Women In His Image

Thanks to my two friends - R and S - who kindly responded to my last post. Ladies, I appreciate you so much! Let me respond with a few more thoughts:

To R: You answer your own question “Why attempt anything ‘good’ at all if Christ’s return is the only true solution?” in the same way that I would: “Redeeming this fallen earth is what we’re called to do.” The work that I suggest: education, support, and most importantly witnessing for Christ and His saving grace, is all towards that end. However, we may differ in that I do not believe it is the role of the United States government to assist in redeeming this fallen earth. I rely only on God and Christ to do that, realizing that we (ie, Christians) are the hands and feet of the gospel.

You also say: “I’m wondering if you and I disagree on the point of human life rather than the worth of women (because surely we agree on the latter).”  Exactly one of my main points. You have your own definition of human life, I have my own definition of human life (I am quite sure they are the same; cf. Psalm 139), your neighbor has her definition, my sister has her definition, the lady behind you at the grocery store has her definition, and on and on. This is the mark of being a sovereign human being in our democratic nation.  We get to define human life for ourselves based on our faith (or lack thereof) and act accordingly (ie, have as many children as you wish, or don’t). This is a right that can easily be stripped by any human government, namely China. When I spent a month in China in 2003 I talked in very hushed tones with several Chinese women on a train about their own government-enforced abortions. This is the reality of a nation where the notion of human life is dictated by a government. I believe that we must vehemently protect ourselves from government intrusion in the most personal of decisions. (Being a Democrat, I realize this last statement is traditionally a “Republican” point of view. But for some reason, not when it comes to reproductive choice.)

And S responded: “We are called to love women, not the decision.” Amen! For me, part of this love is not insisting that a woman define human life in the same way that I do under the threat of criminal penalty and forcing her to have a child against her will. I want to love her by making sure that she knows that there are options, that adoption is an extraordinarily courageous act, and hopefully if she comes to faith in Christ she will choose to define human life on God’s terms instead of her own. I am so happy to hear that you have amazing stories from your own family’s experience about good things arising out of bad situations! I know that I would be encouraged by those stories, and I hope that someday you might have the opportunity to also share them with a woman in crisis.

I don’t get into this conversation with many of my Christian friends…I wish more of them would be open to the discussion but I have to respect that this is an incredibly emotionally charged issue and friendships can be lost over such things. At the same time, I wish that more Christians could be open to the possibility that one can be Christian and pro choice.

The prompting for this post is learning on a friend’s blog that the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) has endorsed Barack Obama. I’m surprised by this because I thought for sure that their endorsement would go to Hillary. But they see the writing on the wall like I’m thinking Hillary already has.

I worked for Planned Parenthood for many years doing pregnancy testing and counseling. I have referred many women and girls for abortions and some for adoption. I have heard countless stories of how these women and girls ended up with an unplanned pregnancy — some stories I wish I could forget. Stories of incest (on more than one occasion stories of repeated pregnancies from incest), rape, domestic abuse, loneliness, heartache, self-hatred, and fear. Never in all of the years that I worked in an abortion clinic did I meet a woman who casually chose abortion on a whim, as if without thinking or because it was the “easy” thing to do. Never did I meet a woman who was not torn up over her decision. And there it is: her decision. Not mine. Not yours. Not a Senator’s sitting on Capitol Hill. Hers. There in that very small counseling room, looking at that positive pregnancy test, knowing that she was going to make the hardest and worst decision of her whole life. And knowing that she will never be the same again.

I do not advocate or encourage abortion, but I believe that our government must maintain the right to legal and safe abortion for women who want to end a pregnancy. Women must be allowed the right to make this decision between herself and her physician without the interference of any government entity. I believe that reproductive choice is a fundamental human right. Criminalizing abortion will not end abortion. Women will die just as they did before abortion was legalized. My own mother lost a high school friend to a botched back-alley abortion in the 1950’s. Even in the 1990’s I met women who came to our clinic after trying to perform their own abortion by their own crude means. All to save face and avoid having to come to our clinic.

We live in a tragically fallen, sinful world and abortion is part of it. Sex without commitment (ie, marriage) is part of it. Unplanned pregnancy is part of it. Criminalizing abortion will not change these facts. Only the return of Christ and His reign on Earth will change these facts. Until then I believe that we must educate our young women and men (in homes, schools, and churches) about healthy sexual activity and the consequences of sex outside of marriage. We must work diligently to improve the self esteem of teenage girls so they do not seek acceptance through sex. We must provide affordable birth control to women of all races and economic classes. We must provide single women with economic and social support to make parenthood a feasible option. And we must reach the world for Christ so that women will have a foundation and support system to help them choose not to have an abortion.

Please know that I do not take this issue lightly. My husband and I struggle with infertility and the knowledge that we will never have our own biological child. Some days I feel that I would give anything for my own pregnancy and I struggle knowing that there are women out there choosing to end theirs. But my pain does not give me the right to take away another woman’s choice. It is hard and it doesn’t make sense, but God is good and his forgiveness and mercy are unfathomable.

On April 22, 2008 the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill issued the following news release:

Three Out of Four American Women Have Disordered Eating

Sixty-five percent of American women between the ages of 25 and 45 report having disordered eating behaviors, according to the results of a new survey by SELF Magazine in partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

An additional 10 percent of women report symptoms consistent with eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder, meaning that a total of 75 percent of all American women endorse some unhealthy thoughts, feelings or behaviors related to food or their bodies.

Check out the True Campaign and how they are working to set women free from this cultural epidemic that leads to chronic dieting, severe depression and self-hatred.

I encourage my readers to visit the True Campaign website created by Constance Rhodes of Finding Balance. Make comments!

Not many people know this, but I have been taking bellydancing classes. My closest friends and loved ones would probably chuckle if they knew this…or at least ask me, “what are you thinking??!?” I am actually finding bellydancing to be not only fun and great exercise but also some seriously good therapy for a person recovering from a lifetime of disordered eating and body image issues.

My teacher is a lovely woman (mid-50’s maybe) who has a background as a ballet dancer but has been doing bellydance for over 20 years. I will never forget in one of the first classes she encouraged everyone to “let their bellies hang out” and, by completely relaxing the stomach muscles, we would find that the bellydancing moves would be much easier and feel more natural. She called out to us, “I know what you young girls are doing! You are like most western women and you are trying to suck in your belly even while exercising!”

She was right. I was guilty. I have exercised for years and unfortunately have spent too much time noticing the flat bellies of the women exercising around me, comparing myself to them and usually wishing my stomach was flat and taught instead of its natural rounded state. I’ve spent countless hours talking myself into appreciating my rounded stomach and hips because they are reminders of my fertility and femininity… right??

Ah, the liberation of letting it all hang out! I have now discovered the positive reinforcement of hearing the coin belt wrapped low around my hips “ching” as it should while I do a thigh shimmy or a double Mayan hip roll. In bellydance there is praise for the ample woman in all her glory!

Final note from a Christian woman who endorses and encourages modesty: Bellydance is something I began doing only with the approval of my loving husband. Bellydancing is not inherently sexual, but instead is an art form that women in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe have been perfecting for centuries. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Western culture tends to sexualize most forms of dance and perceive a dancing woman as sexually provacative.  Have you seen many movies come out of Hollywood in the last decade about dancing women that don’t portray them as young, scantily clad, and trying to attract a man?

And with that, I will do a walking hip shimmy away from my soapbox.

Some of you may be familiar with the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty.” I became aware of it through their print and TV ads over the last few years featuring real women with real bodies smiling and (I think) happily thumbing their noses at the “ideal” ultra-thin supermodel type. We all know the type…we’re assaulted with it regularly by the magazine rack in every grocery store aisle in every supermarket in every city across America.

Little did I know all of the wonderful aspects of this Campaign! I think Dove is taking the issue of positive self esteem for women and girls to a new level in the advertising industry. There are links for Moms and mentors, information on “real beauty” workshops, short films about body image and self-esteem, and lots more.

Check out the powerful video at the link below. In the words of Kathy, my aunt/friend/sister in recovery who sent me the link: “This is a really powerful message. Especially if you have a daughter or ever were a daughter.”  Right on!

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/home.asp

Ugh. I am so incredibly disturbed by this. How many headlines in the national press can be devoted each day to the undeserved, irrational, misdirected criticism of Britney Spears’ body?

This is a young woman who has given birth to two children in a short span of time. She is one female entertainer out of many who performed at the MTv Video Music Awards. Yes, she is a public figure and apparently that makes her life open to the unrelenting criticism of the media and the general public. Does Britney deserve this? Does any woman who chooses a life in the public eye deserve this? Does any woman in any walk of life deserve this?

I have no trust in the entertainment media. I am just acutely aware of the millions of girls, young women, and yes even adult women who are out there reading these criticisms of Britney’s body and comparing her body to their own. These are women and girls who many times are not aware of the bias they are secretly building against themselves in their own minds day after day as they view the millions of images of “perfect” women’s bodies provided so generously by the American media.

I rest in knowing that we are women created in God’s image and this image has nothing to do with the shape, fitness, or firmness of our human bodies. In fact, the Hebrew word for “image” used in Genesis 1:26-27 comes from an unused root word meaning phantom, illusion, resemblance, or a representative figure.

Sisters, we are in essence phantoms and illusions of Yahweh on earth. Praise God.

A contributor sent me this essay right after the New Year (2007). That was awhile ago, but these words are appropriate any day of the year in my opinion. And sometimes in the middle of the year I really need to hear these words.

It’s that time of year again. When diet gurus and fitness clubs attempt to capitalize on our champagne-induced New Year’s resolutions to lose those the same 20, 30, 40, pounds that we’ve resolved to lose for the past 10 years. I think I’ve noticed it more this year than others because this year I decided not to get on that ride again. As soon as this decision was made, terror struck. What on earth would I fill my days with if I wasn’t thinking about getting thin, or how to stay thin? The fact that I even had to ask that question was evidence to the sheer insanity of it all. This led to my next question, “what would life be like if I never passed judgment on my body?” One of my many answers was that the time I spend fantasizing about what life would be like in a perfect body could be spent learning who I truly am, and what my purpose is. That’s the question, isn’t it? Beyond my physical appearance and beyond the labels of wife, mother, daughter, sister, dental assistant…who am I, really?

I wonder what would happen if you posed the following scenario to Christian women. What if you were shown a photo of yourself from the past when you were 50 (or 20, or 15) pounds heavier than you are now. Let it sink in – you don’t like looking at yourself in this picture. Then, you are told that you have the opportunity to spend 5 minutes face-to-face with Jesus, but you will actually have to gain those 50 pounds (or 20, or 15) first. Your health won’t be compromised, but you won’t be able to lose them later. What would you do? What would you choose?

Of course, I know that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and that being morbidly obese is not honoring that temple, nor is being anorexic. But what about the vast number of us who are physically healthy, but whose only motivation to lose weight is knowing we will receive the admiration of others? Even as Christians we want to impress people with our beauty, which in this culture translates to thinness. We want to turn heads. We want to worship at the “shrine of the perpetually thin” and have no one question our idol worship. The worshipers of the golden calf have nothing over us because we can carry our idol with us around in our head. I think of my idol first thing in the morning when I step on the scale, as I dress, before and after I eat, before and after I exercise, when I’m in public, as I watch TV, or thumb through the latest gossip or fashion magazine. I put my life on hold waiting for my idol to materialize before I start living my life. I do not even notice the snake curling up at my feet.

What started out innocently enough now has me in chains. The fact that the enemy works with such subtlety is perhaps the most frightening. And since everyone I know is chained to the same wall. We don’t even notice that the shackles are cutting off our circulation. Women bond over this issue and we have fooled ourselves into thinking this is normal. We have been in slavery to the societal misconception that there is something innately wrong with us if we’re not thin. We’ve been slaves to this desire to be thin over longing for our savior. 

Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings out the best of you, develops well-formed maturity in you…” (The Message) 

Yes, it is important to be healthy and care for God’s temple. However, in order to see what true health looks like we must get out of the dungeon and experience true freedom. True health does not look like the glossy images we are inundated with on a daily basis. Perhaps it is best if we remember 1Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”