When I was 14, and right smack in the middle of puberty, I was so self conscious. I was so consumed with what others thought about my hair, my outfit that day, my makeup (which lets be real was basically just mascara and a bunch of concealer covering up all that acne). Little did I know that everyone else around me was also struggling with insecurities of their own, but I was so self conscious that I compared myself to others and walked with my head down.
Heinsight is 20/20. And now that I’m beyond those awkward acne filled days, I see areas where I struggled and have since been able to make sense of them.
But let me be clear, I still struggle with being self conscious. If you believe that your struggles will all suddenly disappear once you reach that certain age, when you accomplish that next goal, or when you get married, you will be disappointed. Our insecurities are not bound to an age or time in our life. Satan knows our weakest points and will stop at nothing until we are defeated.
Oh great! So we’re always gonna feel this way.
Well maybe. If you feed your mind the wrong things. Dwell on your insecurities. Surround yourself with life draining people. Then ya, you may always feel that way.
Or perhaps you do all the right things. You tell yourself positive things. You work out and cover yourself with all the nicest clothes, makeup and accessories. But yet you still feel empty and exhausted from constantly striving for something you always just seem short of.
In culture I have noticed recently a lot of well-known people and big name brands embracing and advertising all body sizes and not just what society has deemed the “ideal body”.
Self-help or self-love guides are all the rage, teaching people how to love themselves as they are. Which is great! That is so important!
But for some reason every time I see a self-love ad or post, it never sits right with me.
It's not enough to believe in ourself more or to think more positively.
Because as a child of God, who knows her value, knows that she is God’s masterpiece and that she is loved beyond measure, when society advertises self-love it appears to me as a knock off for the real thing. The thing that everyone is searching for, but unfortunately in all the wrong places.
Love. Acceptance. Value. Worth. Cannot be found to satisfy in ourselves. This is why self-love guides fail to satisfy that longing within us because they replace JESUS with US.
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me tighter in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:13
Loving yourself for who God made you to be is different than loving yourself because well you are better looking and more put together than she is.
Loving yourself for who God made you to be is different than loving yourself when you feel beautiful and others compliment you.
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”2 Corinthians 12:9
However, people’s opinions of us seem to outweigh the truth God speaks to us. Its kinda like when we think our mom says that we look good just because she has to, but we aren’t that convinced by her opinion.
We love others and ourself because He first loved us. There is no satisfaction in loving myself without loving Christ because he deemed me lovable. Loving myself is draining because I know I will let myself down. I am incapable of satisfying that desire for love and acceptance apart from Jesus. I…we…were created to be loved by our creator. Loving all my flaws and insecurities, is loving and worshipping my God who made me, because apart from Him I am nothing. I have flaws and insecurities, but He has none!
These self-love guides should not be about loving ourselves, but about loving Jesus! Because
life is not about us anyways.
when we fix our eyes on Jesus, we reflect His beauty.
I don’t wanna keep believing in myself. I wanna believe in an almighty God.
Because it is in Him my beauty resides. (Song of Songs 4:7, Psalm 139:13-14)
In Him I am complete. (Colossians 2:9-10)
In Him my insecurities and brokenness has been embraced and redeemed. (2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Peter 2:9)
I once heard it put like this.
Self-helps are like rubber swords compared to the word of God which is the sword of the spirit. Girls, lets put down our rubber swords of self help and take up our swords of the Spirit.
“But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:57
We can lay down our insecurities to the One who has none, and begin to see our beauty, the beauty of Christ, reflected in us.
Walking this journey with you,
Daysha
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