Photoshopped and Retouched

(6 minute read)

I haven’t written much these last few months. Between the pandemic and the protests, it’s felt almost silly to write about topics like true beauty. Besides, I have a toddler and a baby keeping me beyond busy. But if I’m being completely honest, the real reason I haven’t written is because I’m afraid to continue this blog. It’s been scary to speak publicly about an area I’ve kept private for so long. What will people think of me? Will knowing my struggles change how they view me? What if too many people start to read what I write? As these fears continued to fester, I’ve been tempted to just delete this website entirely. But if I want to pursue all that God has for me (and I do), then I need to just get over my pride and have the courage to be vulnerable. So, here I go:

Do you have a body part or facial feature you wish you could change? I have about 50. That might seem a wee bit shocking considering I made a living off my looks for an entire decade – but it’s true. The reason for this is in large part because I have been photoshopped and retouched so much over the course of my career, that it became difficult not to notice my “flaws”. I decided to include one of the many overly photoshopped versions of myself in this blog post. You might think I was excited to be on the cover of Modern Luxury Brides – but you’d be wrong. I had about five or six different covers that came out and in ALL of them – you can barely tell it’s me! It seems they tailored my face to what would sell best in their target city. For the covers that were sent to the southern states, I looked more like Ivanka Trump than I did Anna. Apparently her nose was more marketable than mine. 

Finding my identity in Christ has resulted in me finally being able to laugh about some of this. I mean, look at me, I look practically plastic. But when these magazine covers of me first came out, I did anything but laugh. I cried. A lot. I could diet and exercise like crazy in order to altar my weight – but I couldn’t change my facial features. To add insult to injury, a few agents suggested I get a nose job after seeing “Ivanka-Anna”. Add on to this the number of people over the course of my career who told me that I would be so striking if only my eyes were blue. Then there’s the agents who suggested I get liposuction on my arms (I naturally have larger biceps and triceps and seem to carry more weight there).

As you can imagine, this began to wear on me. Some people have the ability to let criticism wash over them like ‘water off a duck’s back’. I was not “some people”. My friend and fellow model Susan, however, was. We both would walk into our agency and hear comments about our weight, our choice of outfit, and how we could improve those imperfections. While Susan would walk away rolling her eyes and enjoy sugary carbs guilt-free, I found myself cutting out necessary food groups entirely for weeks at a time. She would eat a bagel and I would punish myself on the treadmill for smelling her bagel (kidding – kind of). But the point remains, why was Susan so unfazed and why was I so frazzled? The answer lies in where we had placed our identities. Susan’s was rooted firmly in who she was in Christ. If agents and photographers found her ugly or fat, it hurt her feelings – for sure! But it didn’t destroy her like it did me. Do you know why that was? Because my identity was rooted in being a model. My career, my source of income, and my worth all hinged on how thin and attractive I was. Even though I did everything I could to be “beautiful”, it was never enough. They still photoshopped and retouched my body and my face. 

Maybe you can’t totally relate to that kind of pressure – the kind set by the modeling industry and by Hollywood. But maybe I’m wrong? Maybe a lot of my readers find themselves ensnared by our beauty obsessed culture. I know I helped perpetuate this ideal. I know my face and body are splashed across magazines promising that if you only look like me, you’ll finally be happy and confident. But that perfect looking model you see on the cover of Modern Luxury Brides was deeply insecure and terribly self-focused – and as a result, oddly unhappy. I’m not trying to bash the modeling industry here. To be clear, I’m still not sure where I stand or how I feel about modeling in general. But I do know that chasing after the world’s idea of beauty is like chasing after the wind; you are never going to catch it and it’s meaningless. 


If I’m being honest, I’d still like to look like that again. But when I really think about it, what’s the point? It will all be stripped away with time. I will one day be old, wrinkly, and probably decrepit looking. Then who will I be? I don’t exactly see any 80-year-old women on magazine covers. But right now, I’m not 80. I just turned 30 and it’s really hard not to chase that ideal. I think most of my readers, like me, secretly hope they look like Jennifer Anniston does at 50. I mean who doesn’t want to have a rocking bod as they age? But how many of us want to look like Mother Teresa? I’m willing to bet not many. Which is honestly kind of depressing when you think about it. If I could sit down and have a conversation about life and beauty between the two of them, I would choose Mother Teresa every single time. 

Because haven’t you noticed how beauty obsessed and yet terribly insecure most of us are? And have you ever noticed how self-focused and greedy we can be? If you’ve ever seen an episode of that Kardashian show that’s so bloody popular, you’ll know precisely what I mean. Here we have the perfect example of women who spend their time and money pursuing the world’s idea of beauty. And they are indeed, physically beautiful. But they’re also back-stabbing one another, literally hitting each other on national television, and tearing other women down in order to build themselves up. Maybe you’re not that self-focused. But if we’re all honest with ourselves and had a scale from Kardashian to Mother Teresa, we probably look a lot more Khloe than we do Holy. 

So while there remains about 50 things I wish I could change about my physical appearance, I find myself shifting focus onto more important things – like my character. I want to continually chase after: virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love (See 2Peter 1:5-7). Because here’s a crazy promise from scripture: “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ….. for if you practice these qualities you will never fall” (2Peter 1:8;10b). Stop and think about that for a minute: “you will never fall”. 

Listen, life is going to get tough and trials will come to all of us. That’s why it is crucial to build Christ-like character. When my dad died from alcohol abuse and I found him, it wasn’t my skinny jeans or my flawless skin that got me through – it was the inexplicable power of Christ. He sustained and strengthened me. But I had also immersered myself in a community of Christians who called me higher (shout out to my hubby and our college & careers group). So when my father died and I was tempted to turn to old habits, I turned instead to Christ. Why? Because I had been practicing qualities like virtue, self-control, brotherly affection, and love. 

When I wanted to go out and party with my friends in college, I practiced self-control instead (this looked like a lot of nights home alone with my cat and it sucked). When I wanted to scream at my dad for missing my wedding, I went and forgave him and loved him instead (this was REALLY tough but I’m so grateful I did). And when my husband was betrayed and everything in me wanted to go punch the guy who did it and egg his house, I prayed for him instead (we ended up eating a lot of eggs that week). My point is that in order to be the kind of women God calls us to be, we have to look a lot more to His word and a lot less to the world. 

This is ridicidulously difficult to do in this day and age. Believe me when I say I know just how hard it is. Finding your identity in Christ is not going to be easy – but I can promise you it will be worth it. If you’re chasing after the world’s idea of beauty, then you will constantly and endlessly feel like you’re never “enough”. That’s why I am going to beg you to find your identity in the One who sees you as more than enough. It will be a messy and imperfect process laden with moments of failure. But maybe a saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up again. I know God doesn’t need our perfection, but He does want our pursuit. So now dear reader, I have to ask, what are you chasing after?