Chapter Five

be you. not them.

You never want

To know how much you weigh

You still have to squeeze into your jeans

But you’re perfect to me

“Little Things” by One Direction

“Do you love your hips?”

The question threw me. Why in the name of all that is holy would I love my hips? The woman standing in front of me at the conference where I had just spoken was waiting for my answer. She repeated herself: “Do you love your hips? ’Cuz Jesus is not gonna heal you till you love your hips!”

Oy. Of all the things not to love about myself, I hadn’t given much thought to my hips, but thinking of them in that moment, I could definitely say no, I did not love my hips.

The woman was telling me the truth. She was saying, God wants you to love and enjoy everything about yourself right now and embrace the truth that you are a beautiful woman regardless of your measurements. Until we can do that, we will not be moving forward. Or downward, as the case may be.

It’s a difficult thing to stand in front of a mirror naked and tell yourself how marvelous your body is. It is contrary to every broken thing in a girl’s or woman’s soul and in this broken world. But I began to do it. Not so God would change my body, f-i-n-a-l-l-y. But so that I could begin to align the way I see myself with the way he does.

I began one evening in the bathtub by thanking God for my legs. I told myself I had fabulous legs. “I haven’t been so kind to you, legs, but we’ve been through a lot together and you’ve brought me far. Thank you, legs. You’re awesome.”

And on like that. It became a practice. I stumbled a bit when I came to my arms. I still struggle with the arms. But okay, I’m going to do it right now. “Thank you, God, for these amazing arms. They work and hold things and open jars and steer wheels and pick up all kinds of things. Wow. I’m sorry for neglecting you, arms. You really are something else.”

Go ahead and practice. Thank God for your body. Thank him for your legs, your arms, your feet, your hips, your face, your eyes, your teeth, your everything.

beautiful now

One wonderful summer day last year, I was driving to the wedding of some dear friends’ son. I was wearing a pretty dress that I particularly loved. Wanting to look extra nice, underneath the dress I was wearing a suck-you-in-all-over-so-you-can’t-breathe-but-your-torso-will-be-smooth torture device.

In my own mother’s day, and in many days before her, the device was a lace-up girdle. My mother wore one regularly. Most women of her generation did, just as so many women of my generation wear the newfangled version. My mom once told me the story of her grandmother’s sister immigrating to the United States from Germany. She was coming over from Europe on a ship (of course), and, wanting to look her best, she wore her corset. (You never know who you might meet! Jack! I’m flying!) She wore her corset the entire two weeks. She wore her corset as cinched as she could get it. She wore her corset so cinched that it prevented her from being able to go to the bathroom, and by the end of the journey to the New World, she was dead. Because of her corset. True story. Oh, sister, what price beauty?

Honestly, how many women have died in the quest to attain some just-out-of-reach level of beauty? It is a tragically high number.

So I was driving to Denver, wearing the hateful undergarment, when it became so painful I could barely breathe. It was digging into my ribs. I guess it’s made for wearing while you are standing up, not sitting down for an hour behind a wheel. Thankfully, I was able to hoist my skirt up and get a hand underneath and pull the girdle thingy away from my body. But seriously, it took all my strength. I made a fist and let it press against that. Driving with one hand, at least I could breathe. But I needed to keep switching hands every few minutes because the thing was so unbelievably strong and tight.

And by the way, it was a size larger than I was currently wearing. So it’s not that I had on the wrong size. It’s that the things are supposed to strangle your body into a size or two smaller. Seriously now, why do we feel the need to do this to ourselves? What is so horrific about bumps? Please tell me. We are killing ourselves figuratively and literally to fit into the world’s definition of what we are supposed to be.

My mother used to say, “Beauty before pain!”—meaning, being beautiful is more important than not feeling terrible. High heels with our toes pinched into the pointy tip. Spanx. Waxing. Trimming. Starving. Plucking. P-a-y-i-n-g.

One of the assignments my mother gave me as the youngest daughter in my family was to pluck the coarse black hairs protruding from her chin when she was no longer able to see them or care. She made me promise not to leave her to this indignity. She was a nurse who often tended older women, and she grieved for those whose personal grooming was ignored. My mom was well acquainted with those pesky little black hairs. She had a magnifying mirror in which she would look to peruse and destroy any interlopers. Pluck! Pluck! Pluck!

At about the age of thirty, I made the mistake of looking at myself in her well-lit magnifying mirror. WHAAAAT? Oh my gosh! Why did no one tell me I had a beard? Where are the tweezers? I was horrified. Are you kidding me? What was unseen to the mere human eye, or just by looking in a regular mirror—even up close—was magnified to werewolf proportions in my mother’s mirror.

Pluck. Pluck. Pluck.

My mom gave me her mirror. I was hooked. When it broke, I bought myself a new one. A bigger one. A better-lit one.

My husband is urging me to throw the thing away. I have told him that throwing it away is in my future. But I’m not ready yet. Maybe I’ll be ready when I’ve attained a zit-free, hair-free status. Or better, maybe I’ll throw it away when my soul more fully embraces the truth of what God says about me. God has been inviting me to throw the magnifying mirror away and be free, free from gazing at my multiple imperfections in my face and in my soul and instead to believe the reflection he is showing me. Honestly, the only reflection that really matters is the reflection we see in his loving and joyous eyes. What does he see? What does he say? He says we are beautiful now.

Do you believe you are beautiful now? What helps you believe that? What gets in the way? Ask God to help you believe what he says about the physical you. By faith, bless your body. Out loud. Right now. Do it often!

embraceable you

Our bodies are God’s gift to us through which we experience the world. Our five senses are windows that illuminate our lives. We need to care for every part of ourselves, nourishing and guarding our hearts, our souls, and our bodies.

In chapter 1, I said we need to be nice to our hearts. Well, we need to be nice to our bodies, too. We need to pay attention to when we are hungry and feed our bodies nourishing food. We need to notice when we are tired, not ignore the signals, and give ourselves rest. We want to strengthen our bodies with exercise and movement. We want to say nice things to ourselves about our bodies.

Got you on the last sentence, didn’t I?

Just last night, I caught myself telling myself that my body is ugly. Oy. Not again. I repented. I said out loud, “No. My body is not ugly. I love my body. I am beautiful.”

That’s how it works. I caught myself being mean, so I stopped. I chose instead to say to myself what God says about me, and honestly, it has a powerful, life-bringing effect.

What do you tell yourself about your body? How do you feel about it? What would you like to change? Even now, take a moment and tell yourself kind things about your body even if those words feel untrue.

The season of growth you find yourself in may make you un­comfortable with how your body is or isn’t changing. We grow. We lose weight. We gain weight. Our hormones go nuts. Our breasts get larger … or they don’t. My friend Bethany was embarrassed about her breasts. Actually, most women I know are now or have been ashamed by or disappointed with their breasts. I have been. In her pre-bra elementary school days, Bethany put Band-Aids over her nipples because she was ashamed of them. Many older girls try to enhance their breast size by stuffing their bras or wearing padded ones. The ten-year-old daughter of a friend of mine was having a sleepover when she came out of her bedroom and her mother saw toilet paper poking out from her top. I tried that too. It doesn’t work well. Toilet paper is scratchy and poky and lumpy. Another friend of mine was embarrassed about how large her breasts were, so she would squeeze them into a smaller size. (Many adult women continue to feel distraught over the size of their breasts and go the route of surgery for an enhancement or a reduction.)

Exploring what we would look like with a larger bra cup is part of growing up. That is simply normal curiosity. But the shame part? Shame and embarrassment over your body does not have to be part of your story at any age.

There’s no shame in Christ, friends. No shame. You are you. Unique. Marvelous. Beautiful. Quirky. And imperfect. In Christ, as with all loved ones, you don’t need to hide who you are. You actually aren’t meant to hide at all.

In junior high, I would hide my face behind my hair. I wore it long and straight and tried to have only my nose poke out. That’s because my cheeks were covered with pimples. Not little whiteheads, but deep, red, large blemishes.

During puberty our skin rebels. For some of us, the rebellion is more like a violent coup. Sweetheart, you are not alone, and this is not the end of your story. It’s hard and painful and it will pass. When we look in the mirror, we see the flaws. We see our short­comings. What is glaringly ugly to us is barely noticeable to others. You are not your skin. But your skin will get better. This is tough, but it will pass.

No, really. Still, please care for yourself. Speak words of truth. There is power in saying it out loud: “I am pretty.” “I am loved.” “God says I’m lovely.” Speak the truth and use a gentle cleanser, and if you need it, ask to see your doctor. There are medicinal treatments available now that may make you feel like it’s worse in the short run but in the very near future will clear up your acne amazingly.

You are worth caring for. Body and soul. You are worth accepting. You are worth embracing.

It can be hard to be happy with how God made you at any particular time but especially in the teen years. Those who are tall want to be short. Those who are short want to be tall. Those with curly hair long for straight, and those with straight hair want more body to it. We feel we are too flat or too curvy, too little or too big, not enough or too much. And it doesn’t feel good.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” He’s right. It’s so easy in this world to compare ourselves to others. When we do that, we simply do not measure up. We tend to compare our worst with another girl’s best, and that makes us feel terrible. Feeling despair over who we are or what we look like causes us to reject ourselves.

And that is the opposite of what Christ does.

He says you are just right, right now. His invitation to you in this very moment is to accept your body, accept your personality, accept all of yourself. Just as you are. He made you you. He’s not waiting for you to become something other than who you are in order to be loved by him. He loves you now. He accepts you now. He not only accepts you, but he embraces you and he wants you to embrace yourself as well.

Now, I know that embracing ourselves is a stretch for most of us, but please know that embracing ourselves has nothing to do with arrogance or settling for a lower version of who we are. Embracing ourselves has everything to do with embracing the goodness of God’s creative work in us. It means trusting God, believing that all he has made is glorious and good. And that includes us. You are the only one who can be you. The world, the kingdom of God, and all those around you need you to embrace who you are created to be as you become more fully your true self.

God wants you to be you. He wants you to offer you. He wants you to embrace you. So, who are you?

A good way to discover what makes you uniquely yourself is to answer the question, “What do I want?” Or this one: “If I could do anything at all and know that it would go smashingly well, what would I do?”

dream a little

How do you feel about desire? Does it feel like a bad thing? No, desire is really that core place in our hearts where God speaks. Years ago, in a small group I was in, we were invited to dream. We were given paper and told to write down what we wanted. To write a long list. Not to edit it. Nothing was too small or large to write down. My list turned out to be two pages long and had things on it as varied as the garden I wanted to nurture, the size I wanted to wear, the hope to ride horses with my husband, the healing I longed for a few dear ones to experience, and the wedding of a single friend I wanted to dance at.

I found that list a few years ago, and to my astonishment every single item had come true. It had happened! I needed to make a new list! I have!

God dreams big. And he invites us to dream big with him. God has planted dreams and desires in each one of our hearts, and they are unique to us. Opening up our spirits, our minds, our hearts, our imaginations to what we would really like—to even the possibility of wanting—allows the Holy Spirit to awaken parts of ourselves that are in such a deep sleep no dreams are happening.

God is a Dreamer. He has dreams of you and for you.

When we dream with God, we don’t want to run to thinking, How can I make this happen? Dreaming with God isn’t about how. It’s about what. If anything could happen, then what would I love to see happen in my life? What would I love to see happen in the lives of those I love?

This book is about your heart. This moment is about your dreams and your desires that contribute to the unique, marvelous young woman you are. The point is not so much being able to name the desire as it is to allow God to access the places in your heart where dreams and desires are planted. God speaks to you there. About himself. About you.

It’s okay to want, and it’s okay to want more. Wanting more has nothing to do with being unsatisfied or lacking in your present reality. It’s being open to the more that God wants to bring to you in your own life. The possibilities for you are limitless! They are. Yes, they are. Maybe not for tomorrow but for your life.

What is pushing it with God? What can’t he do? What is too hard for him to accomplish in your relationships, your achievements, your creativity, in the fullness of the expression of who you are? We want to continue to grow all our lives. We never want to stop. Yes, we rest. But a heart alive is a heart that is awake and curious and pressing in for more.

What do you really want?

Four out of five Americans say they don’t have any dreams, and we can imagine why. Life can suck the dreaming right out of you. The living God wants to pour those dreams back in. Sixteen percent of Americans say they do have dreams, but they don’t write them down. Four percent have dreams and desires and write them down, but less than 1 percent review and update them on a regular basis.1

It is the people who allow themselves to dream, who own their dreams, and who write them down and look at them periodically whose life dreams are coming true. (They also earn nine times more money over their lifetime than people who don’t. Think of what you could do with that! What good could you bring? What ministry could you support?)

I encourage you to risk dreaming and writing your dreams down. Once you get started, you’ll find there are things you want. And if you can’t get started, another approach is simply to begin listing the things you like. What do you like? From the fragrance of lilacs to a comforter before a fire to laughing with friends, it’s nourishing simply to become aware of what you enjoy and to write it down.

It’s good to sit with God in the quiet and ask him, What do I want? And ask him, What do you want for me?

Awakening and owning the dreams that God has placed in our hearts isn’t about getting stuff or attaining something. It’s about embracing who we are and who he has created us to be. In him. He is our dream come true and the one true love of our life. But we can’t love him with our whole hearts when our hearts are asleep. To love Jesus means to risk coming awake, to risk wanting and desiring.

Jesus, come. Guide me. Holy Spirit, fill me. Dream with me and in me. Help me to unlock the desires you have planted in my heart and to write them down. Help me to dream big.

Ask yourself: What would I love to do? What would I love to experience or create or offer? What do I want to be really good at? What do I want with God? What does God want with me? What do I want to be known for?

Dream. You have permission to dream. And besides, if you don’t have a dream, how can you have a dream come true?

note

1. Dan Zadra, 5: Where Will You Be Five Years from Today? (Seattle: Compendium, 2009), 9.