I hope you all enjoy beautiful Elizabeth’s insight! This was a blessing to me

I believe every woman rides the fence on opinions of their body. It’s not that we just hate them, it’s that we face the confusion of, at tmes, enjoying and even liking parts of ourselves. But we torture ourselves with this division. There are times when we aren’t worried about losing weight because there is something enchanting about our hands, the line running from our waist to our knee, our neck, parts of us we like to see in the mirror. Yet there are times when we are angry we felt this way, times when we feel ashamed for feeling beautiful – especially if others do not reinforce it.

Many years ago I read a Biblical scholar who said that sin is nothing more than experiencing faith and doubt at the same time. His example is Oedipus, who fled from the oracle’s warning and enacted the prophecy. His faith, so this man said, was what he experienced in his fear – he ran because he believed. His doubt was his idea that he could overcome this. If he believed and had no doubt, he would have stayed in the temple for his whole life. Rather, he lived doubting the prophecy by the faith he could overcome it.

Often times I feel we as women are often defeated because we both believe and doubt our beauty, just as we both believe and doubt that we are loved. We do not stick with eating right or exercising because we don’t fully believe that we need to lose weight. We find it hard to take care of ourselves for our own happiness, because we are divided on what our own happiness should look like. We make choices we don’t want to because we want to be free, we want to assert ourselves.

Most times overeating has nothing to do with food, but with having previously under-eating. We are divided – we do not know if we deserve to eat or not. We do not know if we deserve to look beautiful or not. However, it is important to note that this division and confusion is not simply about not understanding ourselves, but the confusion of how we ought to interact with the world around us. How much does what other’s matter? And if it does matter – who do we listen to?

Here are some of my suggestions to deal with this division:

1) Do not feel guilty or confused about the times you do think you are beautiful. Recognize that this is a chance to be thankful for how you were made by God. There is a risk of vanity, but instead of worrying about that, take a moment to say a prayer of thanks and ask God to give you the perspective on your body that he does.

2) Make a list of the things you believe in, not the things you feel, and keep it somewhere important. Do you believe it is important to exercise? Instead of not exercising the next time you feel angry that you “have to” exercise in order to measure up, or if you are just feeling sad that taking care of yourself is hard work – you can remind yourself why it is important to you.
Here are some ides about things you could add to your list, depending on what is important or difficult for you:
I want to eat three balanced meals a day because I believe in nourishing my body and enjoying every day. I think it is important not to skip meals or punish myself. I think it is important to not indulge or try to escape and I will allow myself one dessert our special food 3 times a week.
I want to enjoy my body. I will dress intentionally to modestly accent my body and not hide it. I will not try to make myself feel better by drawing attention to myself through immodesty, but will enjoy colors and shapes that bring out to best of what God has given me. When I feel embarrassed or angry, I will spend five minutes with God sharing my honest feelings and remembering to be thankful for what I have and who I have been made.

3) For the times you will make mistakes, find someone you can confide in. It is important not to give up when things do not go perfectly. Part of our “bi-polar” attitudes toward our bodies is our culture’s focus on perfection. If you are aiming for material perfection, instead of peace with God, you will always be trapped. Only when your actions are important not just to for society, but for yourself and for God, is there a chance of mental, emotional, and spiritual unity in your thoughts and actions. Share with someone that you have made a mistake. This is not someone to scold you – this is someone who wants more than anything for you to be free – someone who understands that sharing your failures is an important step of reconciliation with God. The Catholic idea of confession is important because in it we embrace our humanity and God’s forgiveness as a continual process.

It is important to recognize that True Beauty is not ours but God’s. We are beautiful because he made us. When we want to get something out of our beauty, it only hurts ourselves and others. When we want to enjoy God and want him to be glorified – that is when we are truly beautiful!

Beauty is not a fixed ideal. In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina the heroine is beautiful because she is willing to change. Although Anna is physically beautiful at first look, she refuses to have more children so that Vronsky will still love her. Tolstoy realized that this was impossible – bodies, faces, and skin change! He also recognized that it was dangerous to make that your aim. It drove Anna to suicide because she could never have the love she wanted, and it made people love her less! Kitty, on the other hand, grows more beautiful to everyone in her acceptance of her circumstances. When she is giving birth, Tolstoy even writes that he husband sees the divine shining through her in that acceptance! This leads me to my final suggestion:

4) Get rid of the picture in your head of the “perfect” you. Stop trying to reach the ideal you. The ideal you is going to change from month to month, year to year, When you decide that you have to look a certain way, you are cutting yourself off from others and from God. God’s power can come into our communities through us - if we are being beauty hogs, trying to preserve our human bodies, we can miss what God wants to do.

We all hope to find a way forward, and there is always room for all of us to grow. Just as in spring, it takes a long time after it warms up and starting raining for plants and flowers to grow and blossom, so sometimes it is hard for us to see our own beauty. This, however, does not mean that things are not happening. I believe that loving God means accepting our bodies every day – no matter what season we are in. We often hurt our bodies because we feel guilty or angry that we aren’t always perfect. Only when we trust that God has a purpose for us (and our bodies!) can we be free.