Victorious Secret. Laura Mary Phelps
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loaded with gluten. And sugar. So much sugar. But she’s so skinny! So unfair. She’s skinny eating pie with friends in her clean home while I sit at my messy desk in my homeless attire. You know how fat I would get if I did nothing but make pies and eat them? She probably doesn’t even eat it. She’s probably one of those women who invite other women to come over and eat, and she sits and watches. She wants everyone to be fatter than she is. Nice. Ugh. I really am a mess. Why can’t I just get myself together? The house is a mess, my desk is a mess, I am not even good at my job, and who knows what my kids are up to? I need help. Serious help. And I need a farm table. I really need a farm table. What’s wrong with me? I hate that stupid pie.
Ah, the wonderful, encouraging world of social media! Isn’t it great?
Only, the problem here really isn’t social media, is it? The problem here is me. How I view and compare myself to others. How I distort images and do some serious magical thinking, which is a therapist term for “making up a story and fully believing it.” Because other than the fact that this woman had a few minutes and the desire to photograph a pie, every other thought that ran through my head was most likely false. (Except for the thrifting. I stand by the thrifting, because honestly, I may not know her, but she thrifts too much.)
But we do this, don’t we? We see an image and our minds create a story around it. We see, and we desire. And this is good. A great picture ought to tell a story; it ought to stir emotion. But there is a problem with this today. Because we are bombarded by images, and we have the hideous ability to see what everyone is doing, eating, drinking, wearing, vacationing, and enjoying, at every given moment of our every single day. And most of the images we see? Guess what? They are filtered. They are staged. They are untrue. They are the one perfect shot out of 500 others you did not see, and most likely never will.
But it is hard to choose not to use filters, because they really do make us look so much better. The first time I used a filter on my face and saw the even, smooth skin and bright eyes, I was sold! And don’t even get me started on those animal filters my children use … because honestly, I am at my most beautiful ever when I look and sound like a deer. Who knew? Strange, but I gotta admit, so true. So much so, that I have already requested that when I die, if possible, I’d like to be laid out in the coffin looking exactly like that deer.
Let’s just confess. We all love filters. And let’s just admit that if we like ourselves better as seen through an animal filter, well, sweet friend, there might be a problem.
Because here is an interesting thing. You know what it means to filter? I do. Not because I am smart, but because I looked it up. To use a filter means to “remove what is unwanted.” When I read that, I was really struck by it, and not in a good way. Something about the word remove … something about the word unwanted. How many years of my life have I devoted to trying to remove those things about me that I do not want, those things about me that I think make me less attractive? Less desirable? Those things in my life that might point to the fact that I am kind of a hot mess and not the perfect woman I’d like you to think that I am? Too many years. From the nose job when I was just seventeen, to drastic weight loss in college, to the frantic house-cleaning maniac I turn into moments before company arrives. I have been on a nearly life-long quest of seeking out the illusion of perfection. Changing my image to fit whatever crowd I was currently in, transforming myself into the woman I thought a man would be attracted to. And let’s be honest, ladies, we not only like to be perfect for the men, but even more so for other women. Right? We are the most competitive species I know, and we love a good game of comparison — as long as we win. So, all of this filtering we do, it really isn’t about enhancing the beauty that is already there, is it? No. It is about removing the unwanted to give the illusion that everything is so much better than it actually is, because the way we are, as is, is not good enough.
I think we do this because we want everyone to believe that we are better than just okay. I think we remove and sift and filter things out so that people cannot see what is really going on inside our homes, inside our families, inside our marriages, inside our hearts, inside our heads. I get it, not everyone needs to see the inside of your kitchen junk drawer, or what your linen closet looks like. And not everyone should be trusted with the truth of how weary you feel, how painfully lonely your marriage has been, how lost you fear your children might be, how you struggle to find meaning and purpose. But we do need to recognize that filters don’t work in real life and in real relationships, because filters don’t encourage the basic things we need to thrive, like truth, authenticity, and honesty.
And we really need to acknowledge, at some point, that life is not perfect, we are not perfect, and that our pain is valid and real and okay and should be addressed, because sticking a deer’s ears and nose on it will not make it go away. It’s a temporary fix. It is not made to last. And I don’t know about you, but no matter how loud the world gets, or how much it tries to convince me that nothing lasts forever, and love is a feeling, and we can choose our gender and marry our dog (okay, so we can’t marry our dog … yet), I still disagree. I disagree because I want authentic, lasting relationships, and I want to choose to love because I desire the greatest good for others, not just myself, and because I want to live in the light of truth. But if I can’t be honest with myself, how will I ever learn to be honest with others? And if I can’t truly love myself, how can I truly love others? All these filters, all this work to appear lovely, all the botox and tummy tucks and nose jobs, only tear us away and apart from our true selves, from the truth of not only who we are, but whose we are: each of us is a beautiful, beloved daughter of God, an absolute masterpiece, a stunning work of art.
That is exactly how you describe yourself, isn’t it? God’s beloved. A work of art. (Did you laugh when you read that, or roll your eyes? Because I did both while I wrote it.)
It’s hard to believe this, isn’t it? It’s hard to get real. I think we have just pretended for so long that it feels wrong to drop our mask and widen the camera lens and show the whole picture. But here is the thing. There will never be a filter we can use that will keep our true selves from the One who sees all, knows all, and created all. And I often wonder what God thinks when he sees us poring over false images, doubting who we are, buying into lies, comparing our lives to one another, trying to remake ourselves to look like someone else. I think about how sad he must feel when we pick apart our faces, our bodies, our marriages, our families, our careers, our lives, desperately trying to cover up the imperfections, remove the unwanted. And oh, how exhausted we are. How painfully tired we are from all of this performing. From all of this nonsense. From all of these empty attempts at identifying ourselves as anything other than “child of God.” Because the bottom line is just that. We are his beloved. We are his creation. He made us to love him and to know him here on earth, so that we can live for an eternity with him in heaven. It really is so simple.
And yet, we have made it so incredibly complicated. The world has shoved an endless buffet of self-image choices in our face, telling us we can pick who we are, remake ourselves completely, choose our identity and what we want to be. And I will be honest. I have been up and down that buffet for forty-seven years now. Turns out, finding suggestions on how to change myself, to better myself, to improve who I am apart from a relationship with God is super easy! But finding the truth about my identity? Finding the one thing that tells me to stop striving, to stop self-loathing, to rest in the arms of my Father because I have been made in his image, and because he loves me, just as I am? Not so easy. The choice that reminds me that my self-worth is not wrapped up in my appearance, successes, how big or clean my house is, or by the number of college acceptances and scholarships my children earn, or by that stupid, freaking number on the scale? I can’t easily find that choice. And how sad. How incredibly sad that we are all running around like headless chickens, desperate for purpose, dying for meaning, running in circles of despair, because by the world’s standards, our worth is nothing.
Sweet friend, this could not be any farther from the truth of who we are and the enormous value we possess. Because you see, my self-worth, and your self-worth? If we truly want to break out the measuring stick, if we honestly require an accurate weight of our worth, all we need to do is stop grasping at the empty promises around us and look up at the crucifix. Close your eyes right now for one minute and see it. See him. Because