“Confidence has always been sort of a difficult thing for me,” he said as he waited to go on stage.

“What are you here for today, Paul?” asked the beautiful female judge when he finally came out.

“To sing opera,” he announced.

The judges rolled their eyes.

This was going to be good. Not only did he want to sing; he wanted to sing opera! Who would vote for that?

But moments later, the rich, lyrical sounds of an Italian love song pouring out of this unknown singer released a flood of emotion in the audience and resulted in an outburst of cheers, tears and a standing ovation. Paul Potts went on to sing his way into the No. 1 spot on the show. Had he simply heeded his misgivings about himself, he’d never have realized that he was a world-class opera singer.

Our view of ourselves either enables us to do what God has created us to do, or it limits us from becoming all He means for us to be. It’s critical that you dismantle any lies you may believe about yourself. Let’s look at one of the most common ones we found.

Lie: Beautiful Girls Are Worth More
As I (Nancy) was discussing this lie with a friend in her early 20s, she observed, “I don’t think many girls would come out and say—or think—that they have to be as beautiful as an airbrushed model on a magazine, but we do have insanely unreal expectations for ourselves in this area.”

That’s a fact!

Maybe you aren’t going to make People’s 100 Most Beautiful list. Perhaps you don’t have the great blonde locks of Heidi Klum or the statuesque beauty of Tyra Banks. We’re sure hoping you don’t make the same “fashion” decisions that many of the young celebrities make. We believe that God created you and that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

At the same time, we can certainly understand that the world’s standard of so-called beauty has made it hard to see your own worth. Many of the girls we talked to said they feel ugly or fat or both. Others said they hated themselves and felt worthless because of how they looked. There is an underlying sense that if you don’t meet a certain standard of “beauty,” you don’t have value; you don’t matter.

Ouch! Lies we believe about our appearance can be deadly and so difficult to overcome. We can know the truth in our heads and still find ourselves reeling from the emotions of it all.

I know that what’s most important is who I am in Christ, but if I get emotional and quit thinking with my head, I start to feel like outer beauty is more important than inner beauty, even though I know that’s wrong. I abandon reason in favor of emotion.

This year I even missed a lot of school because I was depressed about how I looked. I can get so worked up about my face or my hair or my body in the morning that it ruins my whole day. My mom has to drag me to school, and I run to the bathroom to check myself out one more time before I head to class. If I can’t handle it, I call her and make up something about having cramps or whatever. I just hate that I get like this.

Been There? Done That?
Though we’ve never gone that far, we’ve both battled with many of the same thoughts and emotions. When I (Nancy) was a young teen, I needed braces, was clueless about how to do anything with my hair and had zero fashion sense. Further, I struggled with my weight throughout my teens. Oh, how I detested those awful gym uniforms they made us wear! It was (and sometimes still is!) hard not to compare my short, chunky body with those tall, thin girls who could eat anything they wanted and who always looked terrific.

There’s nothing new about our preoccupation with how things look on the outside. We’re convinced it’s something women have struggled with in every generation. In fact, it actually goes back to the first woman. Do you remember what appealed to Eve about the forbidden fruit?

“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.” (Genesis 3:6, ESV)

The fruit had function; it was good for food. It also appealed to Eve’s desire for wisdom. But equally important, it was beautiful. The Enemy succeeded in getting her to value the physical appearance of a piece of fruit over less visible qualities such as trust and obedience. The problem wasn’t that the fruit was beautiful, but that she placed physical appearance above her relationship with God. In doing so, she believed and acted on a lie. And we’re still doing it today.

The list of how we act out is long:

SOME check other girls out and enter into tremendous self-loathing.
SOME check other girls out and say nasty things about them . . . or even in front of them.
SOME will do just about anything to be affirmed by a guy. Anything!
SOME cut themselves and bleed if they can’t make the grade.
SOME dress in such a way as to intentionally cause men to look and want.
SOME dress that way just to fit in, following the crowd’s immodesty.
SOME flirt.
SOME overspend.
SOME just lie in bed and cry about it.

How Do You Stop the Cycle?
Remember that physical beauty is temporary.
We realize that may not be what you wanted to hear! (Would it make you feel better if we reminded you that you’re not alone in this?) You don’t want a quick, temporary fix, do you? You want healing at the deepest level. So you’ve got to go to the Word of God for the Truth. It reminds us that “charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting” (Proverbs 31:30). Every older woman you know can attest to the fact that external beauty is fleeting and that our culture’s obsession with staying young-looking is an exercise in futility!

Thankfully, however, there is a kind of beauty that does last: “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let our adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Peter 3:3-4 ESV).