This has been on my mind for some time and when I came across this article it was such a relief to see that I wasn’t the only one out there feeling this way about such a highly-acclaimed book. While I watched countless friends, celebrities, etc. tout this book I heard my heart telling me no.
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I open up this can of worms only because there’s more to the story of “becoming who you were meant to be” and I think many of you may relate.
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Over the years I “let my life subtly turn into a performance” (as Jennie Allen says in Nothing to Prove and as I wrote about here), constantly striving, white knuckling, and pretending, thinking my freedom would be found in finally proving to myself and to the world that I was important, in control, liked, happy, and enough. I can tell you that I read every self-help book, tried every form of therapy, took countless medications and tried alllllll the “self-care” only to come up empty every time.
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It wasn’t until reading Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller, that I finally heard and understood that I didn’t need to do “some great thing” to heal myself of my sense of inadequacy or give my life meaning, for God to love me, or to “prove myself” to anyone.
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Unfortunately, I found Girl, Wash Your Face to only perpetuate the lie that my happiness, my success, my everything was up to me. As the article says, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that’s very good news. Jesus offers us true joy and peace, but only after we realize that we are not the center of our own lives and we are no longer in charge.”
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And that is where true freedom lies! As the author says, “That means I am not a failure—even if I never lose the baby weight (my “baby” is seven—don’t judge). Even if I never successfully complete a diet. Even if I have a bad day and yell at my kids. Even if I never reach my financial goals or climb the ladder at my dream job. Even if my life consists of nothing more than living in quiet and humble service to God.”
My biggest fear in life used to be mediocrity and I hear that cry in Hollis’ voice. These days I’m more into pursuing Jesus than my own success and riches and I’m actually pretty excited to see how things get turned upside down.
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One thought on “Thoughts on Girl, Wash Your Face”
Amen sister! Our message this week was on white knuckling and control and how we try to find our identity in things that aren’t Jesus when all we really need to do is open our eyes and see that God is good and His grace is sufficient. Trying every day to lean more into Gods provision and taste and see that He is good. Ann Voskamps book One Thousand Gifts is so good on this topic. Life really is all about opening up our eyes to see Gods love all around us and accepting His mercies with gratitude—and He makes me, you, it enough.