Got Perfect?

After fifteen years working in the modeling industry, I walked away for the simple fact that God saw my heart.  That was life-changing news when I couldn’t measure up to the industry standard of “perfect.”  It amazed me to discover that while everyone else critiqued the outside, God saw and loved the girl within.  Even when I had pimples and frizzy hair and tired eyes, he adored who I was beyond the flesh.  It was that love that set me free to be the girl God made:  one who shines from the inside out, one who has a beauty that lasts.

Our world is obsessed with discovering ways to defy age.  We fear every wrinkle, every laugh line, every groove carved with suffering.  We are told that women’s faces should not sag or wrinkle; our bodies dare not bear imperfection; and our clothes should never betray “lumps” where there should be none.  The world has set us up to fail:  it demands perfection, an impossible ideal.  The more we strive for it, the more it eludes us. 

Yet 2 Corinthians 5: 1-6 teaches that as long as we are in these temporary bodies, we will long to be clothed in the eternal spirit.  While in the flesh, we groan and are burdened; we long for the eternal perfection of heaven.  There, all will be well; there will be no tears, no heartbreak, no weight gain, no shameful flaw.

He made us imperfect so we would long for Him.  He wants us to be flawed.  He wants us to age.  He wants us to be different.  He doesn’t want us all wearing plastic masks, for there is too much hiding that goes on behind them. 

The Bible teaches that beauty begins in the heart.  Sometimes it seems that a makeover, some Botox, a new diet or a face lift would be quicker avenues to beautiful.  Knowing that beauty begins in the core of us is scary: there is often too much garbage there, too many broken pieces.  But Jesus said he came to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring beauty out of despair.  In other words, he wants to create beauty in us from even the ugliest parts of our lives. 

I’ll never forget all the models I knew who destroyed themselves trying to be “perfectly beautiful.”  I was one of them.  When I finally left modeling, my river had run completely dry.  I had ruined my body and soul in the quest for perfection.  In Christ, I discovered a love that washed over all my flaws.  As I let him go to those innermost places within me, He stitched up my broken heart, healed my wounds, and finally created in me a well overflowing in a river of love for others.  Today, my cup runneth over.  To me, that’s a beauty that lasts.

His perfect love both heals us and sets us free . . . not only to go without makeup today, to not worry so much about what we wear or how we look, but also to discover the kind of real beauty he made us for: how we can use our gifts to share his love with others, and see their own lives transformed.  Why?  Because He’s the only perfect we’ll ever find on earth. 

For further reading:  1 Sam 16:7; 2 Cor 4:16-5:6; 1 Pe 3:3-4; Isa 61:1-3; 2 Cor 12:8