December 8, 2011
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Through the looking glass
I brush my makeup on quickly, doing my best to avoid actually looking at myself in the mirror. I’ve sworn off mirrors for awhile. No, I don’t think it’s vanity to use a mirror. I’m simply trying to crucify my counterfeit god. A counterfeit god is anything you spend a great deal of time, energy, or money worshipping. My self-image has been an obsession that has demanded far too many of my personal resources for far too long. I am weary of serving this god…it has left me increasingly unsatisfied and empty. The obsession must cease.
Does this obsession mean I am vain? Surely not! I would think it is quite the contrary! Vanity is primping in the mirror in pious self admiration. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Though I stare into the mirror more often than I’d care to admit, it is more out of self loathing than out of vanity. I look in the mirror and I see fat; a belly stretched by three pregnancies and a waist that no longer sits where it used to. I see brown spots smattering my cheeks and nose like paint splatters. I see lines etching my forehead and eyes. And I am sad. The longer I look, the more faults I notice. When I say something negative about my appearance, I am not fishing for compliments; I am simply stating the truth about how I see myself.
If I could just lose weight. But the truth is, no amount of weight loss would make me perfectly happy. At my wedding, I was 117 and the skinniest I’d ever been. Though it felt pretty good, I still thought I needed to lose just a little more. But with a BMI of 19.1, I was bordering on what is considered an ”unhealthy” weight. Nope. Weight loss doesn’t solve all your problems. My skin was nearly perfect when I married – I didn’t even wear foundation for my wedding. But I still saw so many things that I wanted to change about my face. It’s so much harder after having a baby. I do not feel pretty or desirable. I obsess and agonize over everything. I diet beyond what is healthy for a nursing mom. And I have actually made the mistake of eating too few calories that my body enters starvation mode and I cannot lose weight at all.
How did I get to be so obsessed with my looks? It started when someone said “you are beautiful”. And with those words, I heard: “You are valuable because you are beautiful”. Thus it follows that if I become less beautiful, I would also be less valuable. But as a child of God, I am not valuable to him because I am beautiful; I am beautiful because he values me.
So here is the good news; three days ago, I sacrificed this idol of self-loathing. I am not going to linger in front of the mirror any more. I am not going to weigh myself up to 8 times in a single day, expecting the scale to change. It’s depressing! It’s exhausting! And being obsessed about my weight and my image hasn’t made me lose an ounce. So here is my path going forward; I will do the right thing by eating right and exercising. But I will give the results to God. I will not stop and stare sadly into the mirror. I will spend more time serving my Omnioptent God than being a slave to the god of self. It’s been an amazing three days already. I already feel lighter in my spirit.
Comments (1)
So glad to hear you say this. You are so much more than your looks. “Looknot on his
countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for
[the LORD seeth] not as man seeth; for man looketh
on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” I Sam 16.7 The more you focus on serving, as unto the Lord, those children, who have changed your shape, and your husband and the ones God has put in your life , the more beautiful you will be to the only one whose opinion ultimately matters. I already see new beauty when I look at my daughter, the concientious on- the- job wife and mother. I wouldn’t trade her for a skinny beauty who worries about her looks.