Compared to her

This month on the blog we are looking at the theme of image.  In particular thinking about our attitudes to how we look and what God says about beauty and image.  At our brunch in June we will examine this issue further.  So hopefully our posts this month will start us thinking deeper about this issue and cause us examine our hearts and listen to the truths from God’s word.

As we begin to delve into this issue of image, I want to throw out a couple of questions.  Are you happy with the way you look?  When you look in the mirror do you view your reflection with a sense of contentment or do you instantly focus on all the things you want to change?  How easily to you identify with the following stories?

“I put on an outfit I know I look good in, and I feel great – until I get to the party.  Then I see someone who looks slimmer, or cooler, or classier; suddenly the woman looking at back at me in the mirror looks fat, frumpy and dull.  I just want to go home.”

“I look at photos of myself from decades ago and feel so despondent.  I used to be so much slimmer, with smoother skin and no grey hair.  Mind you at the time I thought I was blobby and had frizzy hair…”

All too familiar aren't they?  And I am positive that all of us have at one time or another struggled, probably even now, with a sense of dissatisfaction and discontentment about how we look.  We can long to look different; slimmer, taller, longer legs, less wobbly arms, straight hair (add your own desire). 

Where does this lack of contentment come from?  Why do we suffer from a desire to change how we look?  There are many reasons which I think contribute to how we might answer that but in this post I want to highlight one which comes from a book by Sophie De Witt called ‘Compared to her’.

In the book Sophie identifies an underlying attitude which can lead to our lack of contentment with regard to how we look.  Thinking back to the stories above, what is at heart of them?  The answer is comparison.  Sophie picks up on the fact that often the dissatisfaction we have with our image, and in fact experience in many others areas of life, comes from the fact we are constantly comparing ourselves to others.  How does my figure match up with hers?  Does she look more or less stylish/cool/effortless than me?  Do I look as good as her without having spent the money she clearly has?  On these measuring scales, do I win, compared to her?  Or lose?

When I compare myself with someone else, why do I do it?  What am I hoping to get out of it?  Sophie identifies three themes that motivate our desire to compare ourselves with others. 

1. I want to know that I’m worthwhile (I want to know I’m significant).
2. I want to know that my life is as good as it could be (I want to be satisfied).
3. I want to know that I've got what I need in life (I want to feel secure).

Essentially we want to make ourselves feel good about how we look.  We want to make sure we look as good, if not better than others so we can feel significant, satisfied and secure. 

But the problem is it doesn't work.  We end up doing one of two things.  We compare ourselves to others and come off worse.  This leads to us feeling inadequate, envious, insecure and full of self pity.  We can be bitter or grumble about how we look.  We no longer love ourselves. 

Or we compare ourselves to others and come off better.  This leads to us feeling proud, arrogant and superior and we no longer love those around us.

In reality we tend to do both.  Each day we look up at others and look down on others, and feel anxious and self-sufficient, guilty and proud, despairing and smug.    I know I do this all the time.  Walking down Princes Street on the way to work I can pass one person and think ‘woah, that’s quite an outfit!  At least I don’t look that.  The next person comes along and I’m now thinking, “wow, isn’t she skinny, I wish I was like that”.  What we don’t feel, at least for any length of time, is the sense of significance, satisfaction or security we are looking for in how we look.

In the book Sophie expands on why we behave like this and looks at many areas of life where we suffer from this problem.  It is not just confined to the area of image.  I would thoroughly recommend reading the book and letting God challenge our hearts. 

But without giving away too much of the end of the book, what is the cure?  How do we stop comparing ourselves to others?   In the end, the cure is wonderfully, challengingly simple – Let God be God.  Our compulsive need to compare comes from pushing God out of the centre of our lives.  So the cure is simply to reverse the way we see the world and ourselves.  We need to restore God to the centre and to find all we need, at each point of our days and in every part of our dreams, in Him.   How do we let God be God?  By remembering and knowing and living out truths the Bible says about who God is and what God says about who I am.  Once I remember who God is and that my identity comes from him, then my satisfaction, significance and security is no longer dependent on the wavering comparisons with those around me.  It becomes dependent on the unchanging opinion of the faithful God.  I can hold on to his promise that I am “God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works (Ephesians 2:10).”

A copy of Sophie De Witt's book can be bought from the 10ofthose website by following this link - Compared to her