Hope Road

The Beauty Idol

In case you haven’t noticed lately, we live in the midst of a culture obsessed with physical beauty. This obsession is sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle, but no matter what, it is powerful and inescapable.

The world has always been particularly cognisant of female beauty or the lack thereof, but in this day and age that awareness has plunged to lower and lower depths. Dress and attitudes that used to be regarded as suitable only for a woman of questionable reputation, are now considered mainstream.

And we women as a gender are being exploited in ways our forebears could never have dreamed possible, especially because of the advent of the Internet and other media. It is impossible to go very long without being confronted with the image of a “perfect” female body masquerading on a billboard, a Facebook advertisement, or a television commercial. And those are the innocent images, comparably.

Yet not only are we being exploited, this generation of women has taken exhibitionism to a whole new level. It is as if we find it necessary to broadcast our so-called self-acceptance and feminine empowerment by being as carefree and open with our bodies as possible. Things 19th-century women would have shuddered at are considered matter-of-fact today.

It only takes a brief glance over statistics on eating disorders to realize what this cultural obsession is doing to the women of our generation, and what we are doing to ourselves. My heart is to show girls a better way. There is worth to be found in Christ, regardless of whether you look like Mandy Moore or not. He wants our hearts to be beautiful, and He’s willing to make them that way.

Compared to the extreme obsession with beauty rampant in our culture, though, sometimes it’s easy for me to excuse a seemingly innocent obsession with beauty in myself. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to look feminine or even pretty, or enjoying fashion. But we should be far, far more concerned with the adorning of our hearts than with the adorning of our outer appearances. And it is so easy to cross the line into a prideful obsession with looking perfect that can lead to putting other women down, objectifying and stereotyping men, or on the other end of the spectrum, harming ourselves in a variety of ways because we don’t meet our own or society’s standards.

What’s really important here? It’s our hearts. When my heart is so focused on how I look and what other people think of me, either because I think I look good or because I think I don’t look good, there’s pride and self-focused fear that I’m allowing to control me. I’m making an idol of beauty because of how it makes me feel about myself, or how it makes other people feel about me. I can’t let that happen. Idolatry is a subtle and deadly sin that can wreak havoc in my relationship with God, who desires my heart to be set on Him.

So instead of spending all my time gazing into the mirror hoping that a beautiful girl will look back at me, I hope that I spend most of time gazing into the mirror of God’s word, wanting to see what He is teaching me about myself and about Him.

The Heart of Biblical Womanhood

An article I skimmed at Boundless this morning, about the heart of biblical masculinity, made me ponder correspondingly the heart of what it means to be a woman of God. It’s easy to focus on the outer trappings of biblical womanhood, the applications of how it is played out in the home and the family and the church. It’s much too easy to constantly debate over what exactly true femininity looks like. I’ve written before about how passionate I am for biblical womanhood, and that includes appropriate relationship roles and modesty and so much more.

But what is the heart of it all, the impetus for our actions, the wellspring of life lived as a godly woman?

It is, of course, God Himself! Our Father, Savior, Keeper, and sovereign Lord. The reason that we want to dress modestly and marry godly men and honor our husbands (future or current) and submit to male leadership in the church and cultivate our inner beauty is not so that others will look at us and think, “Wow, what an amazing woman! I wish I could be like her!” We want others to look at us and think, “Wow, what an amazing God we have! I want to know Him like she does!”

 And that means that our satisfaction has to be found in Him, that our hearts have to be set on Him, that we have to be drawing our fulfillment and joy from Him, and that the outward trappings of godly womanhood should be the result of joyful obedience to Him, not a shallow desire for the praise of people.

My motives in my striving for “biblical womanhood” are so often completely self-focused. And the results of that kind of mindset are so shallow and worthless. I may have the admiration of others, but if my heart is ugly before God, the whole thing is completely pointless. Satan himself was the most beautiful of the angels, and his resulting pride is the very reason he fell. I pray God will deliver me from grooming myself to be a “godly woman” when all I really want is the adulation of others. What a cunning, deceitful, and heinous sin.

In our strivings after godliness, may our hearts be focused on Him. May we find joy in knowing that His way is the best way, and in bringing Him glory through our obedience and love.

Things I’m Passionate About

One of my blogging quirks is that I get bored of my own layouts really easily. Yesterday Wordpress put out a new theme, and I hopped on board right away because I love a custom header and three columns. What do you think (RSS readers click here if you’d like to see)?

All right, on to the topic of the day. I’ve been disappointed lately with my lack of enjoyment of so many things. I greet life with so much tiredness, so much of the “trying to make it through another day” mentality. A lot of is because of my insomnia problem, lack of discipline so I won’t be physically tired, lack of spiritual renewal.

But I forget that there really are things that I’m passionate about, things that fire me up, things that I speak about with energy and conviction whenever someone brings them up. Here are just two to start with, in no particular order. (This isn’t an exhaustive list. I have a similar, shorter one in my “About” section. But I need to write these for my own sake.)

Reading. Since I was four years old, reading has been an adventure, a delight, an escape, an education… every single day. While college has sucked some of the life out of my reading for personal enjoyment, it has also introduced me to a broader span of literature and Biblical studies. I’ve also been disciplining my own personal reading lately, making sure I’m reading books of value and not only the more frivolous ones. Get me started talking about my favorite books and I could go on for hours. I long to share the joy of literature with others. I think I will always be that girl who takes a book with her almost everywhere, “just in case.”

Biblical manhood and womanhood. This extends to so many areas - complementarian relationships in the church and at home, family structure, dating relationships or courtship, friendships between men and woman, chaste living… and on the flip side, lack of rightness in this area is related to role confusion, feminism, teen pregnancy, abortion, promiscuity, the breakdown of the family, and surface pleasure that’s really a sham. Oh, the heartbreak and craziness that exists in our world today because biblical manhood and womanhood are not understood or adhered to. I am so, so thankful to have had this modeled for me my entire life. It has protected me and guided me in countless ways. I long to share this joy with others, too.

The Cure for Low Self-Esteem

Here’s a comforting excerpt from John Piper’s sermon “Discern What Pleases God: Himself” at the New Attitude conference:

“Don’t waste your life trying to look good. Spend your life making God look good! That’s why you were made! And you know, the weakest among you, the most homely, have perhaps the greatest chance to do that. The rest of you are too good-looking. You distract people.”

I love this. I know this was said in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, but isn’t it true that God uses the low and despised things more quickly for His own glory? (This topic is discussed at further length in the sermon.)

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor. 1:26-29)

If you’re struggling with what the world calls “low self-esteem,” whether it’s about appearance or something else, remember: God can use a lack of what is culturally considered beautiful, or smart, or strong, to bring even more glory to Himself. And that’s far better than anything else we could ask for.

Stay-at-Home Daughters

In the past few years I’ve noticed a growing trend, almost entirely among homeschool families: daughters who choose to remain at home after graduating from high school, and plan on doing so until they get married. Some of these young women have made a commitment to focus almost solely on learning the arts of housewifery.

I’ve noticed that this lifestyle choice has been described as most truly indicative of biblical womanhood. I am not saying being a stay-at-home daughter is unbiblical. But I am going to respond to those who think that this is the only right choice. (Just please know that I’m not putting all stay-at-home daughters in the same box!)

The real issue here is how to spend the season of singleness. You may remember Paul’s famous passage on singleness and marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, where he exhorts believers to remain single if possible, so that they may be solely focused on serving the Lord. I know this is an isolated passage, and elsewhere the Bible constantly commends and upholds marriage. I think being a wife and mother is an extremely high calling and a noble occupation, which every woman should seriously and prayerfully encounter. But I still think there is biblical merit for a woman to serve the Lord outside of marriage and children, especially when she is in a time of life when marriage is far from imminent.

There is so much need in this world. There are so many amazing niches of life that could be filled by devoted, godly, unattached women. There are so many ways to prepare yourself for being a helpmeet to your husband in the future - not only by learning the art of being a housewife, but by learning a craft or a profession so that you can help support the family in a time of crisis, or supplement your husband’s career and ministry, or minister and bless those around you more effectively.

I am not saying that staying at home is always ineffective. But I do wonder…

1. Why are we placing biblical womanhood in such a small box? Do all women have to be either a stay-at-home daughter or a stay-at-home wife in order to be godly?
2. Why are we limiting ourselves and others from the myriad of ways God may have for us to be useful in the world, some of which may include “exploiting our singleness,” as John Piper says, to take advantage of ministry opportunities that may not be practical for a stay-at-home mom?

Your thoughts and opinions are welcomed!

True Beauty (Part 2)

(Read Part 1 here)

The world would not think to call her beautiful. In the picture in Voice of the Martyrs (Special Issue 2006), Mumtaz Bibi is sitting in a drab house with cement walls, surrounded by three children. She’s wearing a white head covering and a dress with a nondescript floral print. Her hair is faded and unkempt; her face is bare of makeup and worn from years of hard work. Moreover, her leg bears ugly scars and stitching, and there is a metal rod inserted into it.

Yet after hearing her story, I can hardly think of a woman I know who is more beautiful than Mumtaz. She and her family are part of a tiny minority of Christians in Pakistan. For years, she was employed at a brick kiln where her boss was a Christian. But when he sold the kiln, the workers were transferred, and their new boss, a Muslim, would not allow the Christians to have prayer services or go to church.

In spite of these rules, Mumtaz continued attending church. This touched me: “She is illiterate and cannot read the Bible, yet she and her family memorize the pastor’s sermons and try to practice his teachings in their daily walk.” I’ve barely even opened my Bible since the summer started (that’s not normal for me, but it happens once in awhile, and it shouldn’t!), and here is this woman who can’t even read and memorizes sermons to learn about her faith.

Mumtaz’s boss continued to threaten the Christians, but Mumtaz and her family continued to attend church. Eventually, the boss’s son burst into the Bibis’ home and beat Mumtaz with a stick, so hard that her left leg broke, and so did her nose. She was unconscious for three days. “Because she lacked money to undergo therapy and additional medical treatment, she could not walk and was bedridden for more than one year. During that time, her husband carried her wherever she went. Additional financial strain was placed on the family because Mumtaz was not able to work. She lacked money to purchase pain killers. She often suffered intense leg pain in the middle of the night, and her sobbing would awaken the children.”

The good news is that Voice of the Martyrs was able to intervene and provide Mumtaz with medical care, surgeries, and prayer and encouragement - and they were able to share her story with the church (meaning the worldwide church).

That’s beauty. A love of Christ so deep, a thirst for knowledge of Him so rare, that you would risk your life to obtain it.

Tags: persecution

True Beauty (Part 1)

One of my passions is helping girls and young women see where true beauty lies. Since this is something I have struggled with (and still do struggle with) myself, I want to spread the message that your personal worth is about so much more than your appearance.

This is my favorite “true beauty” Scripture:

“Do not let your adorning be external - the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear - but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” (1 Peter 3:3-4)

Real beauty is…

• Hidden. It’s not something you put on parade. It’s not something the crowd around you can always see. It’s the adornment of a humble heart who trusts that God’s approval is all she needs.
• Imperishable. Our culture is obsessed with finding ways to prevent aging, to prevent the loss of youthful beauty. But this precious beauty of the heart will never fade or grow old. Rather, it grows more lovely with age.
• Very precious in God’s sight. What more could we ask for? Cultivating this inward quietness and gentleness - this calm, strong trust and peace in the Lord - is precious to our Heavenly Father. He values it more than any human could value our outward appearance.

The purpose of this post was to introduce a mini-series of posts about true beauty. Each time, I’ll feature a woman who I believe exemplifies this kind of beauty. We need those kinds of examples in a sea of cultural emphasis on physical beauty. So stay tuned for more in the upcoming days and weeks!

Tags: appearance