Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God – you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration – what a creation!
(Psalm 139:13–14 MSG)
I am perfectly imperfect. So I won’t despair when I get spots, wrinkles, or bloated around my period. The people who truly love me, love the whole lot. Genuinely! Instead of obsessing with the things I’d like to tweak or do over, I’ll focus on my inner life and how beautiful that is becoming.
Reflection:
You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.
(1 Peter 3:4 NLT)
I’ll dress to express, not to impress. So what I wear has to fit my shape, not just my body shape, but the person God is helping me to become.
Reflection:
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
(2 Corinthians 5:16–17 NLT)
My body is my companion, not my project. So keeping my body reasonably healthy and clean is being a good steward of God’s gift.
Reflection:
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.
(Romans 12:1 MSG)
I will appreciate my body for what it does, not just for what it looks like. I am called to serve the will of God. This involves my body: comforting people, going places, sitting with someone trapped in hopelessness. It’s not the size of my boobs or the whiteness of my smile that has the greatest impact on hurting lives.
Reflection:
Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.
The woman to be admired and praised
is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-GOD.
(Proverbs 31:30 MSG)
I will chase beauty, not glamour. So I’ll limit the amount of air-time I give fashion magazines and shopping trips, because I know that, unchecked, these can rob me of valuing a beautiful heart over a perfect face. I want Jesus to open my eyes to the true beauty that comes from surrendering myself to him.
Reflection:
Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!
(Matthew 6:22–23 MSG)
Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way...
(1 Peter 3:4–5 MSG)
I will live from the inside out, focusing on God first. So I’m signed up for God’s plan for my life and won’t opt out of doing what he asks because I am self-absorbed about how I look, or held back by my fears and insecurities.
Reflection:
Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.
(Romans 8:7–8 MSG)
I will be realistic and positive about myself. So I’ll allow people I trust to help me embrace the real me and challenge the times when I act or dress in ways that don’t fit with who I am.
Reflection:
God brings [grace] to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
(Romans 12:3 MSG)
Be beautiful
There’s something liberating about revolting against the mainstream! This is what Esther did. It’s what makes her story ageless. There have been other beautiful women whose names have gone down in history: Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Marie Antoinette, Marilyn Monroe; the list goes on. But none of these women demonstrated the great truth that the most beautiful you will ever be is when you dare to lose everything for the sake of others.
Above everything you choose to wear, or do to your face or body, remember this: I passionately believe the most beautiful you will ever be is when you love others. When you lay down your rights, status and dreams for the sake of the lost, the last and the least.
Desire to be the real you. Even if there are parts of your body that don’t work well or look as you think they should. The truth is that you are fantastically you: incomparable and mysterious. Don’t compare your flesh-and-blood loveliness with the perfection of the static paper girls you see online or in a magazine. Seek the opportunities to ‘do’ beautiful, not the platforms to be beautiful. If you’re inhaling the smoke of glamour and wondering why you’re choking, get outside and breathe in the truth that you are beautifully and wonderfully made. When you do that, you’ll be arrested by the sheer beauty you see in and around you.
And you’ll want more of it.
When you look in the mirror, look for yourself, not simply at yourself. Look for love; look for compassion; look for openness, trustworthiness, hope. Look for courage in the face of trouble. Look for peace. Then let others see this beauty too.
The goal of glamour is to make everyone feel envious. The goal of beauty is to make everyone feel loved.
As you paint your nails (or not!), love the hands God gave you to reach out to others and shape this world. As you get your slap on (or not!), love the endless ways your face expresses the joys and sorrows in your heart. As you get your trainers or heels on, love the body that takes you on endless adventures in God’s world.
Chase Beauty, and change the world!
Wonderland
Has your freedom as a Western woman to control your looks ever controlled you?
When you look at your body in the mirror, what do you think or feel?
How much do you think about, worry about, obsess about your appearance?
How can you be loyal to the face God has given you? What can you do to make sure that your use of make-up and fashion complements, rather than hides, who you are?
What are some of your beauty triggers? It might help to chat with someone about them to see if there are any practical steps you can take to make a difference, for example, limiting the number of fashion magazines you read, asking yourself questions about the beauty ideal you feel compared to: ‘Has this image been airbrushed?’; ‘Who says this is what I need to look like?’
Who, or what, are some of the ‘anchors’ in your life who help you appreciate yourself?
What ‘roots’ your beauty? If you see your beauty as coming from the shape of your figure and face, how can you begin to see it coming from your loving heart and generous attitude?
My sanctuary
We often compare ourselves to others and, more often than not, find ourselves wanting. Comparison kills confidence because it stops us from seeing that we are our own standard of beauty. It also makes us deny the inevitable, that over time our bodies will change. If you think this will make you unlovable, it’s inevitable that you might one day end up hating yourself and pushing people who love you away.
Find a photo of yourself and think about the critical things you think about your face/body/image. Imagine that person in the photo was your best friend, or daughter. What would change about how you look at the picture?
Read these beautiful words, and ask God to show you what else you have about you that he considers as your beauty that will only increase with time:
Get off the scales! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I ha
ve yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humour, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life. It’s true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful! 10
The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous. Everything else is [rubbish]! I promise you! It’s just [rubbish] that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less. So don’t buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful, and be generous.
Ashton Kutcher
Have you ever seen a naked nun?
Years ago I went on holiday to France with a rag-tag bunch of mates. Without wanting to sound like a Friends episode, we were an atheist, a businessman, a busker, an art student, a youth worker (me) and an ex-nun (Mel).
We’d known Mel for a few years. She’d only just left the convent (in her mid-twenties), so this holiday was a way to ease her into life ‘on the outside’. It was April: cold, dreary and wet. On the first day we all headed off to a beach to chuck some stones in the sea. Suddenly, out from behind a rock, Mel appeared, completely naked! Arms flailing in the air, and whooping her head off, she ran into the sea.
We stood there, totally transfixed, staring as she threw herself into the waves, and then came up spluttering and laughing.
My friend, Tom, the atheist, turned to me. ‘She’s not a nun any more?’
‘No,’ I laughed.
‘But she’s still religious, right? But she doesn’t look very religious.’
‘She looks very real though,’ I murmured, deeply moved at my friend’s joy. It was one of the most sexual things I have ever witnessed in my life.
Talking about anything to do with sex requires a few definitions. Being sexual and having sex are very different things. Having sex is what you do. Being sexual is who you are. On that beach in France, I didn’t see Mel having sex or being sexually flirtatious. What I saw was my friend celebrating herself as a physical and sexual being. Splashing around naked in the freezing cold sea made her feel alive, free and glad to be a woman!
Sex-y-you
God made you a sexual being. You have a God-created sexuality.
It’s not to do with whether or not you’ve had or ever will have sex. It’s not even primarily about who you feel sexually attracted to (sexual orientation), or the decisions you make about if or when you will have sex (sexual morality). Here are some of the things that are included when we talk about sexuality:
Female sex – how we feel about, and treat, our sexual body parts
Gender identity – how we handle and express being female
Gender role – the ideas we embrace or reject about how we should behave because we are female
Sexual orientation – who we’re sexually attracted to (heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual)
Body image – how we physically express ourselves or allow others to treat our bodies in a relationship, online or in public
Sexual experiences – how we act in response to our sexual thoughts, ideas and fantasies
Relationship experiences – how we demonstrate intimacy, love, compassion, joy and sadness to others.
It’s no wonder then that sexuality can be such a complicated subject. It covers so many things! From now on, when I talk about ‘female sexuality’, it’s this complete list that I’m referring to. You won’t be surprised by the number of young Christian women I talk to who feel conflicted about how they should handle their female sexuality.
‘I want to explore my body to know myself better, but isn’t masturbation a sin?’ (Chloe)
‘I have sexual thoughts, but can’t work out which ones could be OK in God’s eyes and which ones are too shameful to share.’ (Hollie)
‘Last year my boyfriend dumped me because he felt I was too big a sexual temptation for him. He couldn’t cope with the lustful thoughts he had about me. On bad days I’m still convinced that being me is such a sin that I’m not good enough to marry a godly guy.’ (Alice)
‘I honestly don’t know what I feel. These aches come over me for someone or something. I’m worried that I might just one day give in and do something I know I shouldn’t.’ (Tia)
‘I desperately want sex. I’m not sure why or even with whom! Ideally, I’d like to wait for marriage, but that seems ludicrous in this day and age.’ (Emily)
You may have read a book or heard a talk about what God thinks about sexual penetration. But did you realize that he has so much wisdom, grace and strength to offer you for all the rest too? He’s the Maker with the manual.
I am woman
The first and most important thing you need to know is that your female sexuality is a good gift from God. He loves the fact that you’re a woman.
Your femaleness matters:
Your body made of skin, bone, blood and sinew; your lungs filled with God-breath so that you can build, create and connect; your nervous system, hormones, emotions and thought patterns; your sexual organs and erogenous zones with their capacity for profound and intense sexual pleasure; your ability to experience intimacy, desire, love, compassion, joy and sorrow – all of this matters to God.
He sculpted you from nothingness into womanliness, and the psalmist reckons that your existence is an utter miracle.
I thank you, High God – you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
(Psalm 139:14 MSG)
So you need to discover the woman God made you to be, because God put so much into creating all of you.
Just like Eve.
Genesis tells the story of earth’s first-ever human female. She bursts onto the scene naked, strong and pulsing with the promise of new life. She has a vagina where Adam has a penis. Breasts where Adam has a chest. Womb, fallopian tubes, curves, dimples, hopes, passion, energy, desire: she’s the same as Adam, but vastly different. She fits with him, and he with her. But she also stands before God, alone.
The man said,
‘This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called “woman”,
for she was taken out of man.’
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
(Genesis 2:23–25 NIV)
I am responsible
As well as your female sexuality being a good gift, it’s also a real responsibility.
Just like guys can find their male sexuality hard to handle sometimes, being female can also be challenging and complicated. Before we think about the struggles we face, let’s have a moment to consider the lads. In my book The Dating Dilemma, a great friend called Andy opened up about the fragility of the male ego.
The male ego is very vulnerable; it’s just that we don’t show it or we protect it in confrontational ways. We need girls to bring us out of ourselves, not to be constantly putting us down. We’re looking for a girlfriend who is a friend that we can open up to more than we can to our mates. That’s the amazing gift that girls give to us guys... I believe that this is what we’re really searching for when we ask you out – a place of intimacy. Unfortunately, sex is the only place of intimacy we see in lad culture, and mostly it’s not about intimacy but performance. Without sounding soppy, I think the connection we find with the girl we date and fall in love with is like finding home.
(Andy)11
Our God-given desire for connection with others means that we are capable of experiencing deep empathy, compassion, passion and intimacy. These things are crucial not just for romantic relationships, but for living a meaningful life. But these same tools can be misused and manipulated by us and others. I reme
mber going clubbing with a friend who had just experienced a horrible break-up. I was shocked at the way some men seemed to make a beeline for her, sensing her fragility and hunger to feel better about herself.
It also doesn’t help that we receive conflicting messages about how we should handle our female sexuality. On the one hand, we’re sometimes made to feel ashamed of having female bodies or sexual desires. While at Bible college, an older, popular male student announced that ‘men might be on a diet, but they still look at the menu, so could the female students stop wearing skinny jeans?’ Although the student in question probably had good and honourable motives in making his comment, and we thought it rather funny, our little group of younger girls, all struggling with low self-esteem, felt that everyone just saw us as sex objects. Sexualized comments, or churches and families who remain silent about sex, tend to create cultures of shame and secrecy around the whole area of sexuality.
Then, on the other hand, we’re bombarded by the pornified, super-enhanced female bodies with big breasts, hair-free vaginas, long legs and firm stomachs that we’re supposed to emulate. When a culture is saturated with these images, people tend to believe that they must be the real thing. We may regularly see a celebrity’s near-naked body on Twitter, but we’ll never get to see the real woman without the masks of her heavily orchestrated sex appeal. We’re meant to desire her or envy her, not know her.
Both the sex-silent church and the sex-saturated culture contribute to a distorted view of what it means to be a real woman. For those of us who want to embrace and express our female sexuality in God-honouring ways, it can feel bewildering, to say the least.
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