Beauty Battlefield

The beach is the worst place for it. 

If you're female, visiting the beach or pool lands you in the middle of a mental battlefield. Everywhere you look are other women in swim suits who look better than you. In my case, I can't fill up the top of a suit with A cups. When I do push-ups in aerobics class and the instructor says, "get your chest to the floor," I have to work three times harder than anyone else.

Maybe the other women are thinner than you. Or they're taller or prettier or have straighter teeth or thicker hair. There's some part of you that makes you unhappy.

Does this have a long history? Maybe kids taunted

you in school. You didn't measure up then and you don't now. You can't even

 go to the grocery store without seeing a slick magazine and a cover model with

the body you'll never have.                                                          

                                                                                                                           

How can you find healing for old wounds? How can you celebrate the beauty God

has created in you? Ask God to heal you and keep asking. The healing may take

a while. Maybe that's appropriate for wounds this deep, and perhaps God wants to teach you something along the way.

And unless you plan never to watch TV or use the Internet again, prepare for future attacks. Take up the shield of faith (Ephesians 6:16). In the first century, Roman soldiers carried large leather-covered shields that they soaked in water to extinguish flaming arrows launched by their enemies. Soak your shield in the Living Water, Jesus, the One who celebrates your beauty -- inside and out.