Barbie's Hip(s)

My daughter and I were cleaning up
her toys last night when I stopped to look at Spotlight Barbie. She's a rock star, and she's wearing metallic silver pants that fit pretty tight. As I stared at the doll I thought, "This girl's got hips!"

Granted, she wasn't terribly wide, but that doll was curvy. She did not have the boyish figure of a runway model. Mattell has responded to criticism that Barbie's body was unrealistic. One report online said if the original Barbie were a real woman, she'd stand 5'9" tall, measure 36-18-33, and she'd have too little body fat to menstruate. But our Spotlight Barbie looked a little more realistic than the dolls I played with in 1980.

Mattell has also added dolls in a variety of professions. Barbie has been a vet, a pilot, an ambassador, etc. I'm glad to see her moving into fields traditionally reserved for men.

Barbie is still thin and beautiful, and perhaps she still contributes to an unrealistic body image. But maybe there is hope for Mattell if their designers will continue to move Barbie toward a figure that is healthier for my daughter to see. I hope she'll branch out to new professions. My area of study is theology, and Mattell has yet to create a theology professor doll. She could wear academic regalia. Place a Hebrew Old Testament in one hand, a Systematic Theology text in the other. Hang a sign around her neck reading, "Will lecture for food." You better lecture a lot, Barbie, because you need to eat more. Theology professors don't make a lot of money, and you could still stand to put on a few pounds. Can I get an amen?

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.