Facing our false worship is not the end-game. No, the point of seeing and confessing sin is to be pressed into repentance, which flowers into joy. Repentance is about turning. We turn our eyes away from ourselves and set them on Christ. In him, freedom from body image issues is possible.

If you’re a woman, I’m guessing you’ve been unhappy with your appearance at some point in your life. From wanting to lose a few pounds to feeling deep dissatisfaction and even disgust with how we look, body image issues bother many women like mosquitoes on a camping trip at best and can become utterly debilitating—even overlapping with and feeding sexual sin.

A Girl’s Story

At nine years old, Rosie loved hot summer days in her small farming town. She read books in her favorite tree, watched “The Little Mermaid” on repeat, and ran around barefoot, hopping on tip-toes across scorching sidewalks to land on grass. Summer brought ice cream, camping trips, and, best of all, swimming. Rosie begged her mom for permission to run across the street and swim at Shannon’s house almost every day. The girls played Marco Polo and sharks and minnows and pretended to be synchronized swimmers. They flipped their hair up and out of the water like Ariel, sending sprays of glittering drops across the pool’s cement edge. Freckles blossomed across Rosie’s shoulders and tan lines crisscrossed her back.

At thirteen, Rosie was a bookworm and musician. She was terrible at sports and avoided swimming at all costs. If she couldn’t get out of a swim party, she covered her swimsuit with a large tee-shirt and sometimes shorts. She constantly compared herself to her friends, seeing hips that were too large, a chest that was too small, and cottage cheese thighs. She wore oversized tee-shirts and long, flowing skirts—partly because she had a naïve adoration of hippie culture, but mainly because she could hide in the abundant fabric.

As a nineteen-year-old, Rosie hovered around ten pounds heavier than she wanted to be. Still, she was happy and active in college. She enjoyed taking dance classes—African-Caribbean, salsa, line dance, ballroom—but avoided ballet because of the tights and leotards. She often turned to the Lord in repentance and prayer, wanting to be less concerned with her appearance. She saw the vanity in her heart and prayed for “the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Pet. 3:4b).

At 25, Rosie was about to get married. She longed to share sexual intimacy with her husband but dreaded the exposure. Though she wasn’t overweight and had youth on her side, by now she was used to feeling unhappy about her body. She figured her best bet was to try not to think about it. She didn’t realize that her body image issues would become a burden for her husband, too—that every time he told her, “You look beautiful” and she responded in disbelief, he felt dismissed.

Can you relate to Rosie’s story? I can. I know how persistent this problem is, because it’s been my problem. Where can women go, what can we do, to find freedom from this underlying, nagging discontent?

Body Image Issues and Self-Focus

Body image problems can and do trouble women and girls of all ages, especially in our sexualized and social media-moderated society. Feelings of despair, worthlessness, and envy (among other things) can be crippling. We’d love to feel happy about how we look but instead feel stuck in imperfection. We buy the wrinkle cream, avoid carbs, and walk our 10,000 daily steps, and while those things may be healthy, they may also be driven by a relentless discontentment, an excessive focus on self.

This self-preoccupation is different from the proper desire to take care of our bodies and present ourselves appropriately. No, these painful feelings come from continually worrying about how we think we look, how others might think we look, and how, in our minds, we fail to measure up to some standard. Maybe it’s a standard that’s unrealistic, or dangerous . . . or maybe the standard is impossible.

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