My Beauty, Relationships and Career is what makes me valuable?

As little children we quickly pick up on what the culture around us values. Our culture teaches us that we will find ultimate happiness and fulfillment in many things that can never truly satisfy our souls. Three of the most popular places we tend to misplace our identity in is our beauty, our relationship status and our careers.

Movies, Women's magazines, social media etc. all send us the same message: "The more beautiful you are the more valuable, fulfilled and happy you will be." When we believe this lie we end up obsessing about how we look. We feel insecure about our appearance and spend a lot of time, effort and money on trying to look more beautiful. But many of the most beautiful people in this world have opened up about how insecure and unfulfilled they felt even as they worked as models or were considered one of the most beautiful people in the world. Our culture teaches us that we need to look a certain way to be happy and fulfilled. God tells us in the Bible that we look exactly the way he intended for us to look. We are all unique, beautiful and of great worth, because we are all made by God himself, He designed us.


Our relationship status is another popular place where we tend to misplace our identity. Look at any movie and you will notice that we are taught that romantic love is what will give us ultimate happiness and fulfillment in life. God teaches us something different, he teaches us that it's only in knowing Him that we can find ultimate happiness and fulfillment. God is perfect and He will never fail me in this life, but my husband will, because he is human. I love my husband and he brings a lot of joy to my life, but he is able to do that mainly because I don't expect him to have God's role in my life.


Romantic relationships become miserable when we expect our significant other to do for us what only God himself can do. God alone is the only one who will love you no matter what, God alone is the only one who will always be there for you to help, listen and care for you. No human-being will ever be able to love you perfectly and unconditionally, only God can do that. If I believe that my relationship status is connected to my worth and value as a woman I will also be discontent with being single and create an unhealthy expectation in my heart that once I'm in a romantic relationship then I will finally be happy and fulfilled. Nope, that's not how it goes. I will never be happy or fulfilled in a romantic relationship if I wasn't already happy and fulfilled as a single lady.


The third place where we tend to misplace our identity is in our careers. When we believe that our careers are connected to our worth and value as a woman we become very focused on achievements and get anxious/stressed when we are not achieving at top level. We were all created by God to do good works, but or work is not what gives us our worth and value as a person. God does not value a woman who works as a CEO any higher than an old retired lady who doesn't work.


We are all called by God to love Him and to love other people. God isn't impressed by how much we achieve, what title we have at work or how much power we have. Sometimes you can see a small child who is more caring and loving to others than some important business owner who has become focused on selfish ambition. Our careers can (and should) be used to love and serve God&people with, but our achievements will never give us more worth in God's eyes. There is nothing we can do for God to love us more, and there is nothing we can do that would make God love us less. God's love for me and you is always completely unconditional and freely given, you could never earn it.

When life has become too heavy to carry

Shauna Niequist's story about how she came to the end of herself a few years ago is a story many of us can relate to. Shauna was feeling exhausted and isolated from living a life that was too busy. Shauna finally came to a point where she realized that she couldn't go on living this way even one more day, she needed to learn to live in a new way. Shauna wanted a life that wasn't marked by competing, earning and proving herself constantly. She wanted to live a life full of love, meaning and deep connection with others.

Shauna Niequist's new book Present Over Perfect is the story about Shauna's journey from living a life that was too heavy to carry to Shauna discovering a simpler way to live that satisfied her soul. In session one of the video-study Shauna talks about how her journey started once she finally realized that it was her own choices that had created her lifestyle and that the chaos she constantly experienced in her life wasn't a coincidence.

I love that Shauna has written her new book Present Over Perfect and created the video-study, it has helped me a lot this fall when my own life started to get too busy. I agree with what Shauna says in the video, it's not only people with top career jobs who struggle with a life that is too heavy, most people believe the lie that says "If I do enough, I will be enough" or "If I do more, I will be more." We live in a society that values achievements and perfection higher than ever before so we can easily find ourselves striving for these things in search for acceptance and human value. I think it helps to know that we are not alone in the struggle, most people wrestle with these things. The good news is that once we become aware of the habits that make us exhausted, unhealthy and over-whelmed in life we can change our ways and develop new habits that will make us flourish.