I have always wanted to be pretty. I have always wanted to be perfect. I have always wanted to be polished. But, no matter how pretty I looked, how perfect I performed, or how polished I appeared, I could never fully achieve “The Look.” My standards were always based on someone else. As a little girl, it was fairytale princesses like Cinderella, Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty. As a teenager, it was my friends. Then as a college student, my boyfriends set the standards. I changed my hair, my clothing style, and my personality in order to get “The Look.”
As a young career woman, the standards changed again. Blue jeans and a cheerleading uniform were exchanged for power suits and high heels that I proudly wore while climbing the corporate ladder until God interrupted my life at 26. I would like to say that when I became a Christian, I finally got “The Look.” But that would be a lie. As in the past, I simply exchanged one set of standards for another. Secular standards were replaced with spiritual ones.
I still wanted to be pretty. I still wanted to be perfect, and I still wanted to be polished. At that time, “The Look” meant I needed to marry Mr. Right and have at least two children who would always be pretty, perfect, and polished. We would go to church on Sunday mornings and everyone who saw my family would know I was a woman with “The Look.” Only problem was Mr. Right never came along and the two children were replaced by two cats. Well-meaning Christians tried to help me. “Well, if you can’t meet those standards, then change them.” Friends comforted me with words like, “You know the Bible teaches that God is your husband and more blessed is the barren woman than the one who is married.” With goodhearted intentions, they encouraged me to see God as my consolation prize.
People would have said I was pretty enough, perfect enough, and polished enough, but I knew different. Hidden behind my veil of perception, “The Look” remained elusive. Pretty, perfect, and polished remained just out of my reach. All the while, God was showing me through my ministry that I was not alone in this struggle. I frequently encounter both married and single women striving to achieve the elusive “Look.” Like me, they had bought into the deception.
In my journey of unmasking “The Look,” here are a few things that I have learned. Each of us has a mental image or a definition of “The Look,” but that image looks different for every person. If you want to know how you define the image, answer these questions. If you could be like any woman, who would it be and why? For example, my list would include Anne Graham Lotz, Mary of Bethany, or Jennifer Garner.
At the same time, we have a list of women that we don’t want to be like. These women are usually closer to us in relationship. We see their imperfections and determine we are not going to be like them. My mother had serious anger issues. I can remember if I spilt my drink at dinner, she would explode. As a little girl, I told myself, I would never be like her. We mold and shape “The Look” based on what we value and devalue.
“The Look” encourages us to define ourselves by standards that are not easily reached. These are the “essential qualities” that we define as good or bad. When we fail to meet them, our natural reaction is to condemn, reject, and violate our own souls. Henri Nouwen in his book, Life of the Beloved, wrote,
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. When we believe the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions… Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved. (emphasis mine)
As women, we know self-rejection, but struggle to see ourselves as the beloved. When we practice self-rejection, we are having trouble separating who we are from what we do. We shift our focus to image, which becomes incredibly important for our sense of security and safety. When we fall short, we feel unworthy and retreat behind the Veil of Perception. We silently suffer as we punish ourselves for not performing according to our values. Withdrawing from God and one another, we lick our wounds and promote the deception. We blame our failures on others. If she hadn’t… then I wouldn’t… If I had what she had... then I would… If I do this or that, then I’ll prove to everyone that I’m okay. Meanwhile, God grieves with us and for us because he knows we are defining ourselves by the wrong standards.
Self-rejection also reveals a wrong definition of “perfection.” Webster defines perfection as “freedom from fault or defect.” However, a biblical definition of perfection has an entirely different connotation, to “grow to complete maturity.” It implies a process, not an arrival. The process is only finished at Christ’s return. Until then, many Christian women buy into the deception of image and pursue “The Look” even though it remains elusive and unnecessary.
The deception of “The Look” only gives way to the truth as we embrace and believe verses like Hebrews 10:14, “By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are in the process of being made holy.” God tells us to let go of being perfect and focus on being holy or Christ-like. He also tells us to forget the mistakes of the past and to focus on perseverance, trusting that he will make us holy through the process.
God’s desire for us is to experience freedom and joy. Pursuing the elusive look and hiding behind a veil of perception robs us of the opportunity to enjoy either. So, how are we to respond to these biblical truths? First, we must choose to remove our veils every day and let go of the deception. We have been made perfect forever. It is okay for other people to see our not-so-pretty, imperfect, unpolished true selves. For the record, most of us have been forced to see ourselves on Zoom over the past two months and no one really looks their best on Zoom. We are the ones who see our imperfections a little more clearly. People already saw that side of us anyway. We are the only ones fooled into believing the veil is working.
Second, we need to accept that in Christ, we have been given a look that far surpasses the pretty, perfect, polished image. “The Look” can never compete or compare with the glory of God, which is reflected in our faces when we remove our veils and let him shine through our lives. So, will you remove your veil?
– Pamela Hall
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