Thoughts on Self Image and Influences

Received an awesome parent newsletter in mail last week from our church's youth group ministry Life::Redefined. One of the senior high school adult leaders, Michelle, wrote an article about teens and how they are influenced by the media, magazines, and our current pop culture. Since I have 2 daughters and one is a teen, I was especially interested in her article as she described what teen girls face today. She began the article by writing about the tragedy at Virginia Tech and how we all will blame the shooter, his influences, video games, people who didn't take "appropriate action" but we may not think about how it relates to our own lives. We will tend to judge the shooter without knowing what influences he was surrounded by. Michelle writes that we are affected by our surroundings: what we watch, listen to, read, and whom we spend our time with. Do these things change who we are? Do they make us do things we never thought we were capable of? Most of us won't go out and kill someone but.....we ARE influenced by many things that change us in a negative way. She calls these "triggers". Things like relationships, body image, partying/drama, etc. Think about this next paragraph taken from the article:

"We live in a world that tells us, "Girls, here, go and find a pair of jeans amongst the million-n-one size ZEROS on the rack and try not to feel fat" or if you don't have a hot boyfriend, or heck, even one at all, then you're not popular and you're unwanted and ugly---so go try and look better why don't you?!" We are constantly bombarded with "pop idols" that wear barely anything, showing off their skinny, little, beautiful bodies. The message "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" makes us normal looking girls think we aren't good enough or hot enough or talented enough.....it does affect our life. Would it make us do crazy, out of character things? Anorexia, bulimia, promiscuity, insecurities, liposuction, depression, cutting, anger----it may not be going out and killing innocent people, but it does kill a part of me." Michelle points out that these things kill the piece of us in which God tells us we ARE good enough, and we ARE beautiful and we ARE WORTH IT. Girls, especially teens and young adults, but even those of us in our 40's, slowly lose that promise because of the lies that the world tells us.
Like Michelle says: "God loves you, beautiful one; Abercrombie and Fitch (or Gap, American Eagle, Hollister) does not. He has made you perfect in His eyes."
We are worth it. Make a pact that we will not die to these things, but will die to Christ and His love for us.
Encourage your teen(s) to be them selves. Yes, it is ok to dress trendy and look well put together. It is a testimony. However, teach that modesty has importance and that they are beautiful no matter what they look like, talk like, sound like; teach your teens that the pop idols don't really look like what the media portrays them to be. There are digitally enhanced photos, or they have had major work done and spent hundreds of dollars trying to look "perfect". These lessons are important for our teens as they struggle through adolescence and all that it entails.
They are gorgeous in God's eyes. Tell them! Tell your self! And reflect on what is influencing you and your children.