Abandoned Pictures of the Perfect Christian Woman

Who was that woman? She looked like me, but she didn’t sound like me. She didn’t dress like me. It was confusing.

Those were the thoughts I had recently as I watched a video of myself from my young mom days. Where in the world did those speech patterns come from, and who picked out that outfit?!

Suddenly, I knew.

I was talking the way my mentors talked. I dressed the way the majority of the women at my church dressed. Neither was bad, it just wasn’t me.

For years and years, I carried around pictures of the perfect Christian woman in my head. Or at least my version of the Christian woman. In truth, she was an amalgamation of many mentors–women I love and admire to this day. I chose each of her godly traits, ignoring any of her rough edges, and created a blended image of how the ideal godly woman needed to talk, look, and act.

That last word in that series defines the problem I saw when I watched a video of my younger self years later. It was an act.

Sure, there were good things about emulating those amazing women. They taught me to pray and to love scripture. They modeled how to hold their tongue and to be a good friend. They instructed me on how to manage my thought life and build others up. My first mentor showed me what purity looked like in a way I wanted to follow, and later mentors taught me to love my husband well.

Those are all really good things. (And let me quickly say that every girl should either have a mentor or be stalking her next one!)

God meant for me to learn from those women, but He never meant for me to try to be them. He created me to be fully and most gloriously myself, the unique woman who He created me to be. We don’t bring the most glory to Him when we’re trying to create an image of the “perfect” Christian woman. We bring the most glory to Him when we are walking close to Him in the trust form of ourselves, honoring His creation by giving it value.

Did you apply that to yourself? I want to gently whisper those truths to you again.

God made you, therefore your truest self is both beautiful and of great value to Him.

You should honor your truest, God-created self by living free of a facade as an act of worship to your creator.

Freedom is for you, not just other people.

I whispered those truths to myself today too, and truth be told, I needed a big dose of them again! It’s so easy to slip back into the habit of trying to shape ourselves into an image –of trying to create a facade of perfection to hide behind– but joy is found in allowing God to unmask us.

Let’s face it. This is no perfect Christian women. There are only unique women who love Jesus and are allowing Him to transform them day by day. I am in that league of women, and so are you. Let’s stand in the space only we can fill and relinquish our imperfections to Him to use for His stunning glory. That’s one step closer to true perfection.

Note: Darlene, who left her comment on 9.21.15 at 10:06 am, is the winner from last week’s giveaway of Breaking Up with Perfect and the scripture cards. Congratulations, Darlene!