I Feel Pretty(?) May 7, 08

There is a scene in the movie “Gypsy” where, after years of always playing second banana to her more-favored and talented younger sister, Natalie Wood’s character, Gypsy Rose Lee, finally gets her big break in show biz.

I can’t remember if it’s in the Broadway play but in one of the last scenes of the movie, Natalie transforms from a plain, timid wallflower into a beautiful burlesque queen. Looking into a full-length mirror, she examines her reflection as if seeing it for the very first time and proudly announces aloud to herself, “I’m pretty!”

That’s kind of the way I feel when I look at myself through God’s eyes. His spiritual eyes reflect back to me a beautiful, radiant, confident woman who can do anything she sets out to do as long as she has Christ within her. This young woman looks great. She’s sexy, attractive and sure of herself. In fact, she looks so good that I barely recognize her as being ME.

But that’s what I look like to God. I am a glowing, glistening diamond that reflects His son, Jesus.

The problem is, I have to constantly remind myself to look at myself with God’s eyes and not the eyes of the world. Because when I forget to do that, I don’t see what God sees. What I see is a mess. I see someone who’s short and overweight with big hips and too ample a bosum. I see an unattractive girl who didn’t get asked to her senior prom and barely elicits a passing glance from a man. I see a person who has failed to become the woman she thought she would be when she grew up. I see someone who is desperate sometimes and perhaps a little too needy, who craves to be validated yet hates the fact that she desires to be so. I see someone who doesn’t look like a supermodel and who could never dare to measure up to the women on the magazines she sees when she’s standing in line at the grocery check out counter.

And yet, people tell me all the time that I’m pretty. But I don’t feel it and in my heart, I have not believed it.

I bring this up because for a long time, I had a complex about displaying my picture on the Internet. The obvious reason I didn’t do it is because there’s just a lot of crazies out there and I didn’t want anyone knowing what I looked like. I didn’t even start giving my real name online until last year. Before that, I always went by screen names and aliases in forums and on e-mailing lists. I ran a highly successful Paul McCartney Yahoo! group AND a George Harrison group for nearly three years and outside of maybe one or two people off list, no one knew my real name and NOBODY ever saw what I looked like…not even those one or two off list to whom I felt comfortable enough sharing my real name.

When I started a MySpace profile at the urging of a friend, I never used my real photo. I always used pictures of celebrities, namely (since I love movies) female movie stars whom I felt were the essence of glamour and beauty: Halle Berry, Ann-Margret, Vivien Leigh, etc. One day, I had just posted a photo of Natalie Wood as my latest profile pic when I heard the Lord say, “Take it down.” I asked God why and He said because putting up pictures of famous beautiful movie stars was a misrepresentation of who *I* was. Those pictures symbolized the type of woman I’d always yearned to be but didn’t feel I was. The Lord showed me that the real reason I didn’t post my own pic was not so much because I was trying to be cautious of Internet predators but because I didn’t think my own photo was pretty. I was afraid that if I showed people what *I* looked like, they may be disappointed and friends I’d made online just might stop leaving comments and slink away into the Cyber abyss never to be heard from again.

I’ve never felt pretty. I guess, realistically when I look at myself, I think I have an okay face but if someone were to strap me to a lie detector and ask me what I genuinely thought of myself, ‘pretty’ is not the word that would come to mind. I’ve always felt ugly. I suppose rejection faced over and over again will do that.  I’ve had a lot of rejection. I got picked on a lot in high school. And whether it was intentional on someone’s part or not, being rejected and just picking up signals through the years that lead me to believe I was unlovable left me with the impression that I am not so great to look at.

Well, ultimately, I understand now that that kind of thinking is not from God but from the enemy Satan, who will use people and circumstances to makes us draw incorrect conclusions about ourselves. I was never ugly to God. In fact, the Lord rebuked me for having such a low opinion of myself because in doing so, I was not so much putting myself down as I was putting GOD down, who created me. I mean, if you have a problem with the way something looks, who is to blame but the designer? So, without realizing it, I had insulted God by thinking of myself as ugly. Now by the world’s standards, I may not be the fairest beauty but it is not the world that will judge me nor is it the world’s opinion that matters. It is God’s and HE happens to think I am beautiful. Anyway, the world is fickle. What is considered hot and chic today is passé and bland tomorrow. There is no way a real person can keep up with the unrealistic expectations the world puts on people, especially women, to stay young, thin and beautiful. Even Hollywood can’t keep up with the latest Botox injection or gastric bypass treatment. People are literally killing themselves to adhere to some impossible standard and for what? A lot of them have had so much plastic surgery that they no longer look human…with faces so distorted and pulled back that it looks like the Joker or something out of a wax museum. Meanwhile, inside, the heart goes unattended, remaining sick and ugly. This is not to say that I don’t believe in looking good and maintaining your appearance, but I don’t believe it should be done at the cost of one’s soul. The Bible says man looks on the outward appearance but God judges the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)  So I don’t wear a size 2. Does that mean I’m ugly and insignificant? Hallelujah, not in God’s eyes! In Him, I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Anyway, after God made me aware of what I was doing with those MySpace pictures, I started putting up pictures of a diamond, which I felt was a more apt picture of what I really looked like in GOD’S eyes. But I still couldn’t bring myself to put up a photo of me. That finally changed about a month ago after I published my first book and it became clear that God was going to start using me. Suddenly, the Lord started impressing upon me that I needed to put a face not only with my book but with everything else that represented Him because, like it or not, I have a testimony that could possibly help someone and people need to be able to put a face with the testimony. So, while holding my breath, I finally took the plunge and put up a photo of myself.

The comments that I got surprised me. The one I loved the best was from my friend, Barbara, who wrote, “You finally put up a picture of the real diamond!”

THAT, my friends, was God talking.

I got several lovely comments and contrary to what I thought would happen, people seemed happy to see that there was, indeed, a real person behind that MySpace profile. I guess I’m not so ugly afterall. But the question remains, do I feel pretty? Not really. I can’t go on how I feel, though. I have to go by what God and the Word says I am. If I had been doing that from the beginning instead of trying to define myself by how other people tried to label me, my self-esteem would no doubt be in better shape.

As for all that earlier rejection, I chalk it up now to God protecting me from getting involved with the wrong kind of men/people. Sometimes, rejection is a good thing. It’s God’s way of keeping us from something or someone that will only serve to hurt us in the long run. And who knows the opportunity (and even the male glances) I may have overlooked because my own distorted perception of myself blocked me from receiving? It’s probably the reason I’m still single. For most of my life, I’ve been ashamed of myself. Ashamed of who I am and afraid that if I show my real self to people, no one will like me because, well, I haven’t liked myself. In short, I believed a lie.

Well, praise God, I don’t have to apologize for who I am…the real me is who God intended me to be. Slowly, I am being dug up out of the dirt of shame and guilt. God spoke to me through Isaiah 54:4 which says,”

“ Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed;
      Neither be disgraced, for you will not be put to shame;
      For you will forget the shame of your youth…”

 

I try to exercise seeing myself as God sees me because frankly, I LIKE that woman God sees. And you know what? The more I look at that woman of God, the more I see myself actually BECOMING her. Little by little, step by step, from glory to glory, I am turning into that sexy, radiant, confident, attractive woman who’s beauty in Christ would put Halle Berry’s looks on her best day to shame. I am glowing inside and that glow is starting to show itself outwardly.

It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God. There is something about walking in His presence that will change a person’s countenance. God is doing His own brand of plastic surgery on me.

So, now, when I feel low about myself, I’ve taken to looking into God’s spiritual mirror at myself and announcing, “I’m pretty!”

I choose to believe it, even if I don’t always feel it.