Seeing Ourselves As God Does
Growing up, I can’t recall when I was ever content with how I looked. I didn’t like myself as a teenager and thought I was ugly because guys weren’t much interested in me. I had features that weren’t considered attractive in the 80s and 90s: freckles, a plethora of pimples and blackheads, and paper-white skin that wouldn’t tan—I never wore shorts or a bathing suit. Then, in my twenties, I looked back on photos of myself in my teens, and I thought, “How could I have not loved myself? Because I’d do anything to look like that now.”
This thought became repetitive throughout my life. Even in my twenties, with that realization, while looking back on my teens, I was still never happy with myself. I remember one ex-boyfriend told people he thought I had ugly feet, and I was self-conscious about my feet throughout young adulthood—I never wore flip-flops or open-toed anything. I was also in an abusive relationship with a man who often told me I was ugly, among much more vulgar words and phrases he used to describe me that I will not repeat here.
But then, in my thirties, I looked back on photos of me in my twenties, and that repetitive question reared its ugly (no pun intended) head again. You’d think I’d learn my lesson by then and start loving myself straightaway, right? But I didn’t. In my thirties, I had terrible teeth, even one missing front tooth I had pulled because of an advanced cavity I could never afford to fix. Eventually, I could afford dentures. But I stayed single throughout my thirties and deliberately stayed as far away from relationships and people as possible.
Psalm 139:14
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
By the time I turned forty, I’d already met my husband, and things seemed to be looking up for me. But I never could quite shake my self-hatred, and I brought the self-conscious baggage with me into my marriage, perpetually aware of my appearance and all the things I’d obsessed over throughout my life. It didn’t matter that my husband told me I was beautiful daily; it didn’t occur to me that he loved everything about me and that I could stop hiding behind the wall I’d built around myself for over thirty years—I still wasn’t happy with my appearance and always tried to “fix” it.
Now, almost fifty years old, I see photos of myself from just a few years ago, and it makes me sad to see what a nice, healthy figure I once had—because I’m starting to lose it as I get older. My unattractive side profile, which I’ve always had, has gotten worse; I have a little spare tire around my midsection, and I’ve gained twenty pounds; my legs are losing their elasticity and showing signs of cellulite.
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