I’ve 9 valuable nieces, with ages starting from two to seventeen. Once I have a look at them and their buddies, I really feel an urgency to equip them with biblical fact so they don’t seem to be taken captive by worldly philosophy and empty deceit about their our bodies (see Col. 2:8). I understand how painful and disruptive ideas about our our bodies will be. I struggled intensely throughout faculty. I want I had higher understood God’s functions for my physique. I want I had identified join my physique picture struggles to what I used to be wanting and worshiping. I want I had identified acknowledge and confront the world’s lies about bodily look. I want I had identified how God defines lasting magnificence and pursue it.
Like many ladies, I used to be tempted to imagine that altering my physique would calm the noisy, anxious ideas in my soul. However our souls can’t be healed by altering our our bodies. Whereas physique picture struggles are difficult and painful, their weightiness gives the chance for God’s Phrase and the hope of the gospel to land with energy.
Why This Issues
The idea that we have to obtain a sure picture and the concept that we’re at all times failing have a big impact. Physique picture struggles disturb us deeply: the anguish and hopelessness of this wrestle can result in nervousness, despair, self-harm, consuming issues, and typically, suicide. Even when our angst doesn’t rise to disaster stage, serious about how a lot we dislike our our bodies or how we don’t measure up grabs our consideration and retains us mired in disgrace and guilt.
There is a gigantic alternative value of physique picture struggles. Younger ladies’s minds are sometimes preoccupied with how they appear, how they will “enhance” their our bodies, wishing they have been thinner, prettier, with slightly extra right here, rather less there. This preoccupation will not be solely painful, however it additionally retains ladies in a decent, inwardly-focused loop. It holds them again from giving their wholehearted consideration to growing expertise, thriving academically, fixing issues of their communities or faculties, sharing the gospel, or loving neighbors. Addressing physique picture struggles is a option to love the Lord with all our coronary heart, thoughts, soul, and energy. God’s Phrase has the assets we have to counteract the troublesome ideas that steal our focus from the methods God desires us to like Him and others.
You and Your Teen Are Invited
I wrote this 31-day devotional with teenagers in thoughts. The tales and illustrations situate the physique picture wrestle throughout the pressures younger ladies face. However I additionally hope mother and father (together with dads!), youth staff, coaches, and disciplers will discover this ebook helpful in cultivating conversations with teenagers. If you’re like me, you wish to inform the younger ladies in your life, “You’re pretty, inside and outside!” Which may be true, however it usually doesn’t stick, and it may possibly depart teenagers feeling misunderstood, hopeless, and with out a higher image of all of the methods the Bible will help. There’s extra—rather more—to say than “you might be fearfully and splendidly made,” as amazingly true as that’s. The Bible offers us a wealth of knowledge and perception for this situation.
What to Count on
Speaking about physique picture with teen ladies will result in fruitful gospel conversations about who God is, what God’s functions for our our bodies are, steward our our bodies, and methods we’d attempt to justify ourselves as an alternative of turning to Christ. The ebook is meant to immediate discipleship conversations, whether or not you are attempting to construct a biblical basis for well being and stewardship of the physique or addressing particular issues starting from social media’s affect to bullying.
Every of the 31 days features a brief meditation on a key passage that will help you higher perceive physique nervousness and to seek out perspective, consolation, and hope from God’s Phrase. The ebook is split into 4 sections, guiding readers in seeing how the Bible’s overarching storyline speaks into our troubles with our our bodies.
The primary part, Made by God, highlights the importance and implications of God creating us as embodied souls. Our our bodies are good presents that He crafted with loving care. We not solely get to expertise His goodness by way of our our bodies, however we additionally get to increase it to others, all whereas coming to understand God, who’s the Creator of all magnificence.
The second part, Damaged by Sin, discusses sin’s impression on our souls and our bodies. After we wrestle with physique picture, it’s vital to see the large image of what’s gone flawed in us and on this planet. Sin, our personal and that of different folks, complicates how we take into consideration and use our our bodies. Generally we really feel ashamed of our our bodies for causes that don’t have anything to do with our our bodies or our personal sin. The sin of others towards us makes appreciating and embracing our our bodies tough. God speaks with lovingkindness and readability about all of the methods the sin of others impacts us.
The third part, United to Christ, discusses the brand new functions we’ve got after we are joined to our Savior. Being united to Christ, God has referred to as us to look after our our bodies in ways in which present what He’s like. After we notice that we aren’t our personal however have been purchased with a value (1 Cor. 6:19-20), we are able to root out the concepts that hold us trapped in nervousness and despair about how we glance. God offers us recent confidence and power to steward our our bodies for God’s glory.
The ultimate part, Restored to God, trains our eyes on our stunning God and what He says is vital about our our bodies and our embodied expertise. He has all of the phrases we have to be filled with consolation, hope, and pleasure as we navigate consuming, train, nerve-racking conditions, and strain from others.
I’m excited to get this ebook into the arms of many teenagers who’re fearful, ashamed, or despairing when they give thought to their our bodies. God has given me extra freedom than I ever imagined I may have. His phrases actually heal us and reorient our ideas. The voice of the world and our personal troubled ideas about our our bodies don’t need to be the loudest. They may grow to be quieter as we tune our hearts to listen to God’s guarantees of objective and redemption that reach to our our bodies and into eternity.
Questions for Reflection
- What makes speaking about physique picture along with your teen arduous?
- What verses have introduced you hope and luxury in moments if you struggled with nervousness about the way you look?
Editor’s Word: Physique Picture: Valuing God’s Good Reward by Andrea Lee will be bought on-line from Amazon.
