Flawed, Not Filtered
A few years ago, I wrote a special memory down in my notes that I didn’t want to forget. My daughter, Piper, who is currently six years old, was only three at the time. I had just rolled out of the bed, and had to be somewhere in the next hour or so. I didn’t have make up on. It was one of the mornings when you look in the mirror at yourself and your reflection scares you a little bit! I looked pasty, circles under my eyes, I could play connect the dots with the lovely acne coming up on my face. All I could think was “yuck! Where is the concealer??”
A few moments later, Piper walks into the bathroom where I was, she was dressed in her yellow Princess Belle dress, tiara slightly crooked on her head, and said, “Look Mama! I am a beautiful princess!” and I replied, “Yes Piper! That’s right! You are the most beautiful princess I’ve ever seen!” In her eyes, I called her a beautiful princess as a reflection of the dress and crown she had on, but in my eyes, I called her a beautiful princess because she is my daughter and I love her more than she could ever possibly fathom. She then walked over to me, held my face in her two little hands and looked at me and said, “Pretty mama, so pretty.” Piper saw me in a way that I never would have described myself, especially in that moment after just rolling out of the bed. Tears filled my eyes and I smiled at her. You see, our children aren’t looking at our makeup-less faces, our dark circles, our squishy tummies, or our stretch marks. What makes us beautiful to them is the role that we play in their lives, and the love and nurturing that we provide for them.
Words are so powerful and if I am constantly belittling myself out loud in front of my daughter, she is going to catch on to that and start thinking the same about herself. Today, more than ever, there are so many apps teaching young ladies how to filter and edit themselves in pictures. The world says, “you don’t look good enough, you aren’t thin enough, you have cellulite on your legs, you have a double chin,” and the list of flaws goes on and on. I may be the one writing this blog, but I am speaking to myself as well. Believe me, I want to physically edit my body at times too. We are trying so so hard to please others over pleasing the one who created us from the depths of this earth in His image. I don’t want Piper growing up believing lies from the enemy that she is not beautiful enough for this world and that she has to “fix” herself. If you are a daughter of the King, then I pray that you fully come to realize that your beauty surpasses this world’s standard of beauty. A verse that we so easily forget, “For man (& woman) looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Makeup isn’t bad. Eating healthy and working out to physically feel better isn’t bad. Putting a filter or edits on a picture isn’t bad. It’s when we start creating a negative view about ourselves and believing that we aren’t good enough to measure up to this world’s standard of beauty, that we start to deconstruct ourselves in order to please this world.
Psalm 139:13-15 says, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance;”
The creator of heaven and earth and of all living things, formed you, created you, and knitted you together. Look at the part in that verse that says “Intricately woven,” meaning He created you in a very detailed way. He took time to create you just as you are. How distorted is our thinking to want to change His creation and call it “flawed?”
Hear me ladies when I say, God wants you just as you are, imperfections and all. He wants you to come to Him flawed, not filtered. Just as Piper held my face in her hands and spoke to me, I picture Jesus holding our faces up with His hands, looking into our eyes, saying, “Pretty, daughter, so pretty.”