keep, or share in. But embrace the treasures that the Lord brings across your path wholeheartedly for however long you get the privilege and praise the Lord for His gift.
And on days where you wake up, feeling undesirable. And every mirror points out a different flaw. And every social media picture tells you just how far you fall short. I challenge you to think about the very Son of God. Jesus Christ. The One who left behind all His glory, majesty, power, splendor, and beauty and took on a body of flesh. A human body in which “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” – Isaiah 53: 2-3
Christ was rejected, He was discarded, He was condemned to a cross by the very people He had created. And one of the cruelest, most horrific, bloody, broken, unthinkable horrors; the cross of Christ. That is the very horror that paid the price for our sins to be pardoned. Our debt to be paid. What sets us free, determines our identity. Something so horrific; beautiful beyond compare. A beauty that overflows into endless worship.
So don’t you dare say that beauty is defined by pretty faces and whatever shape of body the world is lusting after. Beauty lies beyond the surface. Beauty lies in the purpose of what something or someone was created for. And the only One who is worthy of determining the definition of beauty, invites you in, dies so that you may live, speaks eternal life over you and calls you His own. He is never changing. His love is not dependent on what you look like. In fact, His love for you is not even dependent on you, its dependent on Jesus and His work on the cross and the burden of your sin that he carried so that you could be redeemed.
The next time you tell someone they are beautiful, I hope you are gazing beyond their external appearance, to the hidden person of who God created them to be.
What is a woman? Poem by Jackie Hill Perry
(emphasis added)
The other day a young lady, brown as the melanin in my daughter’s eyes
Said behind a mic that she hated being a woman.
She wanted to know what it meant to be one.
And I have often wondered the same.
I looked around for the teaching of such to tell me of myself.
We all learn to be by imitation or indoctrination.
Mama and media can’t help but train,
Tutor us into carbon copies of themselves
So then, knowing who we are or what we should be,
Is really understanding whose costumes we wear on most days,
Whose skeletons we switch with when Adam took his nap.
I was told a woman could not truly be herself.
That is, if herself is not light enough, dark enough, or if her hair is the Rapunzel replica,
Or if it to be Underground Railroad, for those cotton active men to stomach.
I was told that my body is neither belonging to me nor its beauty innate,
But that I am not gorgeous unless told by another woman’s son to be so.
When did the mouth of men, in whose image women are not made in,
Begin to damage us so silently?
Maybe it was when we began believing the voices that have no deity in it
I was told a woman should not submit, should not be meek,
That that type of behavior was only for women who treated their voice like a secret.
I was told not to be a secret but a siren, to be as Moschetti as I can
And honor my opinions at the expense of respect.
While some men may believe themselves to have liberty over a woman’s body
And taught how to destroy as only depravity can predict.
We have equally learned how to tear and rip
And undo dignity with a mere sentence or a squint.
It’s called strong by society.
They tell us that’s what a backbone looks like.
But beautiful is the spine that remembers where it came from,
The Lexus knowing of self.
Not being determined by every wind of doctrine and dust, but God Himself.
We must alert the deep misunderstandings that compose themselves
As empowerment, as freedom.
Liberation has never come by way of unbelief.
Eve another taillight by finding beauty in lies,
But only a naked body and a husband that forgot her first name.
We women must be smarter, must be wiser,
Must be bent on loving truth no matter how contradicting it is to a dying culture.
I tell you: A woman is no fool unless she chooses to be.
If you ask me, “What is a woman?”
I would tell you that she is a bone made alive with distinctions that set her apart,
As does the difference between a firefly and a new poem.
A woman is not a man.
Her calling is not a synonym of inferiority.
Her distinctions are not the child of patriarchy.
They come from a creative God.
Did you see His fingerprints in your hips?
The whistling shadow of His mind when your body became home to another name
That called you Mommy while all the gladness you forgot could exist.
A woman submits to her God, her husband, her church.
She is no weak-willed or brittle-backed woman,
But only as strong as humility and faith may identify her to be.
They say, “Submission sounds like servant.”
They say, “That sounds like something to rebel against.”
I say, “Ain’t it funny that servant is repulsive to everyone but God?”
And we wonder why we can’t recognize His face.
If you asked me, “What is a woman?”
I would tell you that she is a sister to all,
Even those whose blood is not of the same roots,
But who is still as kin as her mama’s firstborn.
And she treats these sisters like a wintered quilt,
Making sure her mouth does not unstitch that which was made to keep cold hearts warm.
We are made up of nurture and everything comfortable,
And that is why we feel so deep, why we cry so sudden.
Because the emotions that make us woman,
Don’t make us unstable but earnest refuse to the chaos where our ribs once set
We are necessary and nuanced at best.
But a woman should be nothing more or less than what God made her to be.
Anything that defines our being,
That does not shimmer and sing of Christ and His wisdom,
Is a definition destined for flames.
If you asked me, “What is a woman?”
I would simply tell you, “Ask God who made her.”
References
DeMoss, N. L. (2001). Lies Women Believe and The Truth That Sets Them Free. Chicago: Moody Publishers.
Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/beautiful
Jackie Hill Perry, ". T. (2018, September 27). Revive Our Hearts. Retrieved from Revive Our Hearts: https://www.reviveourhearts.com/events/true-woman-18/message-3-truth-about-ourselves/transcript/
Oshman, J. (2022). Cultural Counterfeits: Confronting 5 Empty Promises of Our Age and How We Were Made for So Much More. Illinois: Crossway.
Swanson, T. (2021, September 29). Desiring God. Retrieved from https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-you-look-is-who-you-are
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