One of the topics I spend a lot of time writing, teaching and speaking about is beauty. Beauty is a central theme in women’s ministry because all women desire it. And in the face of this desire, women’s ministry fights to protect God’s standard of beauty when culture perverts it.

But having said that, what is beauty? If we are going to resist the world’s understanding of beauty in favor of God’s, we should probably know exactly what we’re talking about. Unfortunately, this is a much harder task than one might initially think. Just pause for a moment and ask yourself: How would you define beauty??

Beauty is one of those ideas on which it is tough to put a finger. We know something is beautiful when we see it, but how does one actually define beauty? After all, what one person calls beautiful, another person might find ugly. Why is beauty defined so differently by so many people and cultures?

Well I discovered the reason for this discrepancy in opinions in the very definition of the word. Wesbter’s dictionary defines beauty as follows:

1: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : loveliness

2: a beautiful person or thing; especially : a beautiful woman

3: a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality

Notice in the first definition that an object is called beautiful according to the pleasure it evokes in the mind or spirit. Now that is quite a tricky definition given its extreme subjectivity! One person might find something to be beautiful because it stirs pleasurable sensations in them, but another person will not call that thing beautiful if it does not stir up the same feelings of pleasure.

So which individual is right? Who is to decide what is beautiful and what is not, if the only measure of beauty is an individual’s personal feelings of pleasure?

Well at this point I decided to turn to Scripture since Webster’s definition was running me in circles. If you search the Bible for the word “beautiful,” you will find that it appears about 75 times. Of those appearances, only two or three are references to men. The remaining 73 references are applied to objects that we more traditionally understand as being beautiful: clothing, jewels, crowns, flowers, cities, and God, but it is most frequently applied to women.

I also found a frequently used phrase, “the perfection of beauty,” which is always used to describe God. What’s more, the New Testament almost exclusively references beauty in the context of service to God. In Matt. 26:10 Jesus asks, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me.” And in Romans 10:15 declares, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” Within these contexts, beauty is directly connected to the glory of the Lord.

With all of that in mind, we have a little bit more information about beauty. We know that God is the perfection of beauty, thereby making Him the ultimate standard of beauty. We also know that women somehow possess that beauty in a unique and definitive way.

How, then, are we to define beauty? Honestly, I’m still not quite sure. It seems to be an attribute that almost defies description or definition. It captures us in a way we cannot articulate, and it transports our hearts and minds to a place that is other-worldly. When we see something beautiful, we know that we are experiencing a taste of the divine, but we may not fully understand why or how.

And perhaps that is why we cannot define it–it is beyond our limited capacity to comprehend. Not until we reach the other side of eternity will we truly grasp the glory of true beauty as God defines it. For now, we must be satisfied with mere echoes of it.

What, then, does that mean for women and their understanding of beauty in the face of culture? Two things. One–while we struggle to pinpoint the basic definition of beauty, we can know that God creates certain things to specifically reflect God’s beauty (such as flowers and sunsets) but women reflect that beauty in an especially unique way. While men can be beautiful (both David and Moses were described this way) the majority of Scripture applies the description to women.

That said, women were created to reflect this attribute of God in their very essence. It is written into our beings. We were created with it, so it is an essence that no culture can undermine. Beauty is never defined by certain physical attributes, but instead as that which best reflects God. Any definition of beauty that sets itself up against the basic beauty and divine image inherent in every single woman is a definition in conflict with the beauty of God.

Two–beauty is anything that brings glory to God. Many of the contexts in which the word “beauty” is implemented involve service to and worship of God. Whether it describes the “beautiful feet” of those who spread the Gospel, or beautiful jewels of God’s temple, they are all meant to point back to God.

As women, that is the only way we should consider “improving” our beauty–by reflecting God all the more with our lives. 1 Timothy reminds us that we should not adorn ourselves with jewels, trendy clothes, or plastic surgery. The only makeover we need is one of the soul–we should adorn ourselves with modesty, self-control, and good works.

So when it comes to being beautiful, don’t seek to change or augment those things that God gave you at birth. He created you the way He did because it was beautiful to Him. The only thing we can add to such beauty is a spirit surrendered to God. Any other definition of beauty only seeks to glorify ourselves and calls God a shabby Creator. Let us instead be women who embrace a true definition of beauty, and evidence that beauty with our lives.

Well right now I am on the other side of the world visiting Southeast Asia. I probably won’t disclose the exact location until I get back, but if you want a hint I can tell you that Passion will be doing a concert here on August 3. That’s all I’m going to say!

So far the trip has been amazing! We have visited the biggest Muslim mosque I’ve ever seen (I had to wear a pink robe that covered my head so that I wouldn’t defile the temple–I looked HOT!) and then we went to a Hindu temple that seemed like it was straight out of the Old Testament. People were sacrificing offerings to golden idols and everything!

But one thing that has stood out to me the most has been the presence of women wearing the full, black Muslim covering. These women are actually tourists from the Middle East, not native to the country, but there are a lot of them around so they constantly grab my attention. I can’t help but wonder what it must be like to stare out at the world from a complete veil, no one seeing anything about you but your eyes.

But the fascinating thing about these women is that, while their entire bodies are completely covered, hiding any kind of distinguishing features about their bodies, these women still went out of there way to stand out. Many of them had the cutest little shoes I’d ever seen, or they carried beautiful, eye-catching purses. It was as if they were trying to find a way to make themselves beautiful, even though their bodies were completely hidden from the world.

I love that. I think it reflects something inherent and irrepressible about the female heart. No matter what the world does to hide it, God created women to be beautiful, and He desires that we celebrate that beauty. Our beauty reflects something true about the character of God, so we should never strive to hide it.

That doesn’t mean we should pursue vanity and become obsessed with our looks, but it does mean that at our very essence, there is something about us that reflects the beauty of God, and we should never be ashamed of it. Sometimes that even means resisting our culture’s perception of beauty, knowing that society can also hide our beauty by calling undesirable that which God called lovely. When this happens, Western culture is just as guilty of suppressing a woman’s natural beauty as a strict Muslim culture might be.

Wherever you are in the world today, celebrate who you are! God created you with purpose and detail, so I pray that He helps you to appreciate and love yourself just as much as He does.

Well I’m off to have more adventures on the other side of the world. I’ll try to check back in soon!

The other day I saw a t.v. show interviewing women over the age of 30 who’d decided to have plastic surgery. Specifically, they’d all had breast implants.

Now this was a bit surprising to me. When I think of breast implants, I think of women in their twenties who are perhaps hoping it will boost their specific careers.

But that simply isn’t the case anymore. An article in USA Today reported that from 2000 to 2005 the number of women getting breast implants increased 37%, and as the article described, “The typical person getting breast implants today is not the stripper, the model…It’s the girl down the street.”

What’s more, she’s not so much a “girl” either. She’s a woman–a wife and a soccer mom, most likely with a bachelors degree. A survey done in 2003 found that the average age of women receiving breast augmentation was 34.

About a month ago I wrote about the growing trend of anorexia in women over the age of 30, so given those statistics the rise in breast implants should be no surprise. The only difference is that there’s a stigma attached to one, and not to the other. Anorexia is frowned upon by the general population, but breast implants are becoming more and more accepted.

That brings us back to the show I was watching the other day. As the women being interviewed discussed their decisions, their reasons tended to be more personal than professional. They’d always wanted bigger breasts, or they simply wanted a makeover.

But one woman raised a dissenting voice. She argued that women only have this surgery if they are suffering from low self-esteem or have a poor body image. By having breast implants, they are attempting to prop up their self-esteem in an artificial way.

“Finally!” I thought. A voice of reason in a backwards world!

But she was quickly dismissed. One of the other women immediately replied that her self-esteem was just fine and that she’d always had tremendous confidence. Her reason for having the surgery? “I’m doing it for me.”

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, I wanted to start shaking my t.v. set. I wanted to sit that women down and ask her, “What do you mean you’re doing it for you? Where do you think the desire to have bigger boobs came from? It’s not like you cooked it up in your own brain independent of the culture you live in! You’re doing it because society has fed you the lie that women with larger breasts are more beautiful and desirable. The idea that you’re doing it for you is all an illusion!”

Unfortunately, I am not able to sit down with that women and tell her those things….which probably wouldn’t have gone over too well anyway. But I do have a blog, so I’m going to state it here:

Be careful when you hear yourself utter the words, “I’m doing it for me.” Yes, there are times when this motivation is warranted–if, for instance, you are extremely overweight and you need to do a better job of being healthy. Take the necessary steps to make that happen.

But don’t use these words to mask the real problem. It is most likely that you have been so profoundly influenced by society that you don’t even know what’s you, and what’s the culture.

The key to determining the difference can be found in Scripture. Are you making changes that are consistent with the Scriptural depiction of the human being? If you are trying to be healthy, then yes! Our bodies are the temple of God, so we should be good stewards of them.

But if you are attempting to make drastic, superficial changes to the body God has given you, whether it be through surgery, extreme dieting, or over-exercising, then you will find yourself in conflict with the truths of Scripture. The Bible tells us that we are made in God’s image, and that God knit us together in our mother’s womb. This implies an intimate, intentional purpose in every single part of your body and personality, so any attempt to alter that creation runs the risk of insulting God. It questions His judgment in making you the way that you are.

(And please don’t interpret this to mean that I am promoting some sort of Christian Science position in which doctors should not help people born with birth defects. Scripture shows us examples of healing in the lives of individuals whose day-to-day functioning was impaired from birth. Such surgery is certainly permissible, but it’s in an altogether different category from the kind of changes I have described above.)

In closing, I want to remind each one of you out there that you have been fearfully and wonderfully made. Any message that indicates otherwise does not come from God, so be on your guard against the lies of our culture. We have becomes so inundated by them that we have now begun to deceive ourselves, rather than being speakers of truth.

Ultimately, the best way to determine whether you’re doing what’s best for you, or if you’re simply in bondage to the opinion of others, can be found in the following question: Are you doing it for God? Sometimes the desires we have for ourselves can be deeply misguided, so we should never use our own, personal fulfillment as a barometer of right and wrong. Ultimately it’s about God and what brings the most glory to Him. Anything else is idolatry.

*To read the whole USA Today article, you can check it out here.

One day when I was a little girl, I asked my parents why they chose my name and what it meant. My mom told me she had found the name in a book, and the meaning given for it was “princess.” I subsequently spent my entire growing up years believing that my name meant “princess,” and feeling pretty darn special because of it.

Until the fateful day when I googled it. Either the book was wrong or my mom was lying to me, but my name does NOT mean princess. Here is the actual definition for the name Sharon:

It is of Hebrew origin, and its meaning is “a fertile plain”. Biblical place name: refers to flat land at the foot of Mount Carmel.

In other words, my name refers to a giant pile of dirt. Not princess.

This point is driven home all the more when we read it within its context in Song of Solomon. It reads:

“I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.” (2:1)

All this time I thought that this verse was a compliment, an old-timey way of saying that someone was beautiful. But in reality, it is quite the opposite. It is a way of describing someone as being common or average. They are but an ordinary flower of the plain, a lily just like all the others in the valley.

To the left you can see what the Rose of Sharon flower looks like. There is nothing stand out about it. It isn’t ugly, but it isn’t particularly special. No one ever gives someone Roses of Sharon for an anniversary or birthday. It’s not that type of flower.

Given this information, my namesake seems somewhat fitting. How many times have I felt like a common lily among orchids, roses, and tulips! That is the message our culture frequently conveys–if you are not tall, thin, cute, busty, and well-dressed, then you are plain-Jane average and no one will give you a second glance. You’re nothing but a Rose of Sharon.

I’ve also felt this way in the wake of broken relationships. Following a number of break-ups, my exes moved on to date other girls almost right away. And when this happened, I felt like little more than a notch in their belts. I was just one girl among many. I wasn’t special at all–just one lily among thousands just like me.

Song of Solomon therefore provides us with a tremendous insight into the female mind. It comforts the female heart with the knowledge that when you feel that way, you are not alone! It is a very common mindset for women, and perhaps one of the primary ways that Satan attacks us. After all, God created us to reflect His beauty, so what better way to undermine the glory of God than to cast seeds of doubt about the truth of our beauty? No, you are not alone in feeling this way.

But what is even more wonderful about this passage is the lover’s response to his beloved. When she belittles her beauty, claiming that she is nothing but a plain lily of the valley, her lover replies, “Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens.”

Guys, you better be taking notes, because that is the perfect response! In contrast with her self-perception he speaks truth into her heart, telling her that she’s a lily among thorns, a flower so beautiful and rare that she puts all other flowers to shame. They look like weeds in comparison.

Even though this is an ancient love story using language that is foreign to our modern sensibilities, there is truth in these verses for all of us. First this story reminds us to settle for nothing less than the courtship it describes. Don’t allow a guy to treat you like a lily of the valley, using your body or your attention like he might use any other girl. Wait for the man who sees you as the lily among thorns that you are. And it’s not enough for him to say it–he must demonstrate it with his actions. Does he treat you in a way that sets you apart? Does he guard your purity and speak about you in a way that is honoring? Does he hold you in high esteem as the precious treasure that you are?

But more importantly, this verse must be read within a larger context. Throughout the history of the Church, Song of Solomon has been interpreted as an allegory for God’s love for us. God pursues us and ravishes us in what can only be described as the greatest love story ever told. And given that fact, we must remember that when the lover defends the beauty and honor of his beloved, God does the same for us.

Ladies, not one of us is common. Not one of us is ordinary or plain. God did not create ordinary or plain, because He only created those things which reflect His character, a character that is beautiful, magnificent, awe-inspiring, and good.

He also created each one of us to be different–each one of us has something unique to offer the world, which is why he designed each one of us so personally and intimately–He had a specific purpose in mind. That said, you are never a lily among many, because there isn’t a single lily in all of creation that is like you.

So the next time you feel like an average Rose of Sharon, or a common lily of the valley, stop and listen to the words that God is whispering into your heart: “Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens.” You are His darling.

Even though the Christmas season ended over a month ago, our Christmas tree is still sitting in our front yard. “Why?,” you ask. Well I blame the garbage pick-up people. Apparently there was some sort of miscommunication between us.

A couple weeks after Christmas had passed, we dragged our Christmas tree to the top of our driveway so that the garbage truck could take it away the next morning. Well when my roommates and I came home the following afternoon, we arrived to a startling surprise. Not only had our tree NOT been picked up, but it had been shoved all the way down the hill of our front yard. It was so far away from the curb that it looked like a deliberate and clear rejection. It was like they were sending us the message, “We want absolutely nothing to do with your tree, and we never want to come near it again.” Needless to say, I’m still a little hurt.

Ever since then, our tree has been sitting in our front yard untouched. No one from the road can see it because it’s so far down the hill, which is probably why we haven’t moved it–we don’t have to worry about the neighbors thinking we’re hillbillies who leave our trash in our yard. But we also haven’t moved it because we don’t really know what else to do with it. The garbage people rejected it, so where else does one turn?

(And p.s., if you know the answer to why our tree was rejected–if there’s some kind of North Carolina Christmas tree disposal law about which I am unaware–please inform me)

Now this tale of Christmas tree woe is not the point of my writing today. But seeing that sad, little Christmas tree in our front yard, which browns and withers with every passing day, reminds me of an important spiritual truth.

At the end of the day, a Christmas tree is little more than a tree that is dying. This reality is obvious now that my tree is dried out and brown, but we don’t think about it at Christmastime when the tree is dressed up with ornaments and lights. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I would just sit in front of our tree and stare at it because it was so beautiful, but no matter how much we dressed up that tree, we couldn’t change the reality that this tree had been cut off from its roots, and was now dying a slow and sure death.

Oftentimes, my life feels just like that beautiful Christmas tree. I have covered myself with all kinds of Christian decorations–I have a seminary degree, I’m a writer, a college minister, a Bible study leader, and a mentor to many young women. But at the end of the day, those achievements are all just decorations. They don’t really mean anything, because they do not sustain the Christian life. If you cut yourself off from the Source, then you can be doing all the activities in the world, but still be withering spiritually. And sometimes I feel like I am.

That said, I want you to ask yourself–are you a Christmas Tree Christian? Do you feel as though you are piling on decoration after decoration, yet neglecting the source of your spiritual life? Are your roots firmly planted in an ever-growing relationship with God, or have you cut your roots off by neglecting time in Scripture and prayer?

Like a dying Christmas tree, spiritual death is not readily apparent. It could take months, even years, before the lack of nourishment becomes observable. And that makes it easy for us to ignore this part of our spiritual lives. But if left unfed long enough, the death will inevitably come. Our branches will become too dried out to hold up those ornaments, so they will break and drop them. And eventually, we will look just like that poor little tree that sits in my front yard.

If you are feeling that strain on your branches, or if you feel as though your roots have been cut off from their source, take some time for yourself and God. At the end of the day, your Christian activities are nothing more than cheap ornaments, treasures on earth to be burned away. God cares little for the things that make us look glorious, but He cares greatly for a heart which glorifies Him.

The imagination is a powerful thing. Depending on how you use it, it can result in great good or great harm. This fact has been on my mind a lot lately as I have noticed the ways in which I grossly misuse, or under-use, my imagination. Let me explain what I mean by this….

Imagination is a gift that God has given us, and, when used toward its proper end, can be an amazing asset to the Kingdom of God. Far too often we are limited by our insecurities and doubts, so we do not use our imaginations to their full extent. We do not dream God-sized dreams, and we do not imagine grand visions for His Kingdom. In fact, imagination rarely plays any part in our pursuit of God. Instead, we get stuck in our daily routines of going to Bible study, going to Church, hanging out with our Christian friends, etc.

Imagination is not a practice that we have written into our Christian lives, and you rarely hear people talk about it being a discipline we should hone. But if God gave us an imagination, then we should be using it to glorify Him, rather than wasting it. And just like any gift that God gives, we should use it with skill and with excellence. Our minds should be in overdrive as we go through our days, constantly thinking and praying for vision in the way we live out our faith. When we see that homeless person standing on the side of the street, we should be thinking of creative ways to help the poor in our communities. When your fellow student, co-worker, or neighbor is having a hard time, you should be thinking of original ways to reach out to them in love. Or, we can be formulating new ways to strike up conversations with people about the Gospel. I think the billboard and Gospel tract methods have been slightly exhausted, so new strategies on this front are greatly needed.. The possibilities are endless, but we rarely even scratch the surface.

Now all of this is not to say that we don’t use our imaginations. Ironically, we use them all the time–just not in the way God designed them to be used. For example, girls are notorious for day-dreaming about what their lives would be like if they started dating a certain guy. I myself am guilty of this–just yesterday I was talking to my roommate about the pros and cons of marrying a certain guy, but I’ve never even gone out with him! Even in the middle of the conversation I was struck by the absurdity of it, as well as the potential danger of it. If I desire to guard my heart, then it is a slippery slope when you begin speculating on possibilities that may never come to fruition, especially if that certain guy ends up dating someone else. Then you are left devastated because your dreams have been snatched away.

But dating is not the only way in which our imaginations are misused. You can get carried away thinking about what your life would be like if you could just have kids, a spouse who understood you more, a better job where you made more money, and so on. All of these exercises in the imagination are spiritually deadly because they draw you into feeling discontent with the life that you currently have. What’s more, this kind of imagining allows you to construct a world in which you are the center, and in such a world, God has no part.

It is here that I want to highlight an extremely deceptive way in which imagination can play out. Thus far I have explained that our imaginations should be used for the glory of God and the furthering of His Kingdom, not the furthering of ourselves, but this line is not always black and white. Sometimes we can delude ourselves into thinking that we are dreaming big dreams for God, when those dreams are only masking our own pride. For instance, there is a part of me that would love to write books that lots of people read, books that help transform people into better disciples of Christ. That is a godly desire. But I would be lying if I said it wasn’t also mixed with pride. There is a part of me that wants to have a creative imagination and do great things for God so that people will remember me as having done something great for God. In the end, it’s not so much about God as it is about me. With that in mind, we must be cautious, because even in using our imaginations rightly, sin can still creep in to pervert it.

So if this is an area in which you struggle, I have two tips for you. First, if you notice that your imagination is carrying you away in unedifying ways, come up with a thought you can replace that imagining with. For instance, if you find yourself dreaming about a certain guy, a better job, or an overall different life, divert your thoughts onto praying for your lost friends, or for your family. In this way, you not only stop the unhealthy day-dreaming, but you also take the focus off of yourself. And if you feel that you are not using your imagination in the daily routine of your walk with God, then start praying for God to open your eyes to the ways in which you can break the routine and be creative in your worship of Him. But most of all, go beyond imagining–we must be more than dreamers; we must also be doers. So dream those dreams, but pray for the boldness to live them out as well. Even if you are using your imagination in a healthy way, you are still misusing it if you never live it out. That is ultimately what imagination is for.

Once again I find myself feeling mystified as to why women do what they do. A guy treats a woman badly, yet she sympathizes with him. Men come on to women in flagrantly demeaning and sexual ways, yet women are flattered by it. The culture objectifies women in every way possible, yet women think that dressing immodestly empowers them. What in the world is going on here? How is it that this kind of insance behavior has become common practice?

Well before I share with you my conclusion, let me tell you the strange but true story of a young woman named Patty Hearst. In case you have never heard of her, Patty Hearst was a millionaire heiress who was kidnapped from her California home in 1974 by an organization called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). SLA was a band of American terrorists who promoted their radical ideas through violence, murder, and bank robberies, in addition to kidnapping Hearst and holding her for ransom. What is particularly striking about this story is that several months after her kidnapping, Hearst was photographed holding an assault rifle in the midst of robbing a bank in San Francisco. It was later revealed that Hearst had come to sympathize with the goals of SLA, and was now fighting for them.

Eventually Hearst was arrested and put on trial. During the proceedings Hearst explained that her captors had locked her in a closet, blindfolded her, and sexually abused her during her imprisonment. For this reason her legal defense argued that Hearst had been brainwashed during her captivity, thus explaining the surprising shift in allegiance toward her kidnappers.

Now as strange as this story may sound, Hearst demonstrated a not uncommon phenomenon among victims of violence called Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome occurs when a person in an abusive relationship develops a kind of sympathy or love for their abuser. Rather than condemn the abuse, or flee from it, the victim feels an intimacy with her abuser, and remains in the abusive relationship, thereby enabling it to continue.

Now the story of Patty Hearst may confound our senses, for it is nonsensical at best, but there is a specific reason I bring it up here. As strange as the phenomenon may sound, a similar development has occurred within our culture. Women are not only wounded by both men and culture, but women have come to sympathize with them. Mimicking the actions of Patty Hearst, women have begun facilitating and even perpetuating unhealthy relationships with men, instead of fleeing from them. Likewise, women frequently partner with the culture in its objectification of them, actively turning themselves into objects of lust and sexual fantasy, wearing short skirts and revealing necklines in the name of feminist power. We feel as though we have control when we dress this way because we can command the attention of a room when we walk through the door. Yet these actions are no different than the crime that Patty Hearst committed against herself. In such a situation, your power is only an illusion, because you are doing nothing more than enabling the victimization, rather than freeing yourself from it.

So the reason I bring up this story is that we have got to name these unhealthy influences in our lives for what they really are–our captors. They are holding our self-worth in bondage, so we will never be free as long as we sympathize with them. For this reason, the next time a guy treats you badly, remember Patty Hearst. The next time you feel flattered when a guy comes at you with some totally sketchy line, remember Patty Hearst. And when you are tempted to embrace the lie that we are most attractive, sexy, and powerful when wearing the least amount of clothing, remember Patty Hearst. Because all of those mentalities are just as insane as Patty Hearst siding with her kidnappers. When we think and act that way, we are doing nothing more than sympathizing with our captors when we should instead be fighting for freedom.

A couple days ago I was talking to a friend about a book she’s been reading that’s been really encouraging to her. The book deals with lies that women tend to believe about themselves, which is definitely a relevant topic to women, so I took a look at it. As I glanced over the Table of Contents and read the lies that the author identifies, there were a lot of lies that she had pin-pointed, and most of them hit the nail on the head in my life. However, there was one lie that stuck out to me, one I didn’t agree with: The lie that “We must learn to love ourselves.”

Now let me say up front that I haven’t read the chapter, so I cannot pass any kind of real judgment on the material contained inside of it, but my friend summarized it as follows: We do not need to learn to love ourselves, because we already do. God commanded us to love others “as we love ourselves,” and this command implies that we already love ourselves. That being said, the challenge is not loving ourselves, but loving others. If anything, we need to spend less time thinking about ourselves.

This argument is a common one. You will hear many a Christian argue against the self-centeredness of our culture. We love to think about ourselves and how to best serve ourselves. And for that reason, any teaching that encourages us to love ourselves *more* would surely feed our self-centeredness all the more.

While there is some truth to this claim, I must admit that I largely disagree. The kind of “love” to which these people are referring is not love at all–it’s vanity. And we must never confuse love with vanity, because the two are exact opposites. In reality, vanity comes from the same source as low self-esteem. Both the vain person and the person with low self-esteem are constantly thinking about themselves and how to make themselves feel better, worthier, greater. The only difference is that the vain person is succeeding.

That being said, self-centeredness must never be confused with love. If love and self-centeredness were the same thing, then to fulfill the command of “loving others as you love yourself” would mean placing an unhealthy emphasis on others. Rather than being in bondage to pleasing yourself, you’d be in bondage to pleasing others.

With this in mind, our standard for loving others must not assume that we are loving ourselves well. If we love ourselves poorly, then we will subsequently love others poorly as well. So how do we love ourselves rightly? By loving ourselves in a way that honors God. Our first priority should never be ourselves–it should always be God. Everything we do should center on God and our love for God. Once we get to the point where God is the center, everything else in our lives will fall into its right place. Instead of putting ourselves first, which will subsequently lead to a life centered around serving ourselves, we’ll learn to love ourselves in a way that keeps God first, and glorifies Him. The goal will be God’s glory, not our glory, so the way in which we love ourselves will fall in line with that priority.

Let me give you an example of this: One way to love yourself is by loving your body, not because it draws attention to you or makes other people jealous of you, but because God created you in His image, so your body is therefore beautiful. Or, you can love your personality, not because it makes you popular and everyone likes you, but because God shaped your personality in a certain way, and all of your gifts are echoes of God’s own identity. In this way, loving your body and loving your personality are simply ways of loving God, and worshipping God. This kind of love does not lead to vanity, but to blessed self-forgetfulness. We are no longer thinking, “me, me, me,” because we only have eyes for God.

So, I disagree with the author of my friend’s book–we do need to learn to love ourselves, because love ourselves is an integral part of loving God. And this is SO important for women, given the way culture teaches us to hate the bodies and minds we have been given, thereby stripping God of glory that is rightfully His.

Today a friend of mine informed me that she had just purchased a year’s supply of tanning from a local tanning salon. I didn’t even know you could do such a thing, so she proceeded to explain to me the ins and outs of tanning culture. (Apparently in Texas, where she’s from, it’s pretty popular, so being from North Carolina, I’m totally out of the loop!) In the course of telling me all about it, she explained to me that last summer she went kinda crazy and went tanning every day for an extended period of time.

As a result, she pretty much changed ethnicities–she was super dark. But the funny thing about it is that she didn’t realize just how dark she had gotten until she looked back at her pictures later.

That’s the thing about tanning–the change is so slow that you have no point of reference to compare it to, no way of knowing when you should stop, because you’re not all that darker than the day before. And as a result, you just keep on tanning, and keep on thinking you could be tanner.

What was interesting to me about her story was how strikingly similar this behavior sounded to that of eating disorders–you lose a healthy point of reference for your weight, so you just keep on going further and further. What’s more, the change is often so gradual that you don’t realize how extreme you have become. All you’re focused on is getting thinner, so there is no point at which you reach the end. I can even see this in my habit of shopping for clothes.

I’ll begin to think, “if I can just get this one pair of shoes then it will complete my wardrobe. I’ll have everything I need!” Then, as soon as I purchase those shoes, a couple weeks later I find myself fixated on something else–if I can just have that little black dress, or that perfect pair of jeans, then my wardrobe will be complete. *Then* I will he content. But *then* never comes.

I think that all of these examples (over-tanning, under-eating and forever shopping) are good examples of what vanity does to us. It deceives us into believing the lie that perfection is an attainable goal. And once we believe this lie, we fixate on one thing about ourselves, thinking, “If I can just take care of this one aspect of myself, then I’ll feel secure.”

Unfortunately, one of two things happen when we believe this lie. On the one hand, we can trap ourselves into constantly pursuing that one single goal, such as being skinny, or getting tan. This tendency is much like an addiction because there is one particular focus that consumes us. We establish one specific standard as the measure of our perfection and as the source of our contentment, but because we never quite seem to reach that point at which it fully satisfies us, we keep feeding it. Eventually, it becomes the center of our lives. It becomes the final determinant of whether or not we are happy.

On the other hand, not all of us have this addictive tendency in ourselves, so once we reach that perfect weight, we are able to move on. However, that does not mean we are free of vanity’s insatiable appetite. We may not get stuck on one particular part of ourselves, but we will instead move on to something else, and then something else, in the same way I do with new clothes.

We always find something new to fixate on, because we realize that while we might have attained one goal, it did not, in fact, give us the self-esteem we were looking for, so we turn instead to having perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect make-up, or perfect grades or the perfect career. The cycle goes on and on.

That being said, just because you don’t specifically struggle with a compulsive behavior like an eating disorder doesn’t mean you’re free from the downward spiral of vanity. As soon as you give in to the lie that anything will fill you but Christ, you begin to play the vanity game.

Why? Because feeding the your self-esteem with worldly means does feel good for awhile. The feeling will eventually wear off, but you’ll still remember that feeling, and you’ll want it again…and again, and again. Instead of doing the hard work of addressing why it is you have low self-esteem, you take the instant gratification route. And nothing ever changes. The source of your self-esteem remains unaddressed.

It is for this reason that we have GOT to identify those things in our lives that are trapping up in this cycle. For me, that cycle was shopping–I was tying a lot of my self-confidence in to how I looked, so i was constantly looking for something new and cute to wear. I therefore decided to give up buying anything related to how I look for Lent.

It hasn’t been long, but I’ve already noticed a difference! I don’t feel like such a slave to the way I look anymore. Whenever I’m at the mall and I’m tempted to buy something, and I think how good it would feel to strut around in in those stylin new cords, I instead force myself to turn to the one thing that does give me worth and does give me self-confidence: Christ. And it’s so liberating! I’m no longer constantly thinking about the next thing I can buy to add on to my wardrobe. I don’t have to anymore, because there isn’t a void of self-confidence to fill. I have taken myself out of the cycle.

So I encourage you–figure out what it is you’re serving, what it is that’s got its claws wrapped around you so tightly that your self-worth is dependent on it, and begin to determine how you can let it go. Vanity is insatiable, so it’s time we give up up the hopeless battle of satisfying it. Otherwise, the cycle will never end.