image via pinterest
I have gained weight since I am married and have had to rebuild my wardrobe in the last 6 months because none of my clothes fit anymore. I started at too skinny and now I am actually at a healthy weight but my culture tells me I am not skinny enough anymore. I should be about 10 lbs less than I am. So because I am at this weight and people ask/comment in some rather scary ways, I am faced with a lot of questions-- 'Do I have to be skinny to be beautiful? Do I have to be skinny to be loved? Whose opinion really matters?', just to name a few.
It seems like women spend their entire lives wishing they were just 5-10lbs lighter. If they could just get to that point they would finally be happy with themselves. Weight has become so important to us that we are constantly dieting, and/or working out, buying pills, drinking weight-loss shakes, spending our time being miserable so that we can reach that 'skinny' ideal we have accepted. It has consumed us. The sad thing is in most cases you will find that our husbands and friends don't care what we weigh, it's the 'world' telling us we have to be such and such a size, with such and such measurements. (I am not talking about from a medical standpoint, I am talking about the models, movie stars, and music aritists that we think are so perfect.) God has never had a weight limit on HIs love, so this must be coming from someone else, the being that runs are culture, Satan. Which makes me even more sad. We, women, have bought into Satan's lies all over again. We sacrafice some of the greatest joys of life because we are busy working out, dieting, thinking about working out/dieting, trying to make it to Satan's ideal.
What would happen if we would lay all that down. If we would worry as much about our spiritual fitness/shape as we do about our physical one? When we die it's not going to matter whether we were 300lbs or 98 lbs. It's going to matter who we were in God's eyes. When we stand before the throne of God, are we going to think about how skinny we were on earth and how much time we spent doing that, how worthy all that made us on earth? Is that going make us better people in His eyes? I don't think so. I think the only reason we would think about our weight before the throne of God, would be that we spent too much time being consumed by it. I think what will see in ourselves before the throne of God will break our hearts. I think we will see all the time we could have spent investing into our children, our family, our friends, all the time we could have spent developing our relationship with God but didn't.
Whose opinion matters the most? God's or the people around me? I hope that I can say God's and mean it. Not just say 'God's' because we all know that's the right thing to say. To really really say God's opinion of me matters MORE to me than the whole world combined. No matter what they say or suggest, HE is where I find my worth and meaning. I hope to someday be able to live that way, can you imagine the freedom and joy we would find if we really would be women who live that?!? Can you imagine how we would impact the world around us?!?
How right you are that we in the western world are far too influenced by the world's ideal of beauty, and in many cases it consumes us to the point of idolatry---whether that means being skinny or fashionable or tanned or 'fit' or even slightly immodest. There is, however the other side of the issue, which involves idolatry of food, or just plain gluttony and being controlled by our appetite rather than by the Holy Spirit's temperance in eating. Anything other than God which controls us is, I believe, idolatry.
ReplyDeleteI totally get what you are saying!
ReplyDeleteYou certainly have stuck your neck out on this one. :) Great reminders of what really matters. I think if we honestly search our hearts each will know what the core reason is why we do what we do.
Doing things to feel acceptance by the worlds standards is a miserable way to live. Thanks for the great reminder!