So let’s start with the verse all women love…Psalm 139:14
This morning was like nearly every morning getting ready for work. I wake up to a lovely alarm, snooze the alarm, wake up again to the alarm, and finally get out of bed to get ready for the day. And that’s the easy part. The hardest part is the mirror. Depending on the day it is my friend and other days it’s my nemesis. I’m not talking about how my hair looks or how the bags get bigger under my eyes as the week goes on. What I’m talking about is the reflection I see. Some days I love her and other days I could nit-pick everything I don’t like about her. You may have heard this described as a good or bad body image day. We all go through it. Some days we are satisfied with what we see in the mirror and other days we can’t seem to stop noticing that one thing we wish we could change. I say “we” because this problem started from the beginning of time, even before the wonderful mirror was invented. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, the first introduction to feeling sin was being ashamed of their bodies (Genesis 3:7). Friend, did you hear me say that? The first thing they felt ashamed of was their bodies, the very thing God crafted meticulously for a purpose. Coincidence? I think not.
Which brings me back to the journey I have been on in renewing my thoughts about what I see in the mirror. I laugh when I write using the word “journey” because it sounds so simple, when in all honesty, it’s been the primary struggle of my existence. No amount of therapy or hospitalizations will completely wipe away the waves of dislike I feel for my body. (I will share more of my journey in a later post, just not ready yet 🙂)
Along my journey to self-love I was told it’s ok to not like my body, I just have to accept it, to be neutral towards it. But this completely contradicted my Christian belief that I should celebrate my body because God created me. How can I possibly be neutral to something God took the time to uniquely create? How can I have no emotion towards it? I felt hopeless. I wanted to love what I saw in the mirror but I didn’t. I tried to write affirmations all over my mirror in hopes that it would guide my thoughts to a more loving tone when I looked at myself. But it worked like a bandaid, a simple fix but nothing of healing quality. This was a battle I couldn’t win by myself, and as I dive deeper into HIS word I realise now this battle isn’t just mine to fight. It’s a spiritual battle and it has been from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden.
So let’s start with the verse all women love…Psalm 139:14
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
I used to get annoyed at this verse because it seemed like yet another bandaid to put on a very large hole I felt in my heart. But I’ve learned the true meaning from a verse has to be meditated on and uncovered to fully grasp how wide and how deep God’s love for us is. So I studied the two words the verse uses to describe how we are made: Fearfully and Wonderfully.
Yārē’ is “fearfully” in Hebrew but it takes different forms across the Bible resulting in different meanings. The form in this verse (Psalm 139) means “to stand in awe, revere, or feel deep respect rather than experiencing paralyzing terror or fright.”
Surprisingly, this same form of the word is used to describe God’s character. For example, in Exodus 15:11 “Who is like you, majestic in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. This correlation reveals that we (as God created) are so marvelous that we simply existing points to complete awe and worship of our creator.
Pālâ is “wonderfully” in Hebrew which means “to be set apart, distinct, or extraordinary.” So basically we are an awe inspiring masterpiece created by God as a reflection of God.
So I sat and thought…from the very beginning, God created a masterpiece that was made in HIS own image. Genesis 1:27 states, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them…” Which makes complete sense as to why this was one of the first attacks of the devil in the garden of Eden. Just our simple presence is a reflection of our all powerful God. No wonder this is a struggle for not just me but many others (if not everyone).
With all this being said, I know this knowledge won’t stop a future bad body image day. (remember it’s a bigger battle than we can fight alone). The difference now is that I have the renewed mindset knowing my goal is not to love my body for its reflection but to find love for it as a reflection of my creator. How beautiful you and I are knowing that we are a reflection of HIM!
So I pray sweet friend that we remember this as we stare back at our reflection…
Our fundamental worth comes from reflecting God not through our looks but through our presence as his masterpieces. Nothing we can do can make us more or less than a work of art. Nothing we wear, nothing we inject, nothing we can work off, and no physical measurement will ever increase or decrease our value. We, according to His word, are fearfully and wonderfully made as is.
A fellow woman with a reflection,
Kylie
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