girl talk

Distorted Beauty

Consider with me our culture’s physical beauty yardstick--for women then and women now as explained by author David Powlison:

A hundred years ago women might have compared themselves with the other ten girls in the village. Today, women compare themselves with pictures of the cream of the worldwide fashion industry.

And what ideal image does the worldwide fashion industry put forth as the standard for beauty by which today’s woman is to measure herself?

Well, take a look at what a group of professional hair stylists, make-up artists, and photographers in cahoots with computer graphics were able to create (click on the picture to watch the video):

To think that women are striving to look like someone who doesn’t even look like herself. It’s absurd!

The Dove Campaign got it partially right—the fashion industry has certainly contributed to a distorted perception of beauty. And yet, their solution—“every girl deserves to feel beautiful just the way she is”—is well-meaning and yet fundamentally unbiblical.

You see, women believe that physical beauty will make them happy, successful, popular among the women, desirable to the men – so they pursue it with a fury!

Physical beauty, however, does not deliver as advertised. Proverbs 31:30 reveals the falsehood and the futility of this quest for beauty: Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain.

Even if every girl did “feel beautiful just the way she is,” it wouldn’t bring her true joy or lasting happiness or solve even one of her problems.

Truth be told, what we all deserve is not to feel beautiful but rather to be condemned to hell for sinfully seeking to attract the worship of our fellow creatures instead of living to bring glory to God.

God did not send Jesus to this earth to die so that women could get over their self-esteem problem and feel better about themselves. No, He sent his Son to die to rescue us from our sinful, futile quest for physical beauty and to reveal to us the satisfaction that comes from knowing God—whether we are beautiful or not!

What freedom and hope is found in Christ! We don’t need to feel beautiful about ourselves to find happiness! In fact, we’re better off not even thinking about ourselves. Rather, God has offered us in Jesus Christ forgiveness, hope, freedom from sin and a joy that never ends.

So while this little video effectively exposes the false front of beauty presented by our culture, let’s not look to Dove’s advertising executives for the solution to the beauty crisis. Rather, let’s join the campaign to tell others of the true freedom that is found in Christ!

"Does Thin Equal Beautiful?"

Eating, thinness, and beauty are pressing issues for women. Bombarded by our culture’s image of the beautiful women, we can be obsessed with our appearance and preoccupied with food. Countless women struggle with eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia.

As a Christian counselor, and the author of When People Are Big and God Is Small, Dr. Ed Welch has counseled many women in bondage to these sins. And in a recent message at Capitol Hill Baptist Church entitled “Does Thin Equal Beautiful?” Dr. Welch describes the truth from Scripture, which provides lasting freedom and hope.

Whether you are obsessed with your appearance, or discouraged by constant dieting, or trapped in a cycle of bulimia or anorexia (or know someone who is)—this message contains vital truth for you! In fact, Dr. Welch’s wise, gentle, and prescient counsel is for all of us, regardless of our temptations. As we look to Christ, we shall be truly changed.   

“Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.” Psalm 35:4

Cosmetic Surgery

Our good friend, Dr. Al Mohler, writes with characteristic insight about cosmetic surgery on his blog this week. We thought it would be the perfect follow-up to Monday's post on beauty. Make sure to read Dr. Mohler here.

Fall Wardrobe

For a girl who prefers warm weather, I’ve really grown to love the early September days in Virginia. It's still about eighty degrees at two o'clock in the afternoon, but the humidity is gone, and a cool breeze blows through and it's--perfect. I think the weather in heaven is going to be something like this.

And just as the birds know that the cool breeze means it is time to leave their nests and fly to sunny Sarasota, Florida (at least, that's where I would go if I was a bird), I instinctively know that the time has come for me to pull out the fall clothes. It's very important to have those sweaters out of storage, ready to be donned at the first sign of frost.

I inspected my autumn wardrobe last night, and to be honest, it seemed a little sparse.  So I gathered up the gift cards to the mall I'd been saving since spring and called the numbers on the back--only to discover there isn't as much money remaining on those cards as I had thought (Where'd it go? Has Jack been using these cards without telling me?).

What was really going on here? When you get right down to it, I can be ungrateful and dissatisfied with certain aspects of my physical appearance. I forget that I am fearfully and wonderfully made by God Himself. And instead, so easily, so subtly, I can turn to the fashion industry to hopefully compensate for my perceived lack of beauty.

It’s a good thing Mom called today. She and Dad are on their way home from Little Rock, Arkansas where they have been speaking at a weekend retreat. And one of the messages Mom shared with the women was entitled: “True Beauty.” Just the mention of this message was a reminder to me of the truth it contains. It’s one of my favorites.

In this message Mom tells of Elisabeth Elliot’s interaction with the missionary, Gladys Aylward. Miss Aylward too was dissatisfied with her physical appearance. But she made a wonderful discovery. Here’s what happened:

“[Gladys] told how when she was a child she had two great sorrows. One, that while all her friends had beautiful golden hair, hers was black. The other, that while her friends were still growing, she stopped. She was about four feet ten inches tall. But when at last she reached the country to which God had called her to be a missionary, she stood on the wharf in Shanghai and looked around at the people to whom he had called her.

‘Every single one of them,’ she said, ‘had black hair. And every single one of them had stopped growing when I did.' And I said, ‘Lord God, You know what You’re doing!’”

Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1976), 32.

Instead of grumbling because I don’t have the fall wardrobe I desire, I want to praise the God who made me, just the way I am. And while I’m still going to use the gift cards that God has graciously provided, I want to be more preoccupied with doing kingdom work, just like Miss Aylward.

Beautiful is Better?

The other night I saw a report about the trend among high school girls to request breast implant surgery as a graduation gift. It got me thinking.

Though we would not choose to walk out of our graduation ceremony and into the plastic surgeon’s office, I don’t think there is a woman alive who hasn’t wished she could change at least one perceived physical flaw. I probably think about it more than I want to admit.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t think these girls—or any of us for that matter—want a different body for it’s own sake. Rather, because of the sin in our hearts, we long to find happiness in the applause (worship) of others. We think beauty is our ticket to bliss.

But it won’t take us anywhere. Beauty doesn’t satisfy. Proverbs says that it is “fleeting” (Prov. 31:30, NIV). Charles Bridges elaborated: “Beauty—what a fading vanity it is! One fit of sickness sweeps it away. Sorrow and care wither its charms. And even while it remains, it is little connected with happiness.” (Charles Bridges, A Commentary on Proverbs (Carlisle, Pa.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1846, repr. 1998), p. 627.)

This is why the well-meaning advice to simply “learn to love your body” doesn’t cut it. Even with supposed “Christian” packaging (“Jesus loves you just the way you are, so you should love yourself”)—it’s hollow. It’s an erroneous diagnosis. It doesn’t satiate our desperate, sinful thirst for attention. Even if it seems to for a moment, it won’t last. You might as well hand an exhausted marathon runner an empty water bottle.

But there is hope—for these high school girls and for every woman consumed by the quest for physical beauty. There is hope for me. For “[Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised" (2 Cor. 5:15).

Because of the gospel, we can be free from this fruitless and rebellious search to find satisfaction in receiving admiration for our physical beauty. We can live for Christ instead. And thus our hearts can “be fixed, where true joys are to be found” (Book of Common Prayer, 1662).

So what difference should the gospel make in how we think about beauty today?

First, instead of complaining to the mirror about our imperfect body, let’s consider how we can live for Christ by trusting Him and serving others. True joy will inevitably follow.

And secondly, if we’re tempted to envy (or self-righteously judge) the beautiful, immodestly dressed co-worker, classmate, or fellow mom, for the attention they receive, let’s pray for them instead—that they too would find true joy in Christ.

(This short post only begins to address a biblical perspective on beauty. We’ll no doubt return to this topic. But if you want to read more about it, Mom has taken a closer look in our book, Girl Talk.)