Beyond the Belly

“Mom, I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.”

“Why, buddy?”

“I have a big belly and the other kids are going to laugh at me.”

I choked back tears and tried to quiet the breaking heart in my chest. 

My sweet 5-year-old was warring with his appearance and the approval of others. Strictly for context, my little dude is in the first percentile for both height and weight. He is the smallest of his class and most people confuse him for a preschooler! However, for some reason in his mind, he had a big belly that bothered him. He genuinely was fearful that other kids would make fun of him.

I did what most parents would do - immediately assured him that he absolutely did not have a big belly and that if other kids made fun of him that we would walk it out together. We talked about how his body did not change his worth in God’s eyes (or mine). We discussed the importance of being God’s temple and vessel and therefore the responsibility is on us to take care of what God gave us. We chatted about bullying and how he should handle himself in that situation.

As his mom, I was ready to nip this attack on his self-esteem in the bud so I also got my husband and Dad involved. We called down Heaven right then. We prayed Genesis 1:26-27 over him: “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” My prayer was that he would remember that he is made in the image of God!

Since then, the Holy Spirit has continually reminded me that I personally (and many others I know) have struggled with outward appearance. Keeping up with the changing style (that come way too often in my opinion) and feeling good about yourself can be quite a feat.

But what about our spiritual appearance? We deeply desire to look wise and godly. We seek praise from people for our knowledge of the Bible. We want others to believe we love God. We become obsessed with gaining approval from others over God. In the end, their words can become the source of our worship above our Creator. All the while, we aren’t spending time with God. We aren’t reading our Bible. We aren’t worshiping.

We end up feeling unfulfilled and broken. The reality is we were never meant to look to others to fill our physical or spiritual voids, but instead to look to Him. Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” 

I encourage you today, gaze upon God. Knowing Him through His Word, prayer, and in community helps us take our eyes off of ourselves and see His beauty. In this, we won’t try to convince others that we have it all together but we will find a holy confidence knowing that He holds us together. Our worth and value is not found in what others think of us, good or bad. Our worth is found in Christ alone!