I would guess that most people that know me, know that I care a great deal about my physical appearance. Some would call me obsessed and I would hardly argue with them on that.
Lately God has been working in me in many different ways and revealing to me different things about himself,myself and our relationship. Body image is just one big thing in my life that he would not spare. In and of itself, it isnt huge, but he knows me and he knows what is at the core of it.
At the risk of oversimplifying, I will say there are at least 2 things at the core of it in my case: lack of trust in him (and thus the desire to have control) and lack of knowledge (REAL experience knowledge not just "head" knowledge) of his deep deep love for me.
From the time I was a teenager it was BURNED into my brain that within my body and appearance lied my worth. As long as my appearance was at a certain level, I was worth something;sadly, I also learned that as long as my body was 'available' sexually, I was worth something.
As it turns out,those concepts are harder to dethrone than you would think, and today's society and mass media do NOT make it any easier, in fact, they make it THAT much tougher to realize the deep lie within them.
The lie is that my body is only good for one thing; the lie is that my body represents my worth as a person; the lie is that meeting a certain physical standard is what I should strive for,in order to silence the sounds of self-loathing and pain.
The truth of course, is that God made my body to do many more things than what I concern myself with,and for more than what the lie would have me believe.
God made my body to do wonderful things. It is meant to be his temple, his dwelling place. It is meant to sing his praise, and worship him.
It is made for loving others, holding hands, giving hugs. It is made for laughing, and crying so that I can rejoice with others and weep with others. It is made to give life, both physically and spiritually through the power of his holy spirit.
It is made to enjoy my husband within the context of our committed love to one another, and for my husband to enjoy me.
The truth is that when I consider my body only as a means to obtain "worth" I downgrade it to the status of a tool. I make it into an object. I strip it of the wonderful qualities that are within it, and I invite other to do so as well.
What a tragedy! To take something so valuable and strip it of its value and affix upon it a label that allows others to mistreat it and misuse it. To take the gift that God has given me and abuse it and beat it into submission, in order to slience the pain and the hurt that God himself promises to heal.
A tragedy indeed.
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