Well it’s almost mid-May in Chicago which, I am learning, means that Spring is finally  starting to peek out from under the frozen tundra. It’s not in full bloom, mind you, but there are some flowers here and there and I finally put away my down coat until next winter.

In case you were wondering, I really miss North Carolina.

As Ike and I mark our first successful survival of an Illinois winter, we have both concluded that we don’t like the winter at all, but for two very different reasons. For me, it’s the length that’s a killer. I was fine back in January when it was 4 degrees outside, but when it’s late April and still in the 30′s? That’s not right at all. Ike, on the other hand, doesn’t mind the cold. In fact, he prefers it to the humid summer heat. What he doesn’t like about the winters is that it transforms his wife into a shapeless amoeba of winter wear.

Ok maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but suffice it to say that he likes my figure and was frustrated by the fact that I was bundled up all the time. Indoors or outdoors, I was consistently covered in wool or long underwear. Not exactly every man’s dream.

This seasonal development led to some interesting conversations between the two of us, which then led to some great conversations with my girl friends. While it is generally accepted that women should try to dress and look good for their husbands, we don’t often talk about why that is, and the potential pitfalls in such a blanket statement. So that’s what I want to address today. As a Christian woman, how should I think through dressing, exercising, wearing makeup, etc. for my husband?

There have been a lot of books written on this topic, explaining that men are “visual” and women need to “speak their husband’s love language” and on and on and on. I don’t altogether disagree with those reasons but they’re a bad place to start. Every person’s understanding of beauty is culturally constructed and can, at times, be in conflict with God’s design for creation. Of course it is impossible to extract ourselves entirely from our culture, but there is a better place to begin this conversation than with the moving target of male desires and expectations.

That said, the optimal foundation for this discussion is found in the marriage between Christ and the church (Eph. 5:25). When it comes to the touchy subject of women and appearance, the model of Christ and his Bride is a really beautiful and healthy example. From this relationship we learn two things:

1. Christ’s love for the church is not based on works. Christians do nothing to “earn” God’s acceptance and love. We don’t need to pretty ourselves up or get our lives in order first. We can come just as we are and be loved unconditionally. Similarly, a wife should never use her looks to earn her husband’s love and attention. Appearance should not be a bribe or a hook to hold onto his affection. If you find yourself getting dolled up for fear of losing your husband’s interest, there is a problem. This type of fear has no place in the relationship between Christ and the church, nor should it in marriage.

Before I move to the second point, let me add a final thought here. In addition to adorning ourselves out of insecurity, women sometimes justify vanity under the guise of serving our husbands. I am totally guilty of this! I know my husband likes me to look good so I fully indulge my vanity, going so far as to count it godly since it is done for the sake of my marriage. It is so easy to let sins in the back door of pretended holiness!

2. Christ does not require but inspires good works. Although good works are not necessary for salvation, James 2 reminds us that faith without works is dead. James made that statement with the knowledge that a true follower of Christ, one who has been captured by his love and has committed their lives to him, will show it. Not out of obligation but inspiration.

In the same way, a callous heart towards a husband’s desires speaks volumes about the relationship. On the one hand, it could indicate that her husband is not loving her well. She may have been hardened by neglect or insecurity. However, some fault might also lie in her heart. For instance, I’ll admit there are days when I resent men who want their wives to look good for them. It can feel like an oppressive extension of an already perverted culture. Yet my reaction isn’t altogether fair. Many men have reasonable expectations of their wives. They don’t want their wives to look like Barbie dolls–they simply want to celebrate their wives’ beauty.

In a healthy Christian marriage it is good for your husband to delight in your body. And as a response to his love and commitment, it is good to take care of your body and allow him that delight. This mostly means being healthy, but it can also mean asking your husband about his preferences in what you wear and how you dress. Not because you have to earn his attention, and not because he won’t love you otherwise, but because you love him. It is a decision made with the same freedom we have to serve Christ.

Outward appearance is indeed a sticky issue given the ways in which our culture so heavily distorts beauty. But the solution is not to reject all outward forms of beauty anymore than it is to give into them. What matters is that your body is a means for loving your husband, loving yourself, and most importantly loving God. Christian husbands and wives know they are closest to this goal when their service to one another mirrors the love we see in Christ.

In my last post I told you about an interview I had scheduled for this this week on the True Sisterhood Podcast. Today I want to fill you in on how it went! The podcast format is like a Christian, radio version of The View. The podcast features four women of different ages and gifts who get together each week to talk about issues relating to women. They invite a guest for each show, and I highly recommend you subscribe so that you can get in on the conversation. They talk about some very thought-provoking subjects, and each woman has a refreshingly unique perspective. I don’t even think I brought anything particularly special to the mix–these ladies were all so incredibly sharp!

If you click on the link above, it will take you to the main page and the audio from my interview is on the left. Let me know what you think!

One issue we wanted to discuss further but didn’t have time was the question of how our appearance affects others. I broached this topic some in my last post, but as I’ve thought about it further I believe there are three Scriptural teachings to consider when it comes to makeup, appearance, or even the shoes you buy, the food you eat and the movies you watch: Your love for God, your love for your neighbor, and your love for yourself.

Love for God

Makeup and other spiritual crutches can threaten our love for God when we depend on them more than Him. In the case of makeup, it’s striking how often women use the language of “confidence,” as if increased confidence is a healthy theological justification. While it is not wrong to like wearing makeup (it certainly can be fun!), we need to examine our hearts when it becomes the source of our security and social courage. Our confidence comes from the unshakable foundation of the love of Christ. Period.

Love for Neighbor

Makeup can also threaten our love for our neighbors when it is worn in a way that causes our sisters to stumble. This guideline should not, of course, lead to a kind of legalism in which all makeup is declared to be evil. The women around you are responsible for their own hearts as well. But knowing the degree to which women grapple with body image, we need to think carefully about how we are encouraging our sisters, rather than reinforcing their insecurities.

Love for Self

Given that Jesus tells us to love our neighbors “as ourselves,” healthy self-love is implied in his words. This means loving ourselves as God created us to be. Our self-acceptance is not contingent upon anything other than God’s sovereignty, trusting that He created just as we are for a reason.

As I close out this discussion of makeup and appearance, let me reiterate that makeup neither encourages nor hinders the above commands to love. It is all in how you use it. We should give sober consideration to the reality that makeup and beauty have been tremendously perverted in our culture, so let’s not be naive about it. But we are also free in Christ and there are numerous ways to celebrate our bodies. Whether we accent our favorite features through lip gloss or a green scarf that brings out our eyes, we should never feel ashamed to do so. As long as we are honestly loving God, loving others, and loving ourselves in the process.

About a month and a half ago I posted an entry called Taking Off Your Makeup, and this past week a version of it was re-posted on Christianity Today’s blog for women, Her.meneutics. Surprisingly, Christianity Today has a wider readership than my personal blog (please note sarcasm) and I received a lot of wonderful feedback as a result! For example, this week I will be interviewed on the True Sisterhood Podcast as a follow-up to my article (I’ll post more info on that later this week). My preparation for that interview leads me to the topic of today’s post.

As I reflected on the topic of the interview I decided to watch a documentary called America the Beautiful. I highly recommend this film if you have not seen it, although I should warn you that it does contain harsh language and sexual images. It is not a film for young girls. I do, however, want to watch it again with my husband so that we can talk through it together. The overall aim of the documentary is to expose the methods by which our culture objectifies women in ways that are emotionally and physically harmful. One of the chief questions raised by the film, in my opinion, concerns the true nature of beauty. To what extent is beauty culturally defined? And given that extent, how much are we really in control of it? We might claim that we enjoy makeup and fashion in a healthy way, but there’s a blurry line between personal desire and culturally imposed standards.

The film raises so many different issues that I can’t possibly discuss them all here, but there was one moment that really stood out to me. Near the end of the documentary, the filmmaker interviewed a married couple who had lost a daughter to bulimia. As they reflected on the steps that led to her eating disorder, the mother recalled, “I would have never complained about the way I look in front of my daughter had I known she was struggling with her own self-image. When you think about it, most young girls grow up believing their moms are beautiful. But when we complain about the way we look, we reshape their notions of beauty and pass on our insecurities to them since they probably have the same body as us.”

This statement hit me square between the eyes. First of all, it resonated with my own childhood. When I was a little girl, I thought my mom was the most beautiful women in the whole world. In fact, I distinctly remember thinking how lucky I was to have such a pretty mom, and feeling sorry for other kids whose moms weren’t as pretty as mine! I can only assume my children will have similar sentiments.

Given that assumption, I have spent the last 20 years instilling some dangerous habits in myself. I complain about my body a LOT to my husband. There are certain aspects of myself with which I am never satisfied. But never had I considered that I could pass those insecurities on to my children.

In the Old Testament we are reminded of the power of a person’s legacy. Exodus 20:5, 34:7, Numbers 14:18 and Deuteronomy 5:9 all warn about children being punished for the sins of their parents. Fortunately, Christ has received the punishment for our sins so we no longer live in fear of those passages. Even so, there is an element of them that nevertheless stands true. Our sins impact those around us. Especially those who look up to us.

Whether you are a mom or a mentor, your personal insecurities and vanities can have consequences for the women around you. Whether it is your daughter or a young woman in college who looks to you as an example of godliness, your actions speak louder than words. I am greatly humbled by that reality. My weaknesses and insecurities are great, and I tremble to think of the example I set when younger women witness their ugliness.

All of that to say, the fight against insecurity and poor body image is not simply about ourselves. It is about the women around us as well. When we stand before God we will not only have to account for how we treated the body He gave us, but we will also have to account for the ways in which we were a stumbling block to others. From this perspective, loving ourselves is intimately connected to loving others.

So as I close, I want to end with one final word to my readers. Every week I get on this blog and I write about the things that God is teaching me. However, I do not write as an expert but as a woman in process. Most of the time I am preaching to myself, praying for the mercy to live out the things I know to be true. My life is not an example of perfection but of redemption. I admit there are and will continue to be inconsistencies between what I teach and how I live. I confess that and I repent. I also pray for the grace to lessen that gap. Please know that my struggles are just like yours, and I apologize if I ever feed into your insecurities, rather than point you to the One who can lift you out of them. I am just a spiritual pauper pointing other women to the One who gives me food. Christ alone is our all in all, and I pray that my personal inadequacies never distract you from him.

This week I start a new class and my life is about to get super hectic, so I thought I would re-post a blog I wrote a couple years ago (before I was married, as you will notice) that is admittedly one of my favorites. Let me know what you think!

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Every Fall, the North Carolina State Fair comes to Raleigh, North Carolina for about a week and a half, and every year I go to the Fair to do the following:

1. Look at all the mullets

2. Eat lethal amounts of fried food.

3. Hunt for a baby pig.

While the first two are fairly self-explanatory, let me explain the last one.

At the State Fair there is a giant compound that houses all the award-winning livestock for that year. As a part of the Fair, attendees can go inside to look at the cows, goats, sheep, etc. but you cannot touch them. Ordinarily, this rule would not be a problem for me, except that one of those pens contains an entire litter of baby pigs. And they are by far the CUTEST thing you’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, you can’t get anywhere near enough to touch them. You just have to stare at them from afar, only wishing you could crawl in there and hold them. I seriously wanted to kidnap one of those adorable baby pigs. I was so smitten with them that I literally talked about it all year long.

Lucky for me, I am getting married to a man whose father used to be in charge of the State Fair livestock, so he has “connections.” (And no, that is not why I’m marrying him) Early on in our relationship I explained to him my life-long desire to pet and hold a baby pig, maybe even adopt one as a pet, and he told me he could work something out.

When the State Fair rolled around the following year, Ike called in a favor, and one night after the Fair closed we got to go inside the pig pen. Finally, after years of waiting, pining, I got to hold a baby pig.

Tragically, it was not the experience I thought it would be. Looking at a baby pig, you’d think they’d be soft and squishy and cuddly–kind of like a pink puppy. But they’re not. Their hair is coarse, their skin is rough, and the pig I held screamed the entire time like I was murdering it. I felt like one of those mortified mothers whose kid has a meltdown in the grocery store.

After that experience I was pretty disillusioned with the baby pigs. It was a major let down after years of build up.

Now even though my long journey ended in disappointment, I share this story because it actually helped me to better understand a passage of Scripture that I’d always been familiar with. Proverbs 11:22 reads–

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.

As a result of my experience at the State Fair, I have learned one very important thing–no matter how old they are, pigs are nasty. The babies may look cute if you’re standing far away, but if you get close enough to touch them, you’ll see that they’re just mini versions of their mothers–mean, moody, and dirty. They also get obscenely large.

So while a gold ring might be a stunning piece of jewelry, its beauty is lost when placed in the snout of a pig. No matter how exquisite, there is no ring that can over-compensate for the hulking mass behind it. It’s just a tiny, shiny ring on a giant, dirty pig.

This is the visual we are meant to imagine when we read Proverbs 11:22. The beauty of the ring is completely overshadowed by the pig that dons it, and it is the same in a beautiful woman without discretion.

If you look up the definition of “discretion,” you will find the following synonyms: discernment, maturity, wisdom, thoughtfulness, prudence, and care. These all describe the kind of character that honors God, and honors those around her.

With that in mind, a woman could be a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but if she’s got a sailor’s mouth, she manipulates people with her body , and she throws a fit when she doesn’t get her way, then her beauty immediately pales. Her looks cannot make up for her personality.

Now given the way our culture emphasizes beauty, this may seem hard to believe. After all, beautiful women are allowed to get away with a lot more bad behavior than their “less attractive” counterparts. Is this verse really true?

The answer is an emphatic “yes!” A woman’s beauty might open some doors for her, but it is her character that will be her ultimate success. Beauty may attract a man, but faithfulness and respect is what will enable her dating relationships, and ultimately marriage, to last. Beauty may get her a job opportunity, but her work ethic will allow her to keep it, if not excel. Beauty may give her attention and friends, but it is her trustworthiness that will determine whether they stick around.

When a woman looks back on her life and measures the successes of her beauty, versus the successes of her character, she will find that her character made all the difference. It determines whether or not those blessings will be lasting. And when measured this way, it becomes more clear that the beauty of a woman without discretion does little more for her life than a ring on the tip of a pig’s nose. Both adornments are ultimately fruitless.

When it comes to makeup, I’m the kind of girl who has managed to get by with the most meager knowledge of how to wear it. I know the basics, but anything venturing near the realm of real makeup competence is beyond my skill level. I wear just enough to cover up the circles under my eyes without flirting with the risk of “clown face.”

Even so, I was incredibly convicted by something I discovered in my research last week. I’ve been studying the work of Maria Harris, a Catholic professor of religious education who wrote a lot about female spirituality. In her book Dance of the Spirit, she challenges women with the following words:

“Possibly the suggestion that we take off our makeup, or go outside without it, creates a feeling close to panic. (“Oh God, no”) If we react that way, it may be we are shocked by the suggestion that we allow someone else to see us as we actually are.”

Harris then adds,

“I know. I wear makeup. But I marvel at women who go without it, and I notice how comfortable men are in public without it. And I wonder what our doing away with it, not all the time but on occasion, as an experiment, might do in awakening our spirituality. After all, in West Side Story, Maria didn’t sing, ‘I look pretty.’ She sang, ‘I feel pretty.’”

Harris then goes on to describe other forms of makeup that we wear to hide ourselves, such as the facial expressions we don to mask what we’re truly feeling. Those of us who are driven by the need to people please are prone to behave as expected, even if our hearts and minds would have us do otherwise.

But no matter what kind of makeup you use to hide who you really are, I am inspired by Harris’ charge to occasionally step out from behind those veils. I also appreciate her balanced approach–rather than condemning all makeup as an evil itself, she encourages women to keep it in check. From time to time, take off your makeup and go out in public–it is a quick indicator of where your confidence lies!

In fact, I decided to make an experiment out of this idea. A couple days ago Ike and his family had planned to spend the day Christmas shopping, so I made the decision to leave the house without an ounce of makeup on my face. I valiantly descended the stairs as I announced, “Today I am going out without makeup on as an act of Christian discipleship!” (My husband understandably rolled his eyes. It was the appropriate response.)

However, my confidence faltered as soon as I walked in the first store. I kept wanting to tell the sales people, “I don’t normally look like this.” As if they even cared! Goodness, what an eye-opening experience it was! Eventually I adjusted to the change, but the whole time I kept asking myself, “Why do I feel so naked without makeup?”

As I pondered my makeup crutch, I was reminded of 1 Peter 3:3-4 which says,

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

True beauty, as God defines it here, takes a lot of work. Worldly beauty does not. And yet, I spend most of my time cultivating worldly beauty instead of godly beauty. Which is why I feel so naked when my worldly beauty is taken away–I am not confident in my spiritual beauty because I haven’t invested the same amount of time into it.

For another clue as to why I feel so naked without makeup, I need only look to my ancestral sister, Eve. When sin entered the world she immediately felt naked and ashamed, so she tried to cover herself. Thousands of years later I continue to feel that shame about who God created me to be, focusing on my faults instead of rejoicing in the divine image written into my being. As Harris said above, I am afraid for people to see me as I really am, even though God Himself created me this way.

So I challenge you to try this experiment yourself. For some of you this isn’t much of a challenge because you’re one of the glorious few who can leave the house without a shred of eye-liner or mascara and feel totally beautiful. I admire you! But for the rest of you who draw confidence from your makeup, pick a day to shed your makeup and then study your heart in the process. See what you discover and even report back here. I would love to hear what you learn!

In my last post I examined one of the reasons more and more women may be evacuating their marriages: the need to be independent from men. In this post I want to examine a second reason women may be leaving their marriages: a preoccupation with beauty.

Women in our culture are OBSESSED with beauty. Practically flawless models are airbrushed in magazines, and women spend millions of dollars each year on products ranging from wrinkle cream to spankx. Beauty is a highly valued commodity, and the Christian world is no exception. If you ever walk through the women’s section at a Christian bookstore you will see title after title dealing with beauty. We are just as obsessed with beauty as the culture around us. We may veil our obsession with language about “true beauty” but the fact of the matter is, we can’t get enough of it. We desperately want to feel beautiful.

Now let me be clear: beauty is not a bad thing. God created beauty. He defines beauty. He gave us beautiful people and beautiful things. However, we too often flirt with the line between good and ultimate good. C.S. Lewis described this distinction as follows:

“Every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made…You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”

In other words, there are many partial goods, but there is only one total good: Christ. However, many Christian woman draw dangerously close to treating beauty as a total good, not a partial one. They do this by placing an inordinate emphasis on beauty, as if the Christian life is ultimately about responding to this desire of your heart. As the teaching goes, God created women to be beautiful, so we will always have a desire to be beautiful, a desire that is constantly attacked and manipulated by the Enemy. The only One who can make us feel truly, irrevocably beautiful, is God.

And all of this is true. But it’s only a small part of the picture. First and foremost, it’s not even about us. It’s about God. And second, it’s not about feeling beautiful, but being in right relationship with God. Yet it is easy for these truths to get lost when we only want to read and hear about beauty, beauty, BEAUTY! Pretty soon, Christianity is just another type of makeover.

So what does all of this have to do with marriage? Between a culture that urges us to be outwardly beautiful and a religion that tells us to be inwardly beautiful, it is easy to make beauty into an idol. And when we do, we can face great disillusionment when marriage gets ugly. While marriage can certainly have its moments of romance and bliss, it’s also hard work. You don’t always look your best, and neither does your husband. He burps and farts. He doesn’t hang up the wet towels and they sour. He doesn’t use coasters. He eats things way past their due date. Then come the kids. You lose control of your body and it’s all you can do to get through the day, let alone take care of your skin, hair and nails. And whose that crazy lady screaming at your kids to quit running around the house? Oh wait, it’s you.

What happened to that beautiful life that the world says you should have and Christianity promises to give? Where did it go? How did it escape you? If you signed up for beauty and instead got struggle and strife, it’s easy to feel short-changed. It’s easy to yearn for the days when you had time for yourself. It’s easy to miss the times when you got dressed up for a night on the town with your girlfriends. Back then you just wanted to get married, but now that freedom seems glamorous. Why didn’t you appreciate it when you had it?

While not all women may struggle with these thoughts, I suspect that many do. And when we struggle with these doubts, we are sabotaged all the more by an anemic theology that emphasizes beauty but says little about the ugliness of suffering. Yes, God heals us and restores us, pursues us and ravishes us. But the call to follow Christ is also a call to suffer. It is a call to take up your cross and follow Him. Suffering is not a possibility but a guarantee, and this aspect of discipleship is generally glossed over when it coms to conversations about beauty.

The Christian life is not all about beauty. Beauty is good, but feeling beautiful is not God’s ultimate goal for your life. His ultimate goal for you is holiness, and that may come as a result of very ugly circumstances. We must therefore be wary of making beauty, a partial good, into a total good. If you are motivated by the pursuit of the beautiful life, then you will abandon whatever hinders your pursuit, whether it be your faith, or your marriage. So be sure that beauty has been properly prioritized. Beauty is good, but the total good, the first thing, is Christ. Christ, not beauty, must drive women’s discipleship.

There is a Psalm that captures my imagination every time I read it. It’s Psalm 115, and in verses 4-8 we read about the consequences of looking to idols instead of God:

“Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes but do not see.
They have ears but do not hear;
noses but do not smell.
They have hands but do not feel;
feet but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.”

“Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” Those are powerful, haunting words. Ever since I read them I have been praying for insight into their meaning for my own life, and I want to share it with you now.

Since reading these words, God has identified 2 key idols in my life (though they are countless more) that have shaped my identity as a result of “putting my trust in them.” The first is the way I look. Last night my husband and I talked about walking the line between looking good for him versus looking good for sinful reasons. Because it’s important for me to take care of myself and look good for my husband, I often allow this pure motive to disguise my impure motives. My more superficial or insecure motives slip in the back door under the excuse of pleasing my husband. But in reality, there is an idol there.

As I reflected on what the above Scripture means for my soul in this regard, I realized that when I make material things into an idol, I “become just like them.” That is to say, all glamour but no substance. The things I wear look pretty, but at the end of the day they’re just cotton, plastic or glass. What I wear may look pretty but only for a moment. That with which I adorn my body is only passing away because it’s not made of anything that lasts. It’s cheap and poorly made.

According to the above Scripture, I am becoming just like the adornments I just described. The more I put my trust in how I look, the more my identity will become like them. I will become superficial. My soul will abide in things that do not last. I may look glamorous, but the substance of my soul is cheap.

The second idol that God identified to me is my husband and my marriage. I had to think a little bit harder about what it means to “become like them” in regard to my husband. While it is certainly true that the two of us can become like one another in negative ways, pulling one another down instead of building one another up, I think the better interpretation here is that my identity becomes too intertwined with his. It’s not that I am literally turning into my husband, but that I cannot distinguish my own identity apart from him.

This becomes most noticeable when he hurts my feelings or disappoints me. It can be devastating, and because my identity is tied to his in an idolatrous way, I am wrecked by it. I have no resource for stepping outside of the situation and speaking, hearing, seeing and feeling like Christ because I am more tied to my husband than I am to Him. So while it is true that a husband and wife are to become one, that unity is to be sustained by Christ, not apart from him. From this perspective, there have been times when our union has gone rogue.

Those are just two of the countless other idols with which our identities get entwined. Our children, our careers, getting attention from the opposite sex, our abilities, the size and beauty of our house and even our hobbies can become idols that shape who we are instead of being shaped by Christ. So I challenge you to examine your own life in light of the above passage. What are your idols, and how are you becoming like them? This Scripture is a helpful reminder that worship is not simply a matter of God wanting out attention, but because what we worship determines our identities and He designed us to be like Him, not our impotent idols.

As a single woman I formed a bad habit that has now followed me into marriage. I wish I’d dealt with it years ago, but it took being married to bring the habit to light. You see when I was single, I made a habit of checking out attractive men. The habit wasn’t so much an issue of lust as it was an issue of pride. I wanted to see if guys would notice me back. I wanted the attention. Since it never went any further than that, and I was single, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me at the time.

The problem is that habits die hard.

Now, whenever I’m at the grocery store or the mall and I see an attractive man, there’s a part of me that still wants him to notice me. It’s totally absurd because I’m not actually interested, nor does his opinion even matter. I have a hot man at home who notices me every day, and I am committed to him. My reason for wanting this attention has nothing to do with the state of my marriage or how well my husband cares for me. It’s simply become a matter of habit that I reinforced over years and years and years.

Now some of you might wonder, “What’s so bad about a) admiring an attractive person in a non-lustful way, or b) appreciating it when someone else admires you?” The problem is that both of these supposedly innocent acts are really just smoke screens for the seeds of sin.

Proverbs 17:24 tells us, “A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.” If my marriage is healthy but I’m forming a habit of looking elsewhere, checking out the goods and enjoying attention from other men, what do you think I’ll default to when my marriage goes through a season of hardship? I will have foolishly created a coping mechanism outside of my marriage, and that can have devastating consequences. A seemingly innocent habit can lay the foundation for any number of tragic mistakes.

That’s why I’m teaching myself a new habit: don’t look twice. We can’t help it if we notice an attractive person. God created beautiful things and that’s a fact, but it’s how we respond to those beautiful things that define us. My husband often talks about me being “his standard of beauty.” That is to say that instead of comparing me to other women and noticing the ways in which I don’t measure up to the culture’s standard of beauty, he sees me as THE standard. Lucky for me, that means I always measure up!

I think it’s healthy for women to do the same. While women don’t tend to be quite as visual as men, we’re still bombarded with images of men with rock hard abs who have all their hair on their head. More than a few of us struggle with comparing the men in our lives to these unrealistic standards, so we need to make sure our husbands become our own “standard of beauty” as well.

And lastly, to all the single gals out there I can’t say enough that who you are as a single woman is who you will be as a married woman. Habits and behaviors that seem permissible now will follow you into marriage, so figure out what is beneficial for you and stick to it. The lifestyle you are creating for yourself now has the potential to either strengthen or sabotage a marriage. I honestly believe that more marriages would succeed if people had learned to do singleness better. So no matter your stage in life, don’t look twice. There are attractive people in this world, but keep wisdom in view. It is a far better guide.

The other day I was looking for a book at a Christian bookstore, and whenever I go I like to swing by the “Women’s Interest” section just to see what women are writing about these days. On this most recent visit, I noticed how many of the books dealt with the topic of beauty. A surprisingly large percentage of the books addressed the issue from varying perspectives: what is true beauty, what does it mean to be beautiful in the Lord’s eyes, how to fight for your beauty, etc.

Another large percentage dealt with what I call “survival issues”–healing, managing a busy schedule, overcoming hard times, bad marriages, difficult kids, etc.  Between self-help and beauty, I’d say those topics constituted about 80-90% of the women’s section.

This ratio made quite an impression on me. It also led me to reflect on whether this trend is spiritually healthy, given that it so thoroughly dominates the teaching that is out there. I’ve addressed the self-help phenomenon in previous posts, explaining why an over-emphasis on self-help can actually be spiritually detrimental–the solution is self-forgetfulness in God, not a greater focus on self–but what about beauty? For all the Scriptural interpretations that encourage women to embrace their God-given beauty, is it healthy to be SO focused on it?

To be fair, there is clearly an attack on women’s beauty in our culture. Even after writing a post about airbrushing last week, I still found myself standing in line at Barnes and Noble yesterday, staring at a girl on the cover of Shape Magazine thinking to myself, “She’s airbrushed, remember? She’s airbrushed, she’s airbrushed, she’s airbrushed!” because my body did NOT look like hers. It’s tough out there, and I sincerely believe Satan has a stronghold in this regard. God created women to uniquely reflect his divine beauty, and Satan’s had a field day attacking that attribute. There have been a lot of casualties.

Because of this spiritual war, women have sounded the battle cry. We’ve recognized the attacks, rallied the troops, and fought for our divine image. This advance is definitely a good thing. In a culture where women starve themselves, exercise themselves to death, and hook up with random guys all because they want to feel beautiful, we would be irresponsible not to address this issue. There is clearly a deep need within every woman to feel beautiful, and we ought to take that need seriously.

However, Satan is the great Deceiver. Even in our good intentions, he can creep in and pervert them. Knowing this, I have to ask if, in our desire to address the issue of beauty, Satan has blinded us to a bigger issue. When we focus largely on restoring women to a godly definition of beauty, are we feeding into a culture that ranks beauty, not godliness, as its most valuable currency? I hardly doubt that most of the books in Christian bookstores would argue that beauty is more important than godliness (they likely teach a definition of beauty that equates the two) but is it possible that we’ve allowed our culture to define the terms of the battle, instead of God? We are stopping up holes in a leaky dam, instead of building a dam that will never succumb to leaks in the first place.

Having said that, the real problem is not that “true beauty” is under attack. The problem is that we are not a generation of women who are immersed in God’s Word and captivated by His glory. As I mentioned above, the solution to low self-esteem is not self-help–it’s self forgetfulness in God. We must be so profoundly in love with God and His Son that our own need to be esteemed fades in comparison. My personal beauty only has significance inasmuch as I reflect the beauty of God.

Having said that, I don’t think we need to do away with books about beauty. It’s important to equip women with the tools and knowledge to fight the onslaught of Satan’s lies. However, our primary weapon is not books about beauty. Our primary weapon is God’s Word. We need to cloak ourselves in the truth of Scripture in such a way that makes up impervious to any lie that Satan hurls at us. They’ll bounce off our hearts like bullets hitting Superman’s chest–completely ineffective.

I should also add that I think women like Beth Moore and Kay Arthur strike this balance remarkably well. These two women certainly address beauty and healing, but the bulk of their work focuses on studying the Bible. These women know the Bible, and they’re equipping women to do the same. I applaud them in their Gospel-centered focus, and I pray it is a taste of what’s to come for Women’s Ministry. I hope that one day when I swing by the “Women’s Interest” section I won’t merely see books about overcoming marital problems and rediscovering one’s inner beauty. I hope to see shelves filled with the teachings of godly women about the powerful sword that is God’s mighty, indestructible Word. That is the answer to our beauty problem.