Self-Image and Beauty

I grew up in a time where there was no social media to add to my feelings of not being enough. Sadly that didn’t stop peer pressure and mean people from making me feel very insecure with myself. I see and feel what our youth go through because comparison is killing individuality. The internet makes everything look good. People rocking designer, have big followings and all the “likes” and that leaves you feeling like you wish you could be like that. You wish you could have those things, be that pretty, have the attention of that dude, etc. This separates you further and further away from whom God says you are.

When I was 15 years old I was insecure with myself. I didn’t have the latest Jordan’s, ever. I didn’t date the popular boys. I didn’t have the funny personality that made people like me. I didn’t participate in school activities. It was just me and whatever little circle of friends I was hanging out with at the time. While all the girls around me were pros at sex I was one of the few virgins. You’d think I would’ve been proud of that, but the experiences I heard about sounded lit, so I felt left out. That’s what the world does to us, makes us believe that things are normal that clearly go against God’s will for our lives. Ephesians 4: 18-19 (MSG version) says: And so I insisted- and God backs me up on this- that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty headed, the mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

Perversion-the alteration of something from it’s original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended. That year at 15 years old I got my first serious boyfriend. Baaaaaaby, was I in love with him! I felt like he saw me in a way I wish I could see myself. He thought I was so beautiful, smart, and funny.

(Pause) Do you see how I gave him more credit than God for believing in things God blessed me with? It took two years, but finally I was ready to have sex with him. I actually felt like I was doing the right thing making him wait so long. This was that scripture I just read playing out in my life. My parents said wait until marriage, but they didn’t say why wait. My prayer today is that someone reading this leaves with a reason to hold on to or reset their purity. The world around us says you need sex to function in life. Non-believers lack the faith that God is capable of helping you through whatever sin they struggle with.

Back to the story- I lost my virginity at 17 years old and I felt more connected to him than I could ever imagine being with a human being, but something was different about my body after a few days. It burned to pee and my vagina was itching so badly I kept making myself bleed scratching. Sin always invites more sin because even though I was suffering so badly I couldn’t handle telling my parents what I’d done. I was now hiding from them and lying to them. My boyfriend got tested even though he had no symptoms and informed me we had chlamydia. I was devastated. It was only my first time. Not only that, this means he cheated on me because he had to wait two years for me. Sadly sex bonded us so tightly that I stayed with him.

Had I looked to God for the things I was looking to my boyfriend to provide for me I would have avoided the need for the false sense of confidence he gave me because to me I thought he was the first man to see me as beautiful. No, God is. His word affirms our beauty so much.

Song of Solomon 4:7 (NIV): “You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.”

My problem was that my self-image was leaning and depending on how the world views me. Would you buy a desk that isn’t put together without reading the instructions as to how to handle the job? No. You’d get it wrong- we all would. The same goes for us. We are God’s children created in his image. Our beauty and self-image is defined for us in his word.

Romans 12:1-2 (MSG version): “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. Embracing what God does for you is the thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Whatever your flesh is telling you to do is not what God has for you. Whatever your friends and sin nature is telling you to do is lying to you. There is a power inside of you that is greater than anything you may be feeling right now. You are on a battlefield because every time you pick up your phone or hang out with friends there is something that will excite you to want to sin.

Galations 5:17 “These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions”

The two forces are heaven and hell… Hell wants to make you feel like you’re not beautiful, worthy of love, like you’re not smart… The devil has always fought to kill our destiny. He knows how weak the flesh is which is why this is so important. Affirm yourself everyday: I am altogether beautiful; there is no flaw in me. God has access to my heart to lead me in the path of righteousness. I am a light; I will use my light and the power in me to shift atmospheres to affect change in my generation.