One of my favorite books (and movies) in the entire world is Little Women. I can relate to each character in different ways. Like so many, I relate most to Jo...akward and clumsy, giving way to late night stories and the characters stampeding thru my head, feeling like the ordinary for some reason doesn't offer the life I really feel called to...always seeking the next adventure. I would love to be even more like Beth. Yes, of course my heart reaches out to the poor Hummels, but how often do my actions follow?
And more often then I'd like to admit, I find myself acting out of passion and fury like precocious little Amy...my temper and selfishness getting the best of me. But I would say that many of Meg's struggles and Amy's character flaws have defined much of who I've been most of my life. The following advice was given to Meg from Marmee:
“If you feel your value lies in being merely decorative, I fear that someday you might find
yourself believing that’s all that you really are. Time erodes all such beauty, but what it cannot diminish
is the wonderful workings of your mind: Your humor, your kindness, and your moral courage.
These are the things I cherish so in you. I so wish I could give my girls a more just world.
But I know you’ll make it a better place.”
Im certainly not walking around the house with a clothespin on my nose to reshape it, but like Amy and Meg, for far too long, I based much of my value on my looks. I was a cute kid, but hit my growth spurt in the fifth grade before any of my peers. I sprung up and the kids were relentless. They called me pumpkin head on a stick because of how thin i was and how big my head was in relation to my body. What followed were years of self consciousness, followed by a distorted body image and eventually anorexia. My JR year during an exam, I passed out and ended up in the hospital weighing in at 89 pounds.
By then though, I had outgrown my awkward stage and young men (and men far too old) were noticing me. The attention made me feel good about myself. I eventually started modeling a little and my every thought was turned inward to hoping I looked okay that day.
Now the strange thing about this, is as much as I enjoyed the attention from men, I hated it at the same time. I knew that there was so much more to me, God had given me talents and interests and passions, but I was robbing myself of them daily with my attention to my appearance. And it began to infuriate me when I realized that so much of the attention I was receiving was for something so superficial. I found myself in situations that, had I been following the self God created for me to be, rather than my outer shell, I would have never been in. I dated the wrong men (again and again), I made foolish decisions and my time was misdirected. I started out of the gates quickly and suddenly came to a halting stop in life because I had started to believe the lie that I was 'merely decorative'.
When I left college, I left a lifestyle where I walked everywhere and ended up in a place where if I couldn't get there by car, I wasn't going. A few pounds eventually caught up with me. In fact, I can remember the moment where I swore off the diets I had been on since 5th grade. My mom had made a chocolate cake and I can remember saying "enough!" and delighting in that piece of cake like I never had before. Since then, there's been quite a few more pieces, but the lingering feeling of my identity being based in my looks has come along for the ride. I don't condone an unhealthy lifestyle, I think we should take care of our bodies, the problem lies when all of our identity comes from outward appearance. Now that I'm no longer the youngest on the block and the size 6 clothes are tucked away for a while, a new identity is a must. If I don't reclaim all of the wonderful child of God that I really am, i would remain empty. And I'm reclaiming that new self every day!
And back to those Little Women, while Beths wonderful acts of compassion is something I intentionally strive for (to me it is the very essence of inner beauty) the wisdom of Marmee is where I really want to be...having learned from her past and her mistakes, developing the kind of confidence the you must have to raise four strong Little Women.
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