Masterpiece

Ten years ago, two teenage girls who had never met each other both looked in the mirror and thought the same things.

UGLY.

WORTHLESS.

UNLOVABLE.

And at the same time, thousands of other teenage girls looked in the mirror and thought the same thing. Ten years later, these two women sat at a table and talked about their journeys from that distorted image in the mirror to a healthy perspective today. But, ten years later, today, thousands of girls will look in the mirror and see the same thing those two women saw ten years ago. The heartbreaking truth is that thousands of girls who grew up in the church, who may or may not have a personal relationship with Christ, will look in the mirror and see that terrible, distorted image of themselves.

The interesting thing about those two girls who didn’t know each other—my sister-in-law and I—they thought those things of themselves for opposite reasons. I looked in the mirror and saw myself as a bag of bones. She saw herself as fat.

In society today, a girl can’t win. If a girl is slender, she’s accused of not taking care of herself. She may be called “skinny” or accused of eating disorders. If a girl is in any way what society considers “overweight,” she may be called “fat” or accused of failing to take care of herself. In reality, if you were to watch my sister-in-law and I get food in the cafeteria line together at lunch, people who judge by looks might think we were getting food for each other. I’m a skinny girl. I think about grease and carbs and hope they slow down my metabolism enough that my gut won’t be screaming for food again in an hour. My sister-in-law, according to society, is “over her target weight.” She eats salads and chicken and watches her sugar intake. My idea of exercise is running like mad to work when I’m late. My sister-in-law is training for a marathon (incidentally, my sister-in-law is a superhero).

For each of us, it was a long journey from looking in that mirror to today. For me, it took my little brother challenging me to look in the mirror every day and say “Beautiful” until the day I believed it. I did it, but that alone wasn’t enough. Every day, I looked in that mirror; and I saw imperfections. I saw laziness—grudges—sin.

My sister-in-law and I, like so many other girls who grow up in the church, were trapped between an anvil and a hammer—two opposing, distorted, negative self-images. On one side of us, society reminds us constantly of our duty to please everyone else around us with our looks. It is our duty as women to be beautiful by their standards. On the other side, the church smacks us across the face with our depravity—our broken, flawed worthlessness before God. Not just our sinfulness, either, but our complete lack of any worth.

I call false.

I call false on both.

I’m not even going to get into society. We all know how flawed it is. We all know that they want us skinny, but not too skinny; made-up, but not obviously so. They want us the perfect height—perfectly proportioned, clear of complexion. What society puts forth as the ideal girl is impossible and demeaning; and, fortunately, I think that many women are already wise to this fact. I’m not going to analyze the why’s and how’s of this.

What I want to focus on is the hammer of the church—the hammer smashing us into the anvil of society instead of being the embrace lifting us away.

You see, the church spends our entire lives reminding us how depraved we are. The conservative church loves reminding its congregations of how worthless they are apart from God’s saving grace. This is wrong.

Before I start, please know that I understand why it is that the church focuses so much on the depravity of man. The intention is good. The intention is to get across that we need God to be whole—that we need salvation. And we do. But I do not believe for one moment that we are without inherent worth.

Let’s start with how mankind was created. God created mankind differently from all the other kinds of life on the planet. Plants live, but they have no intelligence. They’re entirely mechanical. Animals live, but they have no self-awareness. They are driven by instinct. Man was made different.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created he them. – Genesis 1:26-27

Man was specifically made in the image of God. No one knows for certain exactly what this means, but many theologians speculate that this refers to man’s sentience—self-awareness, language, thought, eternal spirit.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. – Genesis 2:7

Through the creation account, God spoke everything into existence. Genesis 2 does state that he formed the animals “out of the ground,” but never does the account refer to the intimate, tender action of breathing a living soul into the animals. There is no doubt, whatsoever, in the creation account that God made man special. Woman followed man as being formed from man’s rib, after God gave man an object lesson that he was incomplete without her.

And, yes, man fell. And, yes, redemption from that fall is important—vital. Sometimes, though, the church becomes so zealous about keeping believers on the straight and narrow that it strips us of our worth.

The thing is, though, the fall isn’t the end of the story. God didn’t make mankind and then leave us for genetics to do their thing after the fall. Psalm 139 is one of my very favorite passages of the Bible. In this Psalm David wrote: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.”

God has carefully crafted every single human being who has ever lived. He didn’t stop doing that after Adam and Eve. Our worth comes from being made by His hands in His image. That is inherent in us from the moment we are conceived. Our sin does not take that away.

When we think of great artists of the past, one of the first names will always be Leonardo da Vinci. The Last Supper is one of his most famous works. This fresco has been damaged. The paint has chipped off, causing it to need restoration—and more often than not, the experts say, it has been restored incorrectly. No one will ever tell you that the work is less significant or of less worth. Thousands of people travel to see it every year. Art critics mourn the incorrect restoration—they don’t rail against it. They don’t tell people that the work is worthless because of it.

We do not become worthless because we are sinners. Are we broken? Yes. Do we need restoration? Yes. And like many of the would-be restorers of da Vinci’s masterpiece, we try too hard to restore ourselves our own way. However, because the ultimate Master crafted us with his hands, we can never be worthless. In fact, Jesus said “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. . . . Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:29, 31).

One day, I looked in the mirror, and I saw a work of art. I am flawed by sin, damaged by pain, and too often trying to restore my soul’s purity in my own power instead of working under God’s power. But I saw a work of art. I saw a creature formed by God’s hands in God’s image. I still saw eyebrows without symmetry. I still saw straight eyelashes. I still saw a scarred lower lip. My jacked-up metabolism didn’t go anywhere. No, I realized something else. I realized that God does not make ugly things. He made my eyebrows asymmetrical, and that is beautiful. He made my metabolism jacked, and that is beautiful. That scar on my lip is nothing more than a chip in the paint.

I am a masterpiece, flawed and damaged, but still valuable. I am beautiful.

One day, my sister-in-law looked in the mirror, and she saw a work of art. She still saw stretch marks from motherhood, and that is beautiful. Her dress size didn’t go anywhere; but without the distorted perspective of society, she saw her own beauty.

She is a masterpiece, flawed and damaged, but still valuable. She is beautiful.

I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror, but I do know how hard it is to be trapped between the hammer and the anvil. I’m not telling you that you are perfect—that you’re not flawed. I’m not telling you that you don’t need fixing, or that you are exactly what God envisioned when he formed you. We all have added flaws to ourselves. But none of that strips away your value—none of it. None of it strips away your beauty.

You are a masterpiece, flawed and damaged, but still valuable. You are beautiful.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.