I was talking to a few friends from church over the weekend while enjoying dinner at Friday’s. During the course of the conversation my sister-friend Anita sighed heavily and said, “I have to be honest y’all. I feel intimidated by the images of sexiness our men are accustomed to.”
Anita, whom we call Nita for short, is very beautiful, petite, and somewhat shy. She was wearing her long naturally curly hair in a high bun with a t-shirt and jeans. Her makeup-free caramel skin doesn’t have a single blemish on it and yet, she admitted to feeling less-than-beautiful.
“It’s almost like this pressure to be perfect,” she explained and shared how a false beauty ideal is marketed and sold as real these days. “I can’t compete with the glam squads of Rihanna, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, and the other video vixens all over TV and magazine covers,” she complained.
But even pop stars, though they are paid to act like they feel confident all the time, really don't.
Rihanna once told Vogue Magazine how she struggles with body envy. "You just want something that someone else has, but that doesn't mean what you have isn't beautiful, because people always want what you have and you always want what they have - no one is ever 100 per cent like, 'Yes, I'm the bomb-dot-com - from head-to-toe!'"
Many Christian women, whether they admit it or not, are in the same boat. They have difficulty accepting themselves. So they fall into the comparison trap, placing celebrities on a pedastal.
“I look at it like this,” I chimed in, wiping my mouth and licking my teeth to make sure none of the “Oreo Madness” dessert residue was left. “If a man is looking for the airbrushed, celebrity version of you and can’t appreciate you for who you are, then the process of elimination is made that much easier.”
I shrugged and stuck my spoon in for another sweet chocolate and vanilla bite. “If he is that vain, I don’t want him anyway. That’s a headache I don’t need.”
I wasn’t just saying something. I meant that. I remember this one guy I was dating used to stomp all over my esteem. I was too naïve at the time to know that he was making me feel so terrible about me because he didn’t feel good about himself.
Every time we walked by another woman, he would almost snap his neck staring at her and would say things like, “Why can’t you look more like that?” Or he would always make some sort of sideways comment about who was “fine” and how he “wished” I was shaped.
So what did I do? Silly me, I tried to fix up to be more his cup of tea. I changed my hair, makeup and just gave up my dignity to please him. I was young and foolish at the time and thought that’s what I was supposed to do.
But no matter how I tried, he was never pleased. So I always tell women, there is no right shape, size, height, or particular look that will satisfy a man with a wandering eye. Accept yourself and refuse to settle for anyone who doesn’t accept you.
Sheila, one of the most outspoken ladies in our group said, “Girl, thank you! Because he is getting these love handles and all of it, or he can keep it moving, Mmkay?” She snapped and chuckled with her tongue sticking out, making all of us laugh as she so often does.
"I know that's right!" a few of us said in a chorus of approval.
Our conversation, which turned out to be very productive and interesting, had turned toward the beauty-myth direction as we discussed developing a Bible study for single women who feel pressured to live up to the standards of the beauty industry. We often hear that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” according to Psalm 139:14. But quite often, we don’t actually believe that.
And when everywhere we look, we see cleavage, bare bellies, enhanced buttocks, and photo-shopped pictures setting the standard for what is viewed as attractive in society, our confidence can be shaken if it is not rooted in the right thing.
My girlfriends and I all agreed that, as women of God, we have to resist idolizing and defining beauty as the world does. We must acknowledge that well-applied makeup and lashes, hair weaves and wigs, nips and tucks, celebrity stylists, body-enhancing garments and spanks, are not the key to unlocking our true worth or value.
When premium value and importance is placed upon outward appearance, we can never focus on the inner-woman that most concerns God.
True confidence comes from within. It is born out of a true sense of knowing who you are in God, and measuring your worth by what the Lord says about you in His word. Whatever your height, weight, or unique features, you are beautiful when you walk in the fullness of who God created you to be.
And when the right man comes along, He will see and appreciate that.
So single ladies, let’s get our confidence where it needs to be and learn to love ourselves as God made us.
If we don’t, we will succumb to the need for approval which often leads to things like: baring more skin for attention, eating disorders and crash dieting to achieve ideal body weight, wasting untold amounts of cash to be trendy and sexy, or even giving our bodies away to make us feel more powerful, sensual, and wanted.
We must free ourselves from society's pressure to be perfect, because in God’s eyes, we already are.
Tell me, how do you, as a single woman, keep your confidence where it needs to be in our over-sexed society with such a heavy focus on shallow definitions of beauty?