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Saturday, Sep. 12, 2009

Living our values: A Higher standard of beauty

My addiction to People magazine began at an early age, fueled by visits to my grandmother's house in Florida, where I would leave with a box of issues she had saved for me the previous year.

Long before my feeble attempts to apply makeup or buy the latest styles, my mind filled with images of beautiful people leading seemingly charmed lives — all thanks to their appearance and achievements. It didn't take long for me to realize that I couldn't compete — but that also didn't stop me from making a series of valiant (albeit failed) attempts to live up to that impossible standard. It's the cruel truth of womanhood: Beauty and success are the only things that count, but society gets to create the standard.

Like most 12-year-olds, it was at this age that I first waged war on my complexion. My mother was well-intentioned as she took me to a multitude of dermatologists but, from these visits, an unforeseen consequence emerged. So much attention to my skin meant to me that I actually had something about which to feel a lot of shame.

As a perfectionist, I found other ways to try to convince society that I was indeed worthy of love. I excelled in gymnastics, I made straight As, I got a full scholarship to college.

But I failed miserably at feeling any better about myself and, by my sophomore year in college, the pressures of living up to society's standards of beauty finally plunged me into an eating disorder that took me nine years to fully overcome.

I am a follower of Christ, and it was as a girl in church that I first heard the distant rumblings of values that run counter to the messages plastered on the pages of my beloved People.

A verse in the Psalms declares, "I praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

It has taken me decades to try to embrace that truth — that I am purposefully and carefully fashioned and that there is a standard of beauty and success that has nothing to do with outward appearances.

I clung to this verse while recovering from anorexia, and I still repeat it when tempted to compare myself with women around me. It is the example of Jesus that reminds me that my true value in this life comes from being his daughter and that success is found in letting him work in and through me.

As a wife, a mother and a professional, I am reminded of how firm my grasp must be on this definition of success every time I look in a mirror, try to master the latest parenting technique or turn on my computer.

I used to be terrified of having a daughter because I feared that I would inevitably pass on my own insecurities about my body and my complexion.

I initially breathed a sigh of relief when our first child turned out to be a boy, but my husband was quick (and wise) to remind me that my responsibility to our son was to model a healthy woman: someone who defines herself solely by Christ's standards.

I hope to have more children and, whether sons or daughters, I want them to see a mother who believes that she really is "fearfully and wonderfully made." And no matter what, I have made it my vow to remind them that they are, too.