Gospel Prism

Let me first forewarn you that this article will be quite candid!

But I feel I must address this topic because I know there are many Christian woman who think about such things. I read this article on Today’s Christian Woman’s website entitled “Bigger Isn’t Always Better.” It describes the account of a woman named Tamara Wells (fictitious name) who as a Christian woman, decided to get breast implants. For whatever the reason for such a decision, what lies behind it is the yearning to be loved and appreciated. She writes:

Depressed, I had breast implants within three months of our breakup. As a believer, I had an inkling getting implants wasn’t part of God’s plan. But I was tired of being single, and I saw implants as a way of securing the attention of eligible men. Surprisingly, my family supported my decision. My flat-chested mother encouraged me to go for it. She wore padded bras because my father, a non-Christian, made her feel inadequate next to the big-breasted centerfolds he ogled in Playboy. My eldest sister, whose breasts were now saggy and stretch-marked after nursing two children, also was considering breast implants. As I told a friend after my surgery, “Some women color their hair after a breakup. I got a boob job.”

Sadly, I believe there are many women in our churches who are looking to improve themselves because all of their lives they have believed that bustier women become the more popular woman, the woman wanted by a man, even a Christian man. But I believe God mourns over such thinking. I preached from Psalm 139 yesterday and to hear David speak so wonderfully about how God views him, these are words for all believers to speak and shout to themselves:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

How could God go through all of the trouble of forming each person perfectly only to have a woman think that her body shape is insufficient? This certainly is not the case. A woman who is trying use her physical appearance alone to attract a man, will only attract a wrong man, an ungodly man. Biblical beauty is not about the buxom woman. Bustier women, if created by God, are made fearfully and wonderfully, but not better or worse than the less bustier woman who was also made by God fearfully and wonderfully. It is our sinful world that has distorted beauty to equate beauty to the size of a woman’s chest. And it is the sin of men who worship the idol of the woman’s body that has encouraged women to think such false ideals. As Paul writes in Romans 1:24-25:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

I think Tamara Wells’ conclusion is a right one, one for all women to hear:

Through my experience, I learned large breasts can be a blessing or a curse, just as small breasts or no breasts can be. We’re created by God in different ways, and those ways each have their advantages and disadvantages. Before my implants, I’d been blinded by society’s ideas of how I should look. I hadn’t realized being flat-chested could serve as a firewall to so many sleazeballs. I’d also lost sight of the fact God had personally crafted me in my mother’s womb, that I was “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) by him—and that included my small bust! I now realized what mattered most to God was my heart, not my cup size.

So to my sisters in Christ, know that God has made you fearfully and wonderfully regardless of your breast size. And thank God that in Christ, you are loved, cherished, and beautiful because God sees you that way. With that perspective you will be forever free of men’s gawking or men’s disdain for your body. And should you meet a man who is following hard after God, he will appreciate your perspective and have a Godly perspective about your body as well.