I’m Obsessed with My Appearance — How Can I Stop?
00:00:00.000 | How can I be freed from my obsession with my appearance?
00:00:08.820 | It's an ever-important question and it comes in today from an anonymous young woman who
00:00:14.260 | listens to every episode of this podcast and no doubt is listening right now.
00:00:18.000 | "Hello Pastor John, I am 19 years old.
00:00:20.000 | I've been listening to your podcast for a few years now and it is, well, a little embarrassing
00:00:24.100 | how much I binge your episodes, but they have helped me so much.
00:00:28.380 | Thank you.
00:00:29.380 | I have a question that I have been wrestling with for a while about self-image.
00:00:34.080 | For years now I have dealt with hating what I see in the mirror.
00:00:37.620 | It's been a frustrating and emotional journey.
00:00:39.620 | I struggle with a lot of self-comparison and am very critical of my own appearance.
00:00:44.760 | I get very self-conscious when I'm not wearing makeup or when I wear certain clothes.
00:00:48.800 | I know this is a huge problem for young women.
00:00:51.440 | Women need Jesus to forgive their sins, not to make them feel beautiful, and yet knowing
00:00:55.420 | that I still struggle here.
00:00:57.500 | I know that this is a branch of pride and self-love to be so caught up in appearance.
00:01:02.640 | It's very damaging and discouraging and it affects my daily life.
00:01:07.160 | I was wondering how you would biblically encourage women who struggle with the same thing."
00:01:13.060 | Let me begin with a story.
00:01:15.700 | Evelyn Brand was born in England in 1879 and grew up in a well-to-do British family.
00:01:27.140 | She studied at the London Conservatory of Art and she dressed in the finest silks of
00:01:34.700 | the day.
00:01:36.360 | She was resoundingly converted to Christ, married, and went with her husband to minister
00:01:41.820 | as missionaries in the Kohli Malai mountain range in India.
00:01:49.020 | After about 10 years, her husband died at the age of 44 and she came home broken, beaten
00:01:58.180 | down by pain and grief.
00:02:01.020 | But after a year's restoration and against all advice, she returned all by herself to
00:02:08.940 | India.
00:02:10.540 | Her soul was restored.
00:02:13.100 | She poured her life into the hill people, nursing the sick, teaching farming, lecturing
00:02:19.700 | about guinea worms, rearing orphans, clearing jungle land, pulling teeth, establishing
00:02:27.140 | schools, spreading the gospel.
00:02:29.920 | She lived in a portable hut, eight feet square for a season, that could be taken down and
00:02:36.840 | moved and then put up again.
00:02:39.220 | At age 67, she fell and broke her hip.
00:02:42.380 | Her son Paul, famous surgeon, Paul Brand, her son Paul, encouraged her to retire.
00:02:49.340 | She had already suffered a broken arm, several cracked vertebrae, recurrent malaria.
00:02:54.900 | Her response?
00:02:56.540 | "Paul, you know these mountains.
00:02:59.860 | If I leave, who will help the village people?
00:03:03.420 | Who will treat their wounds and pull their teeth and teach them about Jesus?
00:03:08.100 | When someone comes to take my place, then, and only then, will I retire."
00:03:14.700 | So she worked on, and then almost 30 years later, 67, 30 years later, at the age of 95,
00:03:26.460 | she died.
00:03:27.900 | The villagers buried her in a simple cotton sheet so that she would decompose and be part
00:03:34.220 | of the mountains.
00:03:35.380 | Her son commented that, "With wrinkles as deep and extensive as any I have ever seen
00:03:44.220 | on a human face, she was a beautiful woman."
00:03:49.100 | Now, here's the great part.
00:03:51.740 | For the last 20 years of her life, she refused to have a mirror in her house.
00:03:59.220 | I love this.
00:04:01.520 | She was consumed with ministry, not mirrors, not self.
00:04:07.860 | A co-worker once remarked that Granny Brand was more alive than any person he had ever
00:04:15.860 | met.
00:04:17.060 | Now, the world is spending billions of dollars and endless media time to persuade women that
00:04:27.940 | life consists in their looks, their skin, their shape, their hair.
00:04:34.800 | The scam is as old as history.
00:04:39.460 | At the center of it is the attempt to trick women into the habit of comparing themselves
00:04:46.500 | with other women, even though Paul wrote, "When they measure themselves by one another
00:04:53.220 | and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding."
00:04:57.520 | That's referring to another situation, but the principle is still the same.
00:05:00.800 | Second Corinthians 10.12.
00:05:04.240 | Three thousand years ago, the Old Testament wise men pleaded with women not to be tricked.
00:05:10.660 | He said, "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is
00:05:17.660 | to be praised."
00:05:18.900 | Proverbs 31.30.
00:05:19.900 | In other words, true beauty, the real praiseworthiness in life, is not outward appearance but reverence
00:05:28.820 | for God and a life lived for others.
00:05:31.580 | Two thousand years ago, the apostle Peter said, "Do not let your adorning be external,
00:05:37.280 | the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, the clothing that you wear, but let
00:05:40.980 | your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle
00:05:46.000 | and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."
00:05:50.720 | And Paul said, "Let women adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control,
00:05:57.840 | not with braided hair and gold and pearls and costly attire, but with what is proper
00:06:03.380 | for women who profess godliness, namely, with good works."
00:06:09.200 | In other words, true beauty is a life lived in the service of others.
00:06:15.680 | The greatest beauty is a life of self-forgetfulness for the good of others in the name of Jesus.
00:06:26.060 | And let me throw in a little personal aside that will encourage a few thousand women and
00:06:33.320 | offend a few million, maybe.
00:06:36.080 | I don't speak for all men, but I do speak for, I don't know, a few thousand, when I
00:06:41.760 | say we don't find makeup attractive.
00:06:45.880 | Lipstick, eye shadow, facial colors, nail coloring, they're off-putting.
00:06:53.900 | We love natural, authentic faces.
00:06:57.880 | Now if that sounds liberating to you, I'm glad.
00:07:01.720 | If it doesn't, if it's offensive, threatening, annoying, well, don't worry.
00:07:06.280 | It's just John Piper's weird opinion, and there are a lot of godly people who would
00:07:11.960 | disagree with me.
00:07:12.960 | In fact, more godly than I am, I am sure.
00:07:16.360 | And it's not the main point of this asbestos, John, so end that little tirade and back to
00:07:21.240 | the point.
00:07:22.240 | So what is the main point?
00:07:23.560 | The main point is that outward beauty is insignificant compared to inward beauty of humility and
00:07:30.860 | wisdom and love, a life lived for others.
00:07:34.040 | And believe it or not, not only God, but the world sees this at its common grace best.
00:07:42.320 | How many millions of people would say that Mother Teresa, old, wrinkled Mother Teresa,
00:07:50.840 | had a beauty more powerful than all the models of the world put together?
00:07:59.440 | Just like Evelyn Brand, who refused to have mirrors in her house for the last 20 years
00:08:05.540 | of her life.
00:08:06.540 | Let me end with another story.
00:08:09.180 | A long time ago in our neighborhood, a man appeared for a short time.
00:08:14.400 | I don't know where he came from or where he went.
00:08:17.160 | He was only here a short time, as far as I could tell.
00:08:20.160 | And I noticed that he only came out of the subsidized high-rise near our house at evening.
00:08:28.300 | And he would generally be on the other side of the street from wherever people were.
00:08:31.560 | And I caught a glimpse of him one evening while I was out with the dog and noticed a
00:08:36.860 | massive purple birthmark covering most of his face.
00:08:44.280 | There was not only discoloring, there was disfiguring.
00:08:47.740 | I mean, he would have frightened virtually any child that saw him and probably caused
00:08:54.400 | most people to cross the street.
00:08:57.560 | So one evening I timed my walk to meet him.
00:09:04.200 | And as we passed, I greeted him and asked if I could say a word to him.
00:09:10.760 | This is hugely risky, what I'm about to do.
00:09:13.880 | Don't necessarily recommend it, but it's just what I felt led to do.
00:09:17.420 | He stopped and I just cut straight to the chase.
00:09:20.600 | I said, "My name is John.
00:09:22.460 | I live down the street over there at that red house.
00:09:25.280 | And I'm a pastor at the church over there.
00:09:28.040 | And I just want you to know that I know you're here and I don't want to avoid you.
00:09:34.880 | And I realize life must be hard for you.
00:09:38.440 | But I want you to know two things that are true because of Jesus.
00:09:45.540 | One is that I care about you and am not put off by your looks."
00:09:51.080 | You can see why this is risky, right?
00:09:52.680 | I mean, just no idea whether this is going to make him angry or not.
00:09:56.240 | And the other is I have spectacular news for people with every kind of disability.
00:10:02.320 | Namely, everyone who trusts in Jesus will be completely healed in the resurrection.
00:10:08.520 | And we will have brand new bodies, new faces, new legs, new arms, but we'll still be ourselves.
00:10:16.820 | He actually thanked me and then went on his way.
00:10:19.960 | I don't think I ever saw him again.
00:10:23.960 | The reason I tell that story is this.
00:10:27.040 | Virtually all of us are way too wrapped up in our relatively minor problems.
00:10:33.600 | That man's face puts my concern with wrinkles and sagging and blotching in a proper light.
00:10:43.160 | What we all need is a good dose of exposure to real suffering, which we have not yet known,
00:10:51.080 | and perhaps a few decades of glorious service in the mountains of India with no mirrors
00:10:57.700 | in our house.
00:10:58.700 | Wow.
00:10:59.700 | Amazing stories.
00:11:00.700 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for sending in the important and honest question
00:11:04.120 | like this one.
00:11:05.840 | We need your honest questions because we publish this podcast three times for a week with over
00:11:10.080 | now 1,500 episodes in the archive.
00:11:12.320 | You can find all those episodes.
00:11:14.080 | You can subscribe to the podcast or send us your own question.
00:11:16.120 | Do all of that online at DesiringGod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:11:22.040 | I am Tony Reinke, and we will see you on Wednesday when we look at how God called us to himself.
00:11:27.560 | Some glories to relish in coming up on Wednesday.
00:11:30.560 | We'll see you then.
00:11:31.040 | [END]
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