I can’t wait to be pretty

Claire Raabe 4 min read
woman sitting on bus bench seat

“I can’t wait to be pretty Oh the things that I’ll do I’ll kiss pretty people and live out the blue I’ll dance with the lights on in a crowded room When I’m pretty, oh the things I’ll do.” These lyrics struck me as I drove one morning listening to my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify. A quick perusal of the comments on the official YouTube demo tell me these words resonate with people, particularly women, in a powerful, heartbreaking way: “Literally every single lyric is how I feel.” “Tons of people tell me I’m pretty and it feels nice, but at the end of the day when I look in the mirror it pains me to look at myself.” “I’ve felt like this for years, afraid to live my life because I’ve never felt pretty.”  The past few weeks, I have found myself going through a podcast series produced […]

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Body Image and the Gospel

Mina Davenport 5 min read
woman putting makeup in front of mirror

You’ll never be thin enough. She’s definitely prettier than you. Is that the best outfit you could put together? For many years, sentiments like these were my natural reaction to seeing myself in a mirror. I have wrestled with my body image on and off since adolescence. Prior to following Jesus, I cared so much about my appearance I willingly nurtured harmful habits to become “beautiful”. I was bulimic, worked out too much, ate too little, followed trendy diets, spent countless hours on beauty tutorials, wore lots of gaudy makeup, and even went so far as to steal when I wanted the coolest clothing brands I couldn’t afford.  When I began following Jesus in my late teen years, I assumed my body image struggles would disappear. After all, a Christian knows that God doesn’t care about outward appearances, so I shouldn’t care about them either, right? Wrong. I continued to […]

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