Nightmares, skirts and poo

I’ve been thinking about my image a lot lately. Not so much my image, actually, but thinking about how I think about it. This week in school we were talking about adolescent health issues and I was surprised to learn that the average North American girl starts her first diet by age 12. I was surprised and then I thought back to when I was 12 and yes, that’s about right. I think my first one was ‘Heather’s health plan’. The next year, it was ‘Heather’s new and improved health plan’. Then ‘Heather’s health and fitness plan to end all plans’. And so on. Currently I’m on ‘Heather’s elliptical trainer butt-kicking health plan’.
The sad thing is that I’ve never been fat. But I’ve always obsessed over it. I think part of it stems from being teased as a kid, and while I’m sure it was never meant to be cruel, it stuck with me. I remember going out running when I was 16 or 17, with my short little running shorts, and my neighbor came out on his balcony wrapped in a ratty purple bathrobe and shouted, “Good morning, power thighs!” I wanted to die. My brothers lovingly nicknamed me ‘Heather the Hippo’. And it bothered me that I couldn’t fit into my beautiful skinny sister’s jeans and t-shirts.
I haven’t been happy about how I looked most of my life. I wanted thicker hair, bigger lips, longer legs, smoother skin, you name it. And I know I’m not alone in it. I remember reading about a woman’s conference where the speaker asked if any women in the audience were happy with their body. One woman out of 500 raised her hand. Isn’t that crazy? What is to be done about that? There isn’t enough Botox or liposuction or diets or hair dye or makeup or pretty clothes or plastic surgery or silicone implants or facemasks or curling irons, not anywhere in the world. You’ll never make a woman think her body is perfect.
“I praise you Lord,” Psalm 139 says, “Because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Why is it so hard to believe that?
I had this weird nightmare two weeks ago, which I’m sure was partly due to too much studying. In my dream, I looked in the mirror and discovered to my horror that I had a wide webbed neck, a flattened face with wide-set eyes, my skin was dry and flaky, and where I should’ve had breasts there was nothing.
“Oh my God, I’ve got Turner’s syndrome!” I wailed (Turner’s is a genetic disease where girls have 45X chromosomes instead of 46XX, and most cases aren’t as bad as my dream, in fact most girls look totally normal with it.)
I started to panic. Okay, Heather, breathe. Maybe this isn’t so bad. I looked in the mirror again. Gah!!!
I woke up and ran into the bathroom and was overjoyed to discover my own familiar features.
Then I had another crazy dream this week. I dreamt I was balding. I looked in the mirror and found that my hairline had receded several inches. Not just regular balding, it was hereditary male pattern baldness. Again I started to panic, and then tried to calm myself. Relax, Heather, maybe there’s a guy who likes big foreheads…
This week I bought a beautiful pink skirt for $5 at a second hand store. It is long and flowing, to the ground, with little silver sequins sewed on it and jangling bells at the waist. The weather finally warmed up a bit and I decided to go for a walk, wearing my new skirt. I was walking along feeling pretty good about myself, my new flowing skirt, my hair looked great….. As I walked by a car I looked in the window reflection to admire myself. Suddenly I felt something soft under my foot.
Yes, my dear reader, I had stepped in a pile of dog poo.
You can believe I felt stupid. I started walking through the piles of snow to try to wipe my shoes off and across the street there was an old man staring at me with a funny look on his face.
Farther along on my walk I came to a little creek with a bridge, but because so much snow has melted lately, the bridge was flooded. There was a big pipe that had fallen across the river with a birch branch hooked onto it and I decided to climb over the pipe. I was halfway across and doing pretty good, when my long flowing skirt got snagged on the birch tree. I didn’t want to rip it, but I couldn’t turn around and free it because I might slip off the pipe into the river, and I couldn’t go forward because there was another branch in the way. I tried to gather as much skirt up as I could and hold it out of the way with one hand, while balancing and trying to lift the birch branch up and away from me. I had a moment’s thought that yes, I was stuck on a pipe in the middle of the river with my skirt rolled up and my knickers probably showing, and yes, there were houses lining the bank on both sides. And yes, it would’ve been interesting to watch.
Without describing my contortions to release myself, I will tell you that I got away with only one large scratch on the back of my leg and a damp skirt and I considered myself lucky.
This morning I went to church with Katie and it was hard to sit down even in the comfy chairs because that elliptical trainer (3 days in a row!) has pulled every muscle from the waist down.
The pastor was talking about image and reputation and I began to feel that perhaps God was trying to tell me something. In fact, maybe he had been saying it for a while. Maybe those nightmares and the dog poo were all part of the message. Maybe he wants to tell me that he made me the way I am for a reason, and he loves the way I look, and I don’t have to constantly seek affirmation from other people to make me feel okay. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if I am fat or skinny, or short or tall, or have a webbed neck or a bald head. Perhaps God is looking at my heart and is more concerned with what he sees there, and wants to make that part of me beautiful.
“The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
There is no botox for the heart. But there is a treatment that creates an unfading beauty, I’ve heard.
“But let it be the inward adorning and beauty of the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible and unfading charm of a gentle and peaceful spirit, which is not anxious or worked up, but is very precious in the sight of God.” (1 Peter 3:4)
We spend so much energy on the outside, on how people view us, on trying to look good or act cool or sound clever. But the truth is, “I live before an audience of one. Before others I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose.” (General Charles Gordon).