Popular: Boys, Booze, and Jesus

by Tindell Baldwin

  Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear:

  Forget your people and your father’s house.

  The king is enthralled by your beauty;

  honor him, for he is your lord.

  PSALM 45:10-11

  CHAPTER 14

  THROUGH MY MIRROR

  If you could see yourself through My mirror

  You wouldn’t grab at your sides or complain about your smile

  Your eyes wouldn’t be too big or small

  And your features would be worthwhile

  You would brag about how your butt looks in jeans

  No matter how big the size may seem

  You wouldn’t find the fat you hate

  Or every reason to try and lose weight

  If you would take a look through My eyes

  Your body wouldn’t be your greatest fear

  Or a goal that repeats every new year

  You wouldn’t spend hours primping

  Only to complain about your curls now limping

  The gym would be a thing of the past

  And diet ice cream would never last

  Dear daughter, you must have forgotten

  In My eyes you have no flaws

  Each curve was constructed, each eye was placed

  When I put you together My heart began to race

  Beautiful daughter of the King, won’t you listen, won’t you come near

  You are the crown of creation I long to hold dear

  There are no mistakes, no marks I don’t know

  I formed you with neatness and care to show

  You are My beauty reflected on earth

  No sunset can depict how much you are worth

  So smile proud for your Father, the Creator

  He finds you worthy; He holds you high and wants you to see

  See through the eyes of the King

  So take a look with Me again at the mirror

  Let Me fade into your beauty and watch the image become clearer

  Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

  1 PETER 3:3-4

  I was twenty years old when I felt God calling me to give back to Him. He was calling me to serve at the youth camp that had been so instrumental (now that I look back on it!) in my teen years. Kristian had led worship there, and I already knew I loved the camp, so I applied to be an intern. I went into the summer knowing I’d be working long days running the small details of the camp. I was ready, though. At the beginning of the summer, the interns and employees took a trip to Africa, and I was eager to see how the rest of the world lived. After we went to Africa, we came back to Florida to set up for camp and to get ready for the twelve hundred kids who would come through each week.

  It was the hardest work I’d ever done, but God showed up in huge ways. It was the first time I shared my testimony since recommitting my life to Christ. I spent a lot of time with kids who were just like me. I put my sweat and tears into the camp and got more out of it than I ever believed possible. I saw the Lord use my broken past to help other girls like me. It was a great summer, but it was also very trying. I was working eighteen-hour days on little sleep and got injured very early on in my time there. I had to fly home and get cortisone shots in my hip. I took an hour off a week for physical therapy, but because I was unwilling to give up a lot of my time with the kids, I didn’t get the rest I needed. Every day we woke up at six and got ready. We had an intern meeting, followed by the morning session. The interns ran the cameras, controlled the lights, worked the store, and basically served the kids who came through each week.

  That was still a summer of recovery for me. At the end of camp, the leaders took each intern aside to give them encouragement and, if needed, criticism. I was ready for some vital encouragement after fully committing my life to this camp. I’d given everything I had, and I desperately wanted to hear that my work was good. When my turn came, the leaders of the camp told me I’d done a great job, but then they said something that stunned me. They said I would always have to rise above my beauty. They told me I’d be taken advantage of because I was a beautiful girl and that I would constantly be fighting circumstances I hadn’t created. I walked out of the meeting and almost cried. That was all they could tell me after months of backbreaking work? That my beauty would get in the way of my cause? I was in shock. It was the first time I realized how much I resented how other people saw me. I hated that they might be right, that for the rest of my life I would have to fight against some stereotype. And it hurt that after all I’d given, this was what they’d focused on.

  I wanted to be taken seriously, and I should have been. I trusted these leaders to see beyond the physical. I wanted to be given the kind of encouragement I so desperately needed. More than anything else, I wanted them to recognize that God was working in my life. On that day, my past became more real than ever before. The leaders at the Christian youth camp had just taught me something I’d never forget: some people will only take you at face value and will never look deeper. And the people who taught me this were Christians.

  This challenged everything I thought about becoming a Christian. I thought I was leaving the past behind me, moving on to bigger and better things. Instead, the same struggles were present in my Christian life. I was actually doing something with my life, but all the leaders could see was what appeared to be a pretty face. It was a blow I didn’t forget, and even now I wonder if they were right. I wonder how I would have been treated if I’d been Inker from the middle school class. When she came to me asking if she could show me her heart and soul, I listened and found a way to support her. If I’d looked like Inker, acted like Inker, demanded their attention like Inker, would they have looked past my appearance and instead seen beauty and courage in my work?

  The truth is, there are times when beauty can feel like more of a burden than a blessing. If you’re attractive, you’re constantly praised for being so. Sometimes it’s as if that’s all you have to offer. But if you aren’t told you’re beautiful, if you don’t hear that kind of praise, you’ll do anything to get it. As a woman, you have so much more to offer the world than just your appearance. Okay, maybe some of you look great doing your work, but that’s not what you’re here for. God’s design for your beauty is to express a part of Himself that isn’t generally expressed in men. And He made you uniquely beautiful among women. Think about the most beautiful place you’ve ever been. Didn’t you look at it and think, How can there not be a God?

  Women are a representation of the beauty that God is, and while some of the world may tell you one thing because of your hair, or your eyes, or your skin, or your size, God looks at you and sees that you are perfect—your whole package. If the world has been telling you something besides that, then take heart in 1 John 5:19: “The whole world is under the control of the evil one,” which means that anything this world has told you isn’t true. The truth is, God believes you’re beautiful and He has made you in His image just as you are. He created vast oceans, tree-topped mountains, and flowers that can fill a field, but when He made you, He said you were “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

  Women have a unique struggle to not let our looks define us. Beauty is not all you have to offer the world or men. You are unique in your perspectives, opinions, and in what you can do for the Lord. We were created for more than just being looked at, and yet we scrutinize one another brutally, we judge and are judged by our appearance far more than we like to admit. I feel Satan has an easy time attacking women, because for the most part we’re an insecure bunch, constantly trying to lose weight, look taller (or for me, shorter), or whatever else. The worst part is we egg each other on. Could you imagine what your friends would say if during a body-bashing session you said, “I think I look pretty good”? They’d stare at you in awe and then talk
about you for the next few weeks. We have this ideal that’s unreachable. Society pushes it, and we drink it in along with cleanses, flushes, and diet pills. Our appearance is constantly thought about, talked about, and criticized, so we grow up learning that we’re imperfect, that all that matters is how good we look in our new jeans. I am telling you, God made you for so much more. He created your beauty as an asset, not the be-all and end-all.

  At seventeen, however, I had to be seen as attractive, and to be seen as attractive, I believed I had to be desired by men. To prove that I was desired by men, I thought I had to give my body away. There were countless times I drank until I almost passed out and found myself in bed with an undeserving guy. I woke up with guilt, feeling more alone than when the night had started. I didn’t value my body, so I wore clothes that sent a clear message to “look all you want.”

  Today it’s even easier for girls to send that message: a quick picture and you can send your body via Internet. It breaks my heart that this is the new trend, boys getting the benefit without any of the commitment. I have to think that God is weeping at each click, each time you value yourself as nothing more than a piece of media. I don’t care who’s doing it, how easy it is, or if you believe it means nothing. You’re worth more than a media message; you’re worth the lavished love of a King. You’re His queen, come to earth to display His loving beauty and deep relational heart. You’re worth more than Friday night drunken make-outs, one-night stands, and dirty picture messages. You are worth the King of the world giving His only Son to be killed in the most painful way possible for a chance to be with you. Can you see that? Jesus came and died to have a relationship with you. It wasn’t because you look good in a miniskirt or because you can roll a cherry stem into a knot with your tongue; it’s because of who you are. Maybe that’s scary to you, because you don’t know who you are; you’ve spent your life giving away your body because you believed it was all you had to offer. Beloved, listen to me: that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of what you have to offer. Your beauty is an outward reflection of God’s beautiful work inside you. Your complex heart was made by Him to fill with joy each time you love God enough to respect yourself.

  My need to give myself away came from a desire to be known at a level that I could really feel. I wanted to be appreciated for who I was and thought if I could hook guys in with my body, then they would come to love me. That wasn’t true. Most guys were never interested in any more than what I could offer them for a night. A few of the good ones were, but there was still the expectation of a physical relationship. They were interested in me as long as I’d fulfill their needs when night came. So these guys would be left seemingly satisfied while I was left bruised, wondering why I couldn’t find anyone who loved me. I was looking in all the wrong places. One-night stands do not turn into lasting relationships; I don’t care what he told you in the moment.

  I know what you believe, because I believed it once too. You think it’s not a big deal, everyone’s having sex, he really loves you, or maybe you don’t care whether or not he loves you. Maybe you just want to be loved night by night, feeling that you will gain something each time you give yourself away. It is hurting you, though; you are losing precious pieces of your heart, usually to someone who is unworthy. Once again, sex is a sin that promises instant gratification, but in order to gain it you sacrifice long-term satisfaction. What I didn’t realize is that God knows me. Psalm 139 says He watches everything we do and He searches our hearts, not our faces, to see our desires.

  The following verses from Ezekiel are about the nation of ancient Israel and how the people disregarded God despite all He had done for them. But I believe the passage also provides a picture of what God can do for our mishandled beauty. I’ve phrased it here to reflect the way these verses translated in my life.

  I saw the way you were exposing your body, and I covered your nakedness with my cloak. I took your shame and cleaned your broken heart; I cleaned your cuts and dressed your wounds. I put you in a beautiful dress and adorned you with beautiful jewels. I placed a crown on your head and lifted you up to your rightful place as my queen. Your beauty caused the earth to talk of my splendor, and I made you perfect. Your beauty became an outward adornment in a world of gloom. All who looked at you could see the deep love of a Father.

  EZEKIEL 16:8-14 (PARAPHRASED)

  What if we really believed this—that God has taken our shame onto Himself and made us clean and righteous? For me, the word righteous seems far too dignified. I know what I’ve done with my body and the people I’ve hurt with my words, and “righteous” is much too big for me. I did nothing to deserve my righteousness, but God did everything so that I could have it.

  We can choose to accept His gift of righteousness, though, but many times we don’t. I was so convinced I had to be righteous before I accepted God’s grace that I spent years obsessing over the rules. The point is, if we are waiting to deserve the gift God has given us, we will never deserve it. If we are waiting until the gift is rightfully ours, we will end up burying it in the dirt and never recovering it. God has given you a beautiful gift, not because you deserve it but because He loves you and He loves to lavish you with presents. Isn’t it better when you can look someone in the eye and truly say, “I don’t deserve this”? That makes the gift all the more special. God is holding out a precious gift to you, and if you wait to take it until you clean up your life or get all the rules right, I promise the crown will grow dusty in His hands. He never asks us to clean up our lives to find Him. He just says we need to call out to Him, and He will be there.

  God doesn’t think your struggle is silly, and He knows you’re beautiful, but He also knows your true beauty won’t come from this world. He places things inside you to make you beautiful through Him. I might have known how to wear a low-cut shirt when I was seventeen, but I knew nothing about the beauty God could give me. I was a selfish person, caught up in what I could get from people and who I could use. I was brash and unrelenting in my opinions. After I gave my heart over to Christ, I felt like the Grinch at the end of the story, when his heart grows three sizes. God gave me a love for others and softened my heart. He turned my cynicism into compassion and my brashness into boldness for His cause. I became a beautiful person inside, and I didn’t have to sleep with anyone to attain this.

  I’m sure there are plenty of people who only know God for the beauty He has created. They look at the world around them, and they say, “What a beautiful God.” And you know what? All the while God is saying, “There’s so much more to Me than just My beauty.”

  As women, we know this! There is more to God than the beauty He created, just like there is more to us than our beauty. Maybe we have to spend our lives overcoming what people see, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. I went into that summer with seventeen other interns, and they all saw my picture and immediately thought I was going to be a lazy sorority girl who expected everyone to work for her. (They admitted this to me later.) Some of the guys were rude to me because they assumed I wouldn’t be willing to work. They made fun of my preppy clothes and the fact that I brought a straightener to Africa and blew a fuse that caused the whole hotel to lose power (okay, maybe I deserved being made fun of a little). But at the end of the summer, I’d earned the respect of eleven doubting guys. I showed them I could work hard and that I had things to add to the group because I was a woman, not in spite of the fact that I was a woman.

  Esther was chosen to be queen on the basis of her beauty, but while on the throne she saved God’s people. She changed the fate of a people because of her character (see the book of Esther). Beauty is a gift just like any other quality, but it is not what defines you, just like your ability to play a sport doesn’t make you who you are. Your beauty is an asset that will bring God glory, but so is your kindness, your intelligence, your willingness to work, your fairness, your courage, and your humility. When He looks into your soul, He sees all of you, and that is beautiful.

  Did you k
now that whenever God talks about wisdom in the Bible, He uses a feminine pronoun? It’s a little reminder of how much God thinks of our gender.

  Wisdom calls aloud in the street,

  she raises her voice in the public squares;

  at the head of the noisy streets she cries out,

  in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:

  “How long will you simple ones love your simple ways?”

  PROVERBS 1:20-22 (EMPHASIS ADDED)

  When God sees us, He doesn’t just see a pretty face; He sees a voice of wisdom, a heart of compassion, and a spirit of strength. What if we rose to the occasion and started living as the women He created us to be? Think about what we could do for the world if we started taking women at more than face value? I don’t care what the world has told you about who you are and what you bring to the table, the King of the world calls you beautiful and full of wisdom. What greater compliment is there?

  Wisdom takes time and understanding. It doesn’t mean you aren’t going to make a few mistakes along the way. It means you pursue truth and righteousness instead of things that fade.

  Sometimes the wisest thing you can do is say no. I know that today “no” is often considered taboo, but there will come a time when you find that you have to deny some of your senses. But sometimes wisdom is saying no to things you really want. Yes, sin feels good, tastes good, and looks good. I have wished so many times that I could go back and refuse—refuse the shot, the drink, the joint, the urge to do whatever I wanted. But I can’t go back. I have to live with all those yeses. You don’t have to, though.

  I grew up in a house full of boys and a beautiful mom. I was never great at things like cotillion, and I could burp louder than any of my brothers. I played in the mud. When my grandparents gave me a Barbie, it became a dog toy. This is probably why I didn’t really understand girls; they would say one thing and mean something else. Don’t get me wrong—I learned quickly that I was supposed to lie to my friends’ faces and then talk behind their backs, fight over boys who didn’t matter, and so on. I never really got it, though. Why couldn’t we just be honest or at least say nothing at all? Estrogen really screwed me up; it made me feel things I didn’t want to. It made me crazy at least one week out of the month and in pain for another week. Before my husband and I got married, he said, “So we really only have half of our life together since one week is dedicated to PMS and the other to your period?” That just doesn’t seem fair to me. Then I realized it’s not.