Focus on the Family with Jim Daly

Opening:

John Fuller: Today on Focus on the Family, we’re going to talk, especially with women, about beauty and how you see yourself. And it may be that you’ve heard or even said things like these:

Excerpt:

Woman #1: I really wish that my voice didn’t sound so high-pitched and young for my age and people would take me more seriously on the phone or even in work, where my voice makes me sound very juvenile and I just wish it sounded more serious.

Woman #2: Too often I realize that the self-centered and selfish part of me ends up taking front and center instead of the kinder part of me that I know I want to be.

Woman #3: When I look in the mirror, I see all of the acne, all of the scars, all of the spots on my face that aren’t supposed to be there.

Woman #4: I know where God has gifted me specifically but at the same time, I always feel like I’m not measuring up.

Woman #5: I wish I had the fairy tale ending of marriage and family that all of us girls were promised when we were younger, but God never seemed to deliver.

End of Excerpt

John: Well, your host today is Focus president and author Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I’m John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, beauty is one of those topics that can make Christians feel a little uneasy because we don’t know if it’s appropriate, inappropriate when we talk about beauty. We don’t know if it’s OK to use the word or to compliment someone in that way. Today, we want to talk about that. What is beautiful? What does the Lord rejoice about beauty? He’s made us. And I’m telling ya, as a married man, I see this in my wife, Jean. She struggles taking a compliment. She can struggle when she’s not feeling particularly beautiful.

And if somebody says something, it just doesn’t always hit in the way that it should. And I think this is one of the topics that I have been looking forward to covering because also women are so quick to doubt themselves, to put guilt on themselves. I can see it. And I know you’re there saying, that’s right. We want to discuss that today to give you a tool, maybe several tools, to improve your ability to accept a compliment, to understand it and hopefully, to be able to live in that space where you know God is loving and kind, sees you and loves you no matter what.

John: And our guest today is going to help us better understand God’s definition of true beauty. Elisa Morgan was the CEO of MOPS for 20 years. MOPS is a ministry which encourages and supports moms with young children. Elisa is an author, a speaker and a radio host and she was on this broadcast just a week ago sharing a very powerful message of how God can redeem and use our brokenness in amazing ways. And today you’ll hear more about Elisa’s recent book, Hello, Beauty Full: Seeing Yourself as God Sees You.

Body:

Jim: Elisa, welcome back to Focus.

Elisa Morgan: Hey, good to be here.

Jim: Now, we are good buddies.

Elisa: Yeah, we are.

Jim: And it is just fun to have you back in the studio, because we’re already, you know, reminiscing and laughing with each other. It’s so fun to see friends.

Elisa: It is, it is. And we’ve been friends a long time.

Jim: I count you as a good friend.

Elisa: Oh, me to you, Jim.

Jim: I love the play on your cover here,Hello, Beauty Full. And why do women particularly struggle with understanding the fullness of God’s beauty for them?

Elisa: Right. This is a three-word title.

Jim: Yeah.

Elisa: So I separated beautiful into beauty and full. 96 percent of women worldwide, including followers of Jesus, would never use the word beautiful to describe themselves. Isn’t that stunning?

Jim: Why?

Elisa: Because there’s, like – it’s not me. We think about magazines and, you know, polished ads and airbrushed photos. We think about models. We think about celebrities. We think about babies, maybe.

Jim: Yeah.

Elisa: But we don’t think of ourselves as beautiful.

Jim: Elisa, also, um, you know, there’s a wonderful organization called Models for Christ.

Elisa: Hmm.

Jim: And I’ve had a chance to talk with some of them.

Elisa: Nice.

Jim: And they don’t feel beautiful.

Elisa: You even asked…

Jim: Arguably, these are the most beautiful women on the earth. These are the cover women.

Elisa: I honestly think that the answer to why is kind of complex. I think there are a couple of things going on. Um, one is we’re fallen beings, we’re fallen creatures. I mean, back in the Garden, in Genesis, God created man and woman. And he said we were good.

Jim: Hm.

Elisa: I think that’s a strong reality. But, you know, I love, um, Sally Lloyd-Jones’s bookThe Jesus Storybook Bible.

Jim: That’s good.

Elisa: And I love how she talks about what we call the Fall. And bottom line, what she suggests with her playful, beautiful wording is that we believed the hiss of the enemy, who says, God does not love you.

Jim: Hmm.

Elisa: That means he doesn’t think I’m beautiful. He doesn’t think I’m good. It’s all a lie. And I think we listen to the hiss in our days. That’s the most bottom-line answer I can give.

Jim: No, and that, hopefully, helps people better understand why they have their doubts, their concerns about their body image. One of the issues, too, though, is for Christians particularly. It’s tough to understand what does God appreciate, that inner beauty. In fact, in the New Testament, there’s scriptures that talk about not being overly concerned about outward beauty and not to adorn yourself with jewelry and other things, to put on kind of a front. I think that’s what it’s saying. Speak to that desire to be honestly humble, honestly feminine in that regard. How do you balance that?

Elisa: I think you’re talking about a scripture in maybe First Peter, I think it is. And very complex, cultural times, just to give a little, tiny footnote over here. I mean, people were braiding their hair and putting jewels in it be ostentatious, actually about their wealth.

Jim: Right.

Elisa: And so as you look at that, that’s a complex passage, too. I think, maybe, Jim, John, we might want to redefine beauty. It – we’ve already gone immediately to the external.

Jim: Correct.

Elisa: It’s what we look like. And I don’t think that’s a complete definition of how God sees us as good. I think beauty is much more multifaceted.

John: It seems, though, that some in the faith community say, well, it’s not about externals at all, it’s only about what’s in here.

Elisa: Yup.

John: And I would guess, most women would say, uh-uh, I have to feel something externally, right?

Elisa: Well, it’s like is your body good? Is your body made in the image of God? Then we don’t need to be ashamed of it. And He is beautiful. We call Jesus beautiful. And if were made in the same image, there’s something decent about us. So we don’t want to throw even the physical away if it’s pleasing

Jim: Well, in fact, and this gets down to it. In your bookHello, Beauty Fullyou mentioned every woman has her ugly list. Now I was kind of struggling with believing that, actually. Being a man, you know, we don’t necessarily look at our – our problems.

Elisa: You don’t have a list? (Laughter) I could give you one on you.

Jim: I think, you know, it’s interesting. For men, it’s the list of inadequacies.

John: Yeah.

Jim: That’s our…

John: Yeah, absolutely.

Jim: …Our version of the beauty list, you know, what we don’t do well.

Elisa: Well, actually, I don’t think that’s different between the genders.

Jim: Well…

Elisa: I really don’t.

Jim: That’s probably true.

Elisa: And, you know, when I talk about my ugly list, it’s things like slamming the refrigerator door so hard that all of the bottles and sauces rattle out of their slots because I’m having a bad moment as a mom. That’s not pretty.

Jim: Yeah (laughter).

Elisa: That is not pretty. You know, or – or throwin’ the phone across the room. What? Elisa, you’d – yes, I have done that.

John: You have a friend who did that.

Elisa: A friend who did that.

Jim: Yes.

Elisa: She’s very close. She looks a lot like me. (Laughter) So, you know, those are my ugly list things. It’s honestly, it may be the lumpy bumpies (ph) in my body, you know, where things aren’t where they used to be. And I can’t do anything about that anymore.It may be physical. But it’s honestly, often, my soul issues, my personality issues, my struggles to believe that God has gifted me with something. That’s on my ugly list, too.

Jim: Right. And that’s very true. But in our culture, particularly, um, in the U.S. – I – I’m sure in Canada they have some of this, I don’t know if it’s as severe. But we do place a lot of, uh – especially women. And, you know, men are partly, if not all the way guilty for this because we admire it. We lift it up as the standard. And the culture does, as well. But that external beauty.

And I think one of the things I want to accomplish today is to talk women down from that precipice. (Laughs) And one of the things Jean said – women know who’s had the work done and who hasn’t had the work done. And if you’re a woman who chooses not to have the external work done, to nip and tuck, and do all those things, there’s kind of an unwritten understanding of who’s done it and who hasn’t, even in the church.

Elisa: Hm.

Jim: So talk about it. Let’s get to it, Elisa.

Elisa: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: When – I know there is that physical standard. And we’ll get to the fruit of the spirit, the inward heart. But I think many struggle with the external, as well. And I really want to address that to help those who are tripping on it.

Elisa: Uh-huh. I – let me just introduce this thought here. I’d like to define beauty as really containing five elements, not just one. And you’re mentioning one, and it’s a super important one. But I think beauty, as God sees it, is five-dimensional. And just quickly let me list them. And then we kind of get our…

Jim: Yeah, let’s do it.

Elisa: …Our orientation to dive in.

Elisa: First is voice, our unique personality. Who are you? And we can talk about that. The second is the one you’re beginning with – vessel, our physical body. There is a part of our beauty that includes our vessel.

Elisa: And then comes womb. And that’s our creative potential, our creative purpose. And the fourth one is scar, our painful story. And then the fifth one is sway, our influential legacy. Now I hope immediately, people’s brains are going, what, what, what? But they’re also going, whoa, that is a lot more than just what we look like, physically. But I think these five dimensions – and as we unpack them – help us understand this holistic approach to beauty, and to who we are and how God loves who we are and then wants to bring forth the best of who we are.

Jim: Yeah. You mentioned, from Sally Lloyd-Jones – a friend, actually, of mine, as well…

Elisa: Yeah, love her.

Jim: She’s a wonderful author of children’s books and – but, um, that hiss of Satan. Um, let’s delve into that a little bit because one of the things I observed – in, again, in Jean and her friends – is women have an incredible ability to go towhat did I do wrong? What did I not do that would have made this in – situation better? Where have I fallen short? The guilt thing, maybe – I – I don’t know how to describe it. But women go there first. A lot of men deflect that, you know? It’s that guy’s fault. It’s the other guy’s fault. If he would have done what I told him to do, we woulda won the game. We woulda got the order. We woulda done better. (Laughter) I mean, it – there’s a – I don’t know if it’s ego, or but there – have you observed that? There is like a natural tendency. It’s actually not all bad for a woman who looks at her own heart first. It’s scriptural.

Elisa: And that’s lovely. Um, I kind of want to push back and say I think we all use defense mechanisms.

Jim: True.

Elisa: I mean, that’s what we do when we encounter – shouldn’t we just say sin? You know, I – I call my ugly list, my mistakes, the stuff I do wrong – I dress it up. Just right there, it’s sin. You know, I sin. It’s not just that I did sin, and I made a list about it. I still sin. You know, so this reality is uncomfortable for us. And I think we defend against it. And, you know, maybe men, more often than not, project, or put their failures or their oopses (ph) on to others. And maybe women, more often than not, take almost too much responsibility…

Jim: Right.

Elisa: …And can’t get out from underneath the weight of our errors.I actually bumped into part of my own cause on this topic when I looked at my life. You know, I come from a broken family. When I was five my dad told me that he decided he didn’t love my mom anymore. And he was going to divorce her. And that was an initial, core wound that made me go, hmm, I’m not lovable. If I was, he would stay. But I go on to look at my mom who struggled with alcohol. And I think, well, if I was lovable, I would be able to keep her from drinking and those kinds of things. And as I looked at that and I look at my life, I realized even as my mom grew older and died, I wouldn’t let her love me because it didn’t feel safe to me.

Jim: Hm.

Elisa: And I wonder now, how have I pushed God’s love away, thinking I’m not enough, thinking I’m too ugly, thinking that my soul is just a mess? And so he couldn’t possibly love me. And I think that’s a human dilemma. And when we fall into that – even after we know Jesus, it’s tough to see ourselves the way God sees us.

Jim: You mentioned the hiss. I love the analogy of that because you can hear it. I mean, just that subtle voice inside saying…

Elisa: Hiss, God does not love you.

Jim: Right, you’re not good enough. And everybody’s going, yeah, that’s me. They’re shaking their heads as they’re listening, John, because it’s so true.

Elisa: And I think we need to think, where did that come from? Where did we first hear that hiss?

Jim: Well and how do you stop listening to it?

Elisa: Hm, by identifying that, where did I first hear that hiss? I heard it from my dad. I heard it from my mom.

Jim: Yeah.

Elisa: The very sources that we – and as parents, we want to give the message of beauty to our offspring. Those sources often are whispering hisses. And we have to go back and say, oh, I heard that there. I’m not responsible as a child to keep my parents married. That’s not my job.

Jim: Think of the load of that, you know, for folks that are contemplating divorce with children in the home. Think of what you experienced. You’re speaking as that five-year-old, what you felt.

Elisa: Hm, so I had to undo that hiss.

Jim: Right.

Elisa: I have to recognize it and the meaning of what it is saying. And I have to speak truth to it.

Jim: Yeah.

Elisa: God did not make me responsible for that. God loves me…

Jim: Hmm.

Elisa: …Just like I am.

John: Elisa Morgan is our guest on Focus on the Family today. Your host is Jim Daly. And Elisa’s book isHello, Beauty Full. And we’ve got that and a CD or download and further details for you at FocusOnTheFamily.com/radio or call us. And our number is 800, the letter A and the word family.

Jim: Elisa, I want to press on that – the lies we believe, what you started to talk about and gave us a list there. One of the things you mention in the book is that we don’t feel God can or will act on our behalf.

Elisa: Hm.

Jim: You know, because we’re not worthy of that action.

Elisa: Hm.

Jim: That really struck me because that’s a faith dilemma — that if you feel so insignificant, so unworthy that God is going to pass right over you. He doesn’t care about your circumstance. He’s a – He doesn’t care why you’re suffering or how you’re suffering.Why, especially as believers, would we even listen to that? He cares for us. I mean the scripture’s so full of how much he cares for us. He knows every hair on your head! That’s how much he cares about us.

Elisa: Yeah, but we don’t believe it. We believe that were the exception. We’re the big lie. You know, it couldn’t be us. Don’t you think?

Jim: Oh, absolutely.

Elisa: Yeah.

Jim: But the – I guess the question is for that woman who’s listening right now, who is connecting with that, put a shovel in her hand…

Elisa: (Laughter) I love that, yeah.

Jim: …So she can dig out the roots of that, pull them up and thrown them — because that’s not God’s heart toward her.

Elisa: No, I love thinking about how Jesus went down into the Jordan. And he came back up when he’s baptized and a voice from heaven – a dove descends and a voice from heaven – his Father in heaven says this is my beloved Son. In him, I am well pleased.

I – I have read that a million times. And I think, cool for Jesus. You know, that’s awesome, you know, he’s perfect. I’m sure God loves him. But when I began to understand that God sees me through Jesus – he sees us through Jesus. So when Jesus goes down and he comes back up, and God says this is my beloved Son, the same thing’s happening to me as I put my hope in God, as I say you see me just as I am. And I’m going to trust you. I need you in my life. I wanna have a relationship with you. I just – I scream out to be saved, if you will.

Then he looks at me and he goes, this is my beloved daughter. In her, I am well pleased. And if I can get around – to just shift the metaphor – and look at myself through God’s eyes instead of through mine under the water, you know – through God’s eyes looking at me, seeing me through Jesus – somehow, that pries me to a new place.

Jim: And the key, there, is seeing us through Jesus.

Elisa: Through Jesus.

Jim: …That he – he’s looking at us through the sacrifice of Christ dying for our sins.

Elisa: I think – at – yeah. Yeah. And that’s huge.

Jim: …Because if we – we look the other direction, looking through our sins at the throne, and we’re going, man, I can’t get there.

Elisa: …All we can see.

Jim: And then we can turn it into a works-based faith, which is exactly opposite of what Christianity’s all about.

Elisa: And shame is key in here.In 2 Corinthians, I think it’s 7:10, Paul talks about how worldly sorrow gives way to death. But he talks about godly sorrow leads to repentance, which leads to salvation and leaves no regret – no regret.OK, shame is – I think is one of the tools of the hiss. You know, you just are so lousy. You are so bad. You made this mistake, and you’re gonna be defined by it always. You thought this in your heart, and that’s all you’re ever going to be. Well, that’s worldly sorrow, and it leads to death. That’s shame.

But godly sorrow goes, eek, I’m sorry I rattled the jars in the refrigerator by slamming the door because I lost my temper. I’m sorry. That leads to repentance, OK. That leads to salvation. That’s where I turn – another direction. And I’m not – I don’t have to live under shame and regret. That’s whole.

Jim: Yeah.

Elisa: That’s the process of becoming like Jesus.

Jim: Elisa, I’m thinking of what you began to describe in terms of your childhood. And it can get, you know – sometimes this is taken to an extreme. But when you think of the wounds that we receive – I mean, you’re 5 years old, your dad comes to you and says I’m divorcing your mom. And then you look at the cascading impact on your life. Now, you got up the next day. You ate your Cheerios. You went to school. You did your homework in kindergarten, if you had it.

The point I’m trying to make is we kinda go through the routine of life, but you got this big gaping wound. And then, we don’t connect the dots as you become 13 and 15 and 20. And you don’t know why you’re struggling to know your inner beauty, your outward beauty, why you snap at your husband when he might say something, why you don’t trust him – because your father, your earthly father, was not trustworthy.

Help us connect those dots and not to obscure them, and cover them up, but to really understand those wounds so you know why you’re behaving the way you are.

Elisa: One of the elements of beauty – and we would never, um, innately think this is part of beauty, but it is. But one of the elements is scar. It’s your painful story. And when you embrace your painful story, you can realize that God can use everything. He loves the broken. He uses the broken. In fact, when we put our brokenness, our places of wounding, in the hands of Jesus, and he redeems them, he can sometimes make us even more useful after we’ve been broken, than before.

Scar is this element of a blemish, the imperfections, the stuff that we come with. You know, maybe – maybe a we have a physical disability, maybe we have a mental challenge, maybe we have a learning disability – these things that we didn’t control, we didn’t ask for. But they’re – they’re a true blemish. We’re not perfect, OK? Or a wound, something that’s happened by the hand of another, something that’s changed our life – a parent’s divorce, a parent’s struggle with drugs, a – a car accident, something that’s happened, sexual abuse that has happened by the hand of another.

When we take those elements of scar and we put them into God’s hand, begin to see ourselves the way he sees us, we actually can see the beauty. I mean, Jesus died on a cross, crucified, nails in his hands, and then he rose again with the scars of nails still visible in his hands. His resurrected body is a body with scars.

And consequently, it’s a thing of beauty because it tells a story. That’s what a scar does. It tells a story of a healing from a wound that’s in process. So, Jim, to – round about to answer that question, I look at my life and the things that have hurt me, things in my first family and goodness in my second family. And I know that those scars actually become part of my offering of beauty.

Jim: Elisa, that is so true. One of the areas we need to find comfort is obviously in the scripture. What verses would you turn to were God’s describing how beautiful He sees you?

Elisa: Hm.

Jim: I mean, where is that reference that people can go to and say, OK?

Elisa: One of my favorite passages is Psalm 139.

Jim: Yeah.

Elisa: He talks about that were knit together in our mother’s womb, every one of us. Think about that we’re fearfully and wonderfully made. I love that another element of beauty as a vessel. And we started talking about that. That’s where we go to first for a physical body. But think of it this way. A vessel is a container. It’s a jar. It’s a bottle. It’s a – go to your vanity. I mean, men have two items on their vanity. Women have 693. But anyway…

Jim: (Laughter) Not that you’ve counted.

Elisa: (Laughter) Not that I’ve counted. But anyway, if you think about your bathroom counter. And there’s all these vessels there. A vessel is a container. And it allows us to access the contents within. You think about a square box of Kleenex that you can pull out one little tissue and the next one pops up. Or you think about a toothpaste tube, where you can neatly squirt a line of toothpaste onto your toothbrush. Vessels have a purpose. And their purpose is to give us access to what they contain.

Jim: Hm.

Elisa: Whoa, what if your physical body is that thing that on this planet allows others to have access to God? If the – if we – our vessel is the container of the Holy Spirit – that’s how Paul talks about it in 1 Corinthians – if we are able then, through our vessel, to give people access to God, that blows me away and that changes how I view my body. So from Psalm 139 up to the New Testament, to understand that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and that God has chosen to make us the temple that houses him right here, whoa.

Jim: Wow, and that begins to answer that question what is beauty. It’s the inside out, not the outside in.

Elisa: Yeah.

Jim: Right?

Elisa: It’s all of it.

Jim: It’s all of it.

Elisa: And if we contain it.

Jim: This is so good. Elisa, there is so much more to go over. And we’ve got more questions we’d love to ask you about your bookHello, Beauty Full. And if you can, let’s come back next time and pick the conversation up.

And let me turn to you, the listener, if what Elisa is expressing today in so many beautiful ways, all right, if you’re feeling that, call us. We have counselors who can help. We definitely want to put this tool into your hands, Elisa’s bookHello, Beauty Full, which addresses all of these with great stories and begins to paint that picture for you of how God sees you. And hopefully, the outcome of that is to reduce the hiss. I don’t think in this life it ever goes away completely. But as Elisa said, to be able to recognize it for what it is, the voice of the enemy pulling you down and telling you things that are lies and making room for the truth of God, which is you are wonderfully made. And I think that would be a good thing to do.

If you can make a gift of any amount, we want to put this resource into your hand. If you can’t afford it, just call us. We’ll find a way to get it done. And for those of you that can help underwrite that, we would appreciate your gifts. This is a listener-supported ministry. This is how it gets done. So let’s work together to put these tools in the hands of people who really need them so that they, too, can thrive in Christ.

John: Yeah, contact us today. We’d love to hear from you. As Jim said, we have Christian counselors. We’ve got resources like Elisa’s book and so much more. Our number is 800, the letter A and the word family, 800-232-6459. You can donate when you call or online. You can get resources and donate as well. It’s FocusOnTheFamily.com/radio.

Jim: Elisa, I have listened to you, really in part on behalf of my wife. I think you’ve done the same job.

John: I have been, yeah.

Jim: This applies to both men and women as you’ve said. What about that man or that woman who has been wounded so badly, it’s scar on top of scar…

John: Hm.

Jim: …That there’s no good flesh there for them. It’s just all wounds. Where do they go? How did they say, OK, Father in heaven, even though I had a terrible father here, a terrible whatever, how do they open those scars up once again and allow God to heal them of those wounds?

Elisa: The last word in this –Hello Beauty Full– is full. And it’s amazing. When you look at the word ‘-ful’, it’s a suffix that goes on the end of wonder, power and beauty. And I think about John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I’ve come to give you life and life to the full.” That’s why he came – to give us life – more than we can even imagine, is what Eugene Peterson suggests inThe Message. That’s what he came to give us. And you know what I realize? I settle for empty when Jesus came to give us life to the full because I listened to the hiss. And what’s stunning is when you look at the first part of that verse, John 10:10, it says the thief has come to steal and kill and destroy.

The hissy thief has come to steal and kill and destroy. But Jesus came to give us life to the full. I want that. I want it. I’m scared of it. I don’t know how to get it sometimes. It intimidates me. I don’t really have much experience with it. I’m actually a little bit afraid of all the full that it might include if I let myself go for it. But what I do know is that Jesus died to give it to me. And so what I want to say is take a baby step toward him. Take a baby step toward him. He wants to give you life to the full – beauty full.

Jim: That is well said. Well said.

Closing:

John: Well, our thanks again to Elisa Morgan for sharing with us today. And we trust that she’s connected with you. And once again, if you have any questions, if you’d like to talk to a counselor, our number is 800-A-FAMILY.

And on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team here, thanks for listening. I’m John Fuller inviting you back next time. We’ll continue the conversation with Elisa and once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.