"You're Beautiful!"

Last night, I was listening to a training webinar by Dr. Rick Thomas, a NANC mentor and author of biblical counseling books. The lecture was actually on maintaining sexual purity, but a certain point he made also had direct bearing on the development of eating disorders.

Dr. Thomas cited the "atmosphere of comparison" about one's body created by teen and glamour magazines as being destructive to a healthy view of sexuality. I completely agree, and it is no secret that the airbrushed, seductively-posed photos of teen and pre-teen girls encourage more "average" girls to strive to attain this aesthetic ideal. As I have written before, this breeds an unhealthy preoccupation with one's body (which is the definition of vanity), and leads to an idolatrous view of physical beauty (defined as thinness or sex appeal).

"Fantasizing is a form of dissatisfaction with God over your current circumstances," he said.

In short, when feeling insecure about her body, a girl (whether Christian or not) is falling prey to the twin sins of pride and fear of man. She is not "setting [her] mind on things above, [but instead] on earthly things" (Colossians 3:2). This atmosphere of comparison is antithecal to the Gospel. Psalm 139 presents God's truth about how His daughters are to see themselves:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

This is not "new" information, but it needs to be taken seriously if you are coveting the body types you see in worldly magazines, or seek to use your body to draw attention to yourself. The biblical antidote to this type of wrong thinking is to cultivate inner beauty. See the following verses which describe true beauty through your Father's eyes:

Psalm 45:11, Proverbs 31:30; Isaiah 53:2 (speaks of Jesus - the Messiah Himself did not come to attract attention by His human looks); Ezekial 16:15; 1 Peter 3:3-4.

I came across the lyrics of a Mercy Me song today which illustrate this truth well:

Days will come when you don't have the strength.
When all you hear is, "you're not worth anything."
Wondering if you ever could be loved.
And if they truly saw your heart, they'd see too much.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.

You are made for so much more than all of this.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.

You are treasured.

You are sacred.

You are His.

You're beautiful.

Praying that you have the heart to fight.
Cause you are more than what is hurting you tonight.
For all the lies you've held inside so long,
They are nothing in the shadow of the cross.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.

You are made for so much more than all of this.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.

You are treasured.

You are sacred.

You are His.

You're beautiful.

Before you ever took a breath,
Long before the world began,
Of all the wonders He possessed, there was one more precious.
Of all the earth and skies above, you're the one He madly loves ... enough to die.

You're beautiful.
You're beautiful.

In His eyes.