I’m beginning a five-part series titled Identity Crisis. The first four posts will be focused on the most common places teen girls misplace their identity and scriptures which contradict those placings. The last post will be about placing your identity in Christ.
A lot of teen girls, myself included, struggle with their identity. I’ve discovered that body image is the most common thing young women misplace their identity in. I was homeschooled up until my freshman year of high school (I’m now a sophomore going on junior). I was extremely sheltered with no friends, and the only place I ever went was church and youth camps. This caused me to be completely oblivious to the “real world”, as one might say. I had no experience with the pressure of looking and dressing a certain way. But as soon as I was thrown into public school, (high school, no less), all of those real-world pressures my parents fought so hard to shelter me from were suddenly front and center on my thought train. I suddenly cared about my appearance much more than I ever had in my whole life. That’s not to say that I didn’t have body image issues before—I certainly did. My image struggles were what inspired me to start my blog in the first place. But high school made them 10 times worse. And the result of all that was this: I began to place my identity in the way I looked. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty. It only becomes an issue when that desire becomes infatuating. When we begin to think that we’re less of a person when we don’t have the latest shoes, hottest outfits, and thinnest body. But sister, let me tell you something: you are so much more than your appearance. Here are three Bible verses to help you place that identity in Christ. 1. Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. I find it interesting that only “a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”. It doesn’t say “a woman who always looks better than her friends is to be praised”. We shall be praised when we fear the Lord. This scripture makes it very clear that beauty isn’t what it seems. 2. 1 Samuel 16:7 …For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. The context of this verse is the story of David being anointed king of Israel. Samuel walked among all seven of David’s older brothers, positive that one of them was to become king solely because they looked the part. But God rejected all of them. When Samuel came upon David, the poor shepherd boy, God said, “He”s the one.” God didn’t care that David’s brothers were all bigger and taller and stronger than he was. He only cared that David’s heart was in the right place. To put it simply: God isn’t concerned about your looks. He’s concerned with the condition of your heart. 3. Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image… This verse is very straight-forward. God created you in His image. That means that you are perfectly handcrafted by the Creator of the universe Himself. If God deems you perfect, then what good is the approval of man? These three verses have really helped me to stop placing my identity in my appearance. I still stress about my weight at times, and I still like to dress stylish. But it’s no longer about impressing other people. Anyone who knows me knows that I love makeup. It’s my thing. I have way too many eyeshadow palettes, and my debit card statements have Ulta Beauty all over them. When it comes to makeup, I suddenly become a much bolder version of myself. You’ll never catch me wearing neutral eyeshadow colors; I’m all about the bright and crazy blues, greens, pinks, reds, and purples. But the thing is, I’m not wearing it to impress others. I wear it because I enjoy it. I have genuine fun when I put on makeup and experiment with new looks and colors. The point I’m trying to make with that is this: It’s not wrong to want to look nice, be a healthy weight, and wear makeup. It only becomes detrimental to you when you begin to place all of your self-worth and identity into those things. The world is concerned with how you look on the outside. But what’s more important than that is that God is concerned with how you look on the inside. Instead of placing your identity in your body image, place your identity in Christ.
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MissionIn short, I started this blog because I want to give girls all over the world hope. All of the topics I write about on this blog are things that I have struggled with or am still struggling with. I want to help young women everywhere achieve freedom through Christ. Archives
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