Defined by a Mirror

Looking at my reflection isn't always satisfying. I could push and pick at my body hoping it would mold into something beaufiul, but it would just stay the same. I was finding that it wasn't easy to be a perfect beautiful teenager along with looking like everybody else. This world is continuously bombarding us with lies of who wer're supposed to be and how we need to look to fit in . I had a constant battle with these lies but I came to find that God was the only one who could turuthfully define us and to him we are all beautiful.
In the days of my feud against the mirror's lies I would wake up in the morning and head straight to the shower. I thought of it as an easy rememdy for my extremely frizzy morning hair. When out of the shower I would spend hours looking into the mirror hoping to cover up the childish freckles and teenage zits on my face. I usually had no luck and ended up looking like a ghost instead. I didn't eat breakfast on account of I thought keeping away from food would help me lose my giant man thighs. I had a feeling that God wasn't approving of my attitude towards myself, but I continued.
School was a big deal for me. It was where I put the mirror's lies to test. After all it was fitting in at school that made me want to destroy my unique image. All day constant thoughts of how freakishly weird I must look compared to others ran through my head. I didn't have all the cool clothes that were in style, so I just tried to pull it off in jeans and a T-shirt. Almost every class period I would ask to use the bathroom so I could go check to see if I still at least looked human, and every time I would look into the mirror I'd wish I could look like my friends. They were beautiful, popular, and everyone liked them.
The obsession with trying to fit in became my main thought. For all I knew I looked like a domesticated chimpanzee at school. After my tiring day at eductaion palace, a.k.a. school, I would go home and flip through magazines searching for a way to hide my hideousness under the trends of the world. Although I didn't end up looking like Barbie I did manage a spitting image of her dog. When evening mealtime came I would tell my parental units that I had a mound of homework as big as Eiffel Tower so I could keep operation "loose my man thighs" in tact. Nobody wants a girl with blubbering whale thighs in their school I thought. God didn't think I had blubbering whale thighs. He attempted to tell me how beautiful I was to him, but of course I didn't listen.
At that point in my life my self esteem couldn't have been higher than a 2 on a scale of 100, and since I wasn't happy with myself I would change styles every few months trying to find one that I thought would improve my image. I started with a ditzy cheerleader type, that seemed to be what guys were into. This time I actually suceeded in being like Barbie. Sadly it was more like Barbie on crack and I made a complete fool of myself. Then I went to skater punk. Let's just say I ended up looking like a white gangster wannabe. So not only was I out of style, blessed with man thighs, and hungry a lot, but I was now a good example of a schizophrenic.
I decided to think over all my actions and note my improvements to get my mind off my failures, and to show God that my techniques were working so he wouldn't have to be ashamed of me anymore. The funny thing was the more I thought the less improvement I saw. Not eating didn't get me normal sized thighs, it got me hungry. Not to mention my many attmeps with cosmetics didn't get me beautiful, it got me a huge bill from Wal-Mart, and my style changes just got me considered fake and confused about who I truly was. Maybe God was right I thought? Who I was did not come from a mirror or magazine. It came from God. He really does think I'm beautiful, and my techniques certainly weren't healthy. Letting that mirror define me just made me someone I was not. I was made in the image of God and my unhealthy diet and constant obsession with the mirror was destroying that image.
If you think about it the world is just a big heap of manure, and the more we conform to it the more we'll look like it. That's what I did. I wanted so badly to be like everyone else that I conformed to the world, but God showed me that by being a Christian I was different. I'm happy with who I am and how I look. God would rather me dress in clothes that fit, and to try and be modest with my body. It definately isn't in style, and I probably won't be considered cool wearing clothes like that, but I can confidently say that God's opinion is much more important now.
Being a Christian brings me a lot more morals than most people. Now I can gladly say that dressing modestly is one of them. God made me exactly who he wanted and that makes me beautiful along with all the other people in the world. Even with my huge blubbering whale thighs, I can feel good about myself because they are just another unique feature of my design. Now when I face the mirror I can look and see more than just me I see the beauty of my creator and that's a perfect sight to see.

"Don't be concerned about the outward beauty that depends on fancy hairstyles, expensive jewlery, or beautiful clothes. You should be know for the beatuy that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God."
1 Peter 3:3-4