“I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness.” Isaiah 61:10a (NIV)
The words that reduced me to tears came from a Dove Soap video produced in France:
“You have a big chest and short legs. Some women can make that work. But you … you’ve got no charm. You’re just fat and ordinary.”
“Every time you smile, those baby teeth you have make you look like a mouse.”
“Sit straight up so your belly doesn’t look so big.”
In the video, women had been asked to record a journal with all the thoughts they had about themselves throughout the day. Dove then turned the women’s thoughts into a dialogue that played at a street café within earshot of several other tables, including tables where the original women sat.
Strangers overhearing the conversation were appalled to hear how the women spoke to one another, and they interrupted the exchange.
“That’s so violent what you’re saying to her! You should stop. Your words are so unkind.”
When the original women realized those spoken words were the thoughts they’d written in their journals, they were mortified.
“It’s so horrifying. I hope my daughter never speaks to herself like that,” one woman observed.
I sat weeping at my kitchen table through the whole video, realizing it wasn’t just those women. I do it too. So many of us do. Over and over we devalue ourselves. Over and over we choose to believe lies over truth…
– Read the rest at: http://proverbs31.org/devotions/devo/where-you-sit-is-how-you-stand/
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