Confession #39 - Look out Gisele, Heidi & Kate, I'm the world's next Supermodel!

When I was fourteen, JC Penney's held modeling classes in their corporate offices for young girls like me.    I desperately wanted to be a model.  The fame, the fortune, the clothes, being known for your beauty, traveling the world, it's many girls dreams.  So I signed up right away.  There I sat, a short, very awkward, undeveloped tween with extremely kinky curly hair (my nickname at school was Don King)  and to top it off a rather large Italian nose.  I didn't know how to walk, dress, style my hair or put on makeup, but I figured this is what the class was for; to teach me how to become perfect like a supermodel and then I would land a modeling contract.  Obviously that never happened.   On the contrary, I ended up quitting after the second or third class because I was so embarrassed by the fact that the instructor chose to use me as the example for all lessons on "What not to..."

Thankfully I grew out of that awkward stage.  But I never quite grew out of wanting to be a perfect supermodel.  Yup!   Right up till now, all 42 years, 5'2" & 200+ lbs of me.  I want to be a supermodel.  I know your probably laughing yourself out of your seat right now.  Because honestly it's funny.  I will never get that job, even if I were to loose 100lbs it just won't happen.  For me, being the antithesis of a supermodel, the truth is, I have no longer have an interest in their fame, fortune or looking like them in a swimsuit.  But their title that is another thing altogether.  I want to be a supermodel; a supermodel for Christ.

In my post  - Love Thy Neighbor?  Are you kidding me?,  I wrote about struggling with Christlike behavior when being mistreated, but honestly the truth is I don't just struggle when I'm being mistreated, I struggle everyday in all situations.  That's why I call myself the "Dirty Christian Woman" because my heart is dirty.  My heart, like my body, is short, fat, and too old most of the time to get the supermodel for Christ job.  But it doesn't have to be.   And the best part is, it doesn't require a special diet, or exercise program; no starvation or pills and no painful waxing or plastic surgery.  Just a willingness to let Him do the work. I can allow God to make the changes in my heart to be a supermodel for Christ.  All I need is to be willing...and that, I am happy to say, I am.

Some days I may be the perfect example of "What not to..." but as Christ molds me I become more of the example of "What to do..."  I can be a supermodel for Christ if I keep learning from my Master how to be like Him and so can you my dear sisters. 

1 Samuel 16:7 says, "But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  and 1 Peter 3:3-4 says, "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes.  Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight."

God doesn't expect us to be perfect, look perfect or act perfect when we become Christians.  He calls us to learn to be like His son, Jesus.  If His expectation was for perfection, He never would have sent Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins; He never would have given us the Bible as an instruction guide.  Additionally, we have been made perfect because Christ is perfect and has washed us in his blood and made us clean. 

So many of us struggle with our dirtiness everyday.  We think because we've accepted Christ we should be perfect models of Christ's behavior.  Well I've said it before, and I will say it again, when you accept Christ your salvation is immediate, your conversion, however, takes time.  That's why it's call the Christ-walk.  It's a journey to becoming the woman God wants you to be.  Yes God can work miracles but lasting change only comes through a willing and obedient heart to God.  It doesn't mean that you won't still struggle with sin, we all do even the Apostles did.  Read what the apostle Paul writes in Romans 7:

15-16 "Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

And this man was a supermodel for Christ because he knew the answer.  In Romans 8 Paul writes:

8 1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death."



5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!


12-14 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! The Message5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!


12-14 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! The Message

See we can't be perfect, and we can't change ourselves, but we can allow God to make us supermodels for Christ if we are willing and give him our heart completely.  It's our job to model Christ before the world so let's strive to be supermodels for Christ.  Knowing that although perfection isn't possible, modeling love certainly is.

Dear Heavenly Father, I long to be a supermodel for you.  I pray Lord that you would use my willing heart to model Jesus to the lost and hurting world.  I pray that I would stop striving for perfection and accept that you are working to bring me to completion.  I pray that you would change my heart and mind more each day.  And for my sister's-in-Christ who strive for perfection as well please remind them that your expectation is simply for a surrendered willing heart and that is how they can become the supermodel you have called them to be.  In Jesus' name I pray AMEN.