friendships

Genesis 1:26-31
Genesis 3
Ephesians 4

My daughter held up her phone at arm’s length and snapped the picture of us then turned it around to inspect her work. She commented on our hair and smiles and how happy we looked, but all I could see were extra baby pounds, wide arms, and my round face next to her sweet countenance. I cringed inside.

I sat on the pool steps splashing with my 1 year old and encouraging my 4 year old to go all the way under the water when I saw her. Basketball-baby-belly with skinny arms and fluid legs, sporting a cute two-piece that showed off her glowing baby look while she played with her young daughter. Adorable.

A random Wednesday found me quickly running into the grocery to grab something, anything, for a family dinner. With children in tow, my hair in a sloppy ponytail, and no makeup, I could only imagine how I looked when I ran into one of my sweet friends. We swapped dinner ideas and bantered about kids’ activities, but I walked away feeling one thing: pressure. My friend has a busy life too, kids in all directions,
but she looked cute.

I tell my daughters as they get older and walk into their pre-teen years that there are
three prowling enemies to their beauty both outward and inward.

First, our peers and the pressure that comes from comparison.
Second, our culture that demands flawlessness.
Finally, ourselves and own insatiable need to be enough.
We’ll look at all three this week together, but first we must see the fight for what it is, deadly lies vs. solid truth.

Like an enormous chasm draped in darkness, we fall headlong into the trap of comparison. We surrender the true perspective of our beauty while holding ourselves up to someone else in the process.
Comparison snares us with tempting thoughts like,
“Why her? Why not me?” and then plunges the deadly dagger into our Beauty by making us believe that somehow we are less than she.
We become so deceived into thinking that by comparing our weakest moments to another’s strongest points, we have become accurate judges of reality. We forget that the person we are comparing our self to is also a real person with a real past, a real present, and struggles all along the way just like us.

Comparison doesn’t always attack our hearts with the same strategy, of course. Sometimes it’s clothing, sometimes it’s body shape, or career, or children, or friendships, spouses, skills, or influence. Regardless of the battleground or our stage in life, the outcome will always be the same if we do not fight against it, leaving our hearts shipwrecked with emptiness, barren longing, and a gnawing dissatisfaction.
Because the Enemy of our hearts comes only to steal, kill, and destroy!

When sin first entered the wholesome beauty of creation, the result was death. Death to beauty, death to relationship, death to unity, death to perfect, and ever since that moment when Eve asked herself that tantalizing question, “Why not me?”, we’ve been drug into a war we weren’t intended to fight.

But, girl, we do not fight alone!
In that instant when death pervaded the perfect, the Creator set in motion His plan to win back our hearts and restore our beauty.

We let Christ fight for us when we grip the truth of who He says we are instead of grasping at lies and expecting them to satisfy us. We fight for our beauty when we look, as my daughter did, for similarities instead of differences; when we connect instead of compare.

Next time we wage war against comparison, my sisters, let’s hold unswervingly to the Father’s truth and dance confidently in the victory we hold through Christ!

I have adorned you with my image. (Genesis 1:27)
I clothe you with dignity and strength. (Proverbs 31:25)
I have bedecked you as a Bride with my salvation and righteousness. (Isaiah 61:10)
I have given you the gift of God inside you. (2 timothy 1:6)
I have given you a spirit of power, of love, and self-control. (2 timothy 1:7)
I have made you a new garment, fitted with purity and truth. (Ephesians 4:24)
I dress you with gladness and praise, planting you firmly in my strength. (Isaiah 61:3)
You are my bride, adorned in fine linen. (Revelation 19:7-8)
I Love You. (Isaiah 43:4)

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