The Eye of the Beholder

One of my favorite movies growing up was Annie. My friends and I loved to play orphans dressed in rags and forced to do labor intensive chores. Whoever could come up with the most pathetic, down trodden story won (at least that’s what my competitive 8 y/o mind thought.) The game would always end with our adoption and a transformation from rags to riches. My mom saved some of her junior high and high school dance dresses, old high heels, and our dance and Halloween costumes. I loved to rifle through the dress-up bin to put together a new outfit, complete with jewelry and make-up, so I could make the transformation to beautiful complete.

            

Feeling beautiful is not something that happens often for me. I’ve never felt that my outward appearance has been one of my strengths. I’ve gotten compliments on my appearance, but I accepted those compliments as circumstantial rather than a reflection of who I was. My skin has never been perfect and breakouts are not something I’ve grown out of like I thought. My nose has been broken 3 times and more prominent than I would sometimes like. Then there are body issues that stem from years of comparing myself to other, more toned athletes that I competed with and against throughout my soccer career. No matter how fit I was, there were always flaws I was sure everyone else focused on just as much as I did. These insecurities were never something I wanted to talk about because I didn’t want people to think I was fishing for compliments or shallow for focusing on my outward appearance. Most days, I kept silent and tried to focus on the other things I had going for me. The problem was that those unspoken insecurities transformed into lies I started to contemplate. Then I was then afraid to talk about the lies because what if they were actually true? The lies were particularly potent when I was most vulnerable during my college years. They included things like: nobody wants to be friends with you because of the way you look; you’ll never get playing time if you aren’t shaped like that person; and how do you expect to get a boyfriend with skin like that? I pretended to myself and to God that I wasn’t affected by these lies, I was secure enough in other areas of my life that what I looked like didn’t matter to me.

            

I did my best to ignore the lies, pushing them beneath the surface instead of actually dealing with them. This technique worked for a little while after I graduated college and once I had success in other areas of my life. I was able to focus on those lies less, but they’ve always been teeming below the surface.  Recently, God has been encouraging me to examine those lies and face them head on, seeing them for what they truly are, and eliminating them in exchange for the truth.

            

Lie detection device number one was a song that came on the radio. I have anywhere from a 30-60 minute commute each day depending on traffic so I have a lot of time to think about random things, pray or sing along to the radio. On one day in particular, a lie had crept its way up to the forefront of my random thoughts. As I was getting ready to ignore it like I usually do the song playing on the radio piqued my attention.

           

            “There could never be a more beautiful you.

            Don’t buy the lies, disguises and hoops they make you jump through.

            You were made to fill a purpose, that only you can do,

            So there can never be a more beautiful you.”

           

It was a great song written by Johnny Diaz, and if you’ve never heard it I recommend looking it up: More Beautiful You. The song was the first echo God laid on my heart to initiate a thought transformation. The second lie detector came through the same radio station on a day similar to the one described above. A woman was talking about how our physical “imperfections” are what make us relatable to each other. We all see them as the things we would most want to change, but God sees them as a beautiful way to make us approachable to the people around us who don’t know about his love. If we were the picture of perfection, we would likely be too intimidating and miss out on relationships and opportunities to show others love. He changed my perspective of my physical imperfections and showed me that I was intentionally created with them for His glory.

            

The last lie God encouraged me to let go of didn’t happen the way I thought it would. As a single woman of 27 I’ve always considered myself a pretty good catch for any Christian man (I really hope that doesn’t sound conceited.) I do my best to seek after Christ in everything I do, I have wide variety of interests, I enjoy watching and playing sports, I’m a good listener, and I try to put other’s needs above my own. With all of these things going for me, I had a hard time understanding why I’ve been single for so long. The lie that I tried to ignore most but was probably most afraid of was that it was because I was physically unattractive. I expected God to squash this lie by bringing the man of my dreams into the picture so he could tell me everyday how beautiful I am and we would live happily ever after. God chose a different way. I’ve been reading a book by Margaret Feinberg called The Sacred Echo. She writes about how God doesn’t just tell us something once and we are done, we either learn the lesson or we don’t, but instead He echoes important lessons over and over until it begins to sink in. One echo God has continually laid on my heart whenever we discuss the romance part of my life is wait. Should I pursue this person even if he doesn’t appear interested? God echoes wait. Should I give on-line dating a try? God echoes wait. Should I go to this speed-dating event to try and put myself out there? God echoes wait. The echo takes a variety of forms from Bible verses to fictional stories to conversations with close friends. Sometimes I am patient and graciously accept the answer and sometimes I get frustrated and cry or yell at God for such a silly answer. There is a chapter in this book entitled How Long? It talks about waiting and how we (the human race) are all waiting for something: graduation, marriage, a job, a house, retirement, etc. But we aren’t the only ones. God and all of creation are also waiting for the world to be reconciled to Him. The book puts it so much more eloquently than I just did and the message I gleaned helped to change my perspective on waiting in my dating life. I learned that He is trying to teach me how to wait expectantly because it will make what I am waiting for that much better while at the same time increasing my trust and faith in Him.

            

Once the lies were exposed, examined, and transformed to truth, God allowed me to see myself as He sees me. I am made to fill a purpose that only I can fulfill, my imperfections show his strength and love to those around me, and I am waiting not because I am unattractive, but because He wants to draw me into closer relationship with Himself. I feel so blessed to know that God cared enough about me to clear up the lies I thought I had under control so the truth could set me free. I am no longer an orphan in ugly rags, but a daughter of the King, clothed in beauty and grace.