School picture day. I don’t think
I’ve ever met someone who enjoys it. I personally abhor it. They take your
picture before you’re ready and you end up looking terrible in front of all the
other people who are going to see that picture in the yearbook later on. I’d
like to have some choice words with the person who decided that individual
yearbook pictures were a good idea, I’ll tell you that right now. I thought
that I would be finished with this most evil of all days when I finished high school,
but ooooh no. Nope, you have to do it for four more years.
This last picture day was
especially cringe-worthy for me. I tore a tendon in my right heel a few weeks
ago, and so I was stuck in a wheelchair without being able to put any w
eight on
my foot. The guy who was taking the pictures was really nice and held his hand
out to help me onto that tiny stool you’re supposed to somehow get your behind
balanced on for a few seconds. I hopped over and plopped myself onto that stool
with as much dignity as I could muster – which, you can imagine, wasn’t very
much. I felt so awkward that I actually – to my shame – said, “Wow, this is
awkward.” 
After I had my picture taken and I
was wheeled out of the room, I was over-thinking like crazy. “Oh, Sophie!” I
chastised myself. “Why did you say that? You probably made him feel bad! It
wasn’t awkward! What were you saying?”
Why, indeed, had I felt so
awkward? It was not an inherently awkward situation.
*Sigh* - Time for honesty. In
my over-thinking state, I couldn’t see it, but looking back now, I realize that
I didn’t want to put all my weight into the hands of that guy. A really silly
symptom of a really big issue in my life.
I haven’t talked about this issue
before because it is one that is so close to my heart, but God has been teaching
me recently about the right way to view myself. Self-love is a huge issue in
today’s society, weith songs like Meghan Trainor’s Me, Too and All About that
Bass teaching us that it’s ok to be who we are. Lyrics like “If I was you –
I’d wanna be me too” and “My mama, she told me – don’t worry about your size”
are positively constructed to fight against the media’s projected image of “the
perfect girl”.
That sounds really good and all, but
is that really the way God wants us to view ourselves?
Self-conscious.
This is a word that means exactly what is sounds
like – if you are self-conscious, you are conscious of yourself. For the
purpose of my point, this means the way you look, the way you present yourself,
etc. Am I fat? Am I pretty enough? Am I
smart enough? Do I come across as awkward?
Honestly? I am very
self-conscious. I am very worried about the way people view me.
I know that I’m not the only one
who struggles with this. I think that everyone has, at some point in their
lives
, disliked some aspect of themselves. From superficial issues like focusing
on how you look to deeper ones like the guilt of past sins or personality
failings that we wish we didn’t have, everyone has something they wish they
could change. We compare ourselves to everyone else – people who are skinnier,
prettier, smarter, more confidant. We let the feelings of “not-good-enough” echo in everything we do. Why? Why do we let this control our lives? 
Insecurity is a trap from Satan. The
truth is, God doesn’t care if I am fat. He doesn’t care if I am pretty. He made
me as smart as I am, no more and no less, and as awkward as I am, no more, no
less. God loves me the way He made me, and I don’t get to choose to be any
different. If I am discontent with God’s creation, then I am letting pride get
the better of me. But I don’t need to be guilty about that, either.
If we are believers, God views us as innocent.
That is all he sees. He sees those
who are guilty, and he sees those who are innocent. He doesn’t care about
weight or pleasant facial features or social capabilities or whatever it is you
are self-conscious of. None of that is important to him. If we are saved, we
can submit ourselves to a perfect master, a God we can trust.
That’s the catch. We have to trust
God. We have to present ourselves to him, focusing only on Him and allowing Him
to work in our lives, and not use Him to try to change our lives ourselves. He
will work in our lives and through our lives no matter what silly things we
believe about ourselves. We need to choose to believe that we are forgiven,
that we are innocent, and that we are completely and totally loved, no matter
how guilty we feel.
But the problem is this: do we want to trust Him?
I felt so awkward with the school
picture guy because I didn’t want to trust him with how much I actually
weighed. I didn’t want to put my weight completely on him. But he was strong
enough to take it. He wasn’t going to fall over because my big-as-a-whale body
needed him for support. He probably didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t any
trouble. He just wanted to do his job.
Sometimes, we don’t want to trust
God because, in our innermost heart, we don’t want Him to know who we really
are. Maybe we don’t think He can take it. We need to lean on God for support,
and He won’t think anything of it. He knows who we are. He made us who we are.
We just have to trust Him.
Hebrews 11:1 says this: “Now faith
is the assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen.” Is
faith easy? No, by all means, not at all. God has been teaching me that true faith
takes humility. To believe, to trust in God, takes lowering yourself and choosing
to believe what God says over what your heart says. It is difficult, but it is
possible. Through a humble spirit that is living with the knowledge that they
are forgiven, God can do incredible things.
The truth: I am not
big-as-a-whale. I am not even fat. I am
pretty. God has blessed me with intelligence. And, even though I can be awkward
at times, there are others who are as well, and perhaps I can use that particular
personality trait to further the message of Christ. The truth is that none of those things that I am worried about really
matters. The truth is that I am a
prideful, obstinate, self-conscious sinner who is saved by God’s grace. The truth is that God can use me, no matter
what I look like or what I have done. That is my destiny.
And that is who I truly am.
Living forgiven doesn’t mean
living sinlessly. It doesn’t mean I never look at myself in the mirror and
cringe. It doesn’t mean I never complain about my weight. But it does mean that
I try not to leave my concentration on myself. Living forgiven means shifting your
focus off of yourself and onto God, what He has done for you, and His purpose
for you. We were created in the image of God to glorify God. That is who we
are. It is a miracle that God chooses to love us and use us at all. Does God
need us to accomplish His will? Does God need us to do anything? No. God wants
us here. We are intrinsically important to Him. God loved us enough to send His
son to die for us. We are worth it to Him. We are worth His time.
He wants us.
So is Meghan Trainor right? Well,
I say yes and no. We humans are so ego-centric. We think the whole world
revolves around us, and Meghan’s songs reflect this aspect of world culture and
our sin nature. Feeling confident in who we are in Christ, loving ourselves the
way God made us; those things are not inherently wrong, and in fact I admire
those who are secure in themselves this way. But it becomes wrong when we make
our bodies and our self-image about ourselves and our glory. Our whole purpose,
friends, is to glorify God.
We were made to love who we were
created to be. We are forgiven. We are loved. We are innocent.
