Women

Lisa Bevere: Finding Worth in Messiah
This material appears courtesy of The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)

As a woman, do you feel you do not measure up to other successful and beautiful women? Are you sick of thinking you are what you weigh? Then according to author and speaker Lisa Bevere, it is time to throw off the world's shallow misconceptions and faulty perspective and start believing what God says.

Through her seminars and books like The True Measure of a Woman and Out of Control and Loving It (both Creation House, 1997), Lisa proclaims the freedom and completeness women can have in a rich relationship with the Messiah and a personal revelation of the truth of who they are.

Lisa struggled with comparing her image to others at an early age. At the age of five, Lisa lost her right eye to cancer and suffered the cruel taunts of her peers. Appearance suddenly became very important and Lisa began judging others by outward appearances also.

Lisa grew up athletic, swimming and running and eating anything she wished. But at 16, after pulling her Achilles tendon, she stopped hurdling. She thought nothing of her weight until a family member commented on her tight clothes. All of a sudden the muscular body she used to see in the mirror now looked fat. Lisa felt ashamed at her "ugly" appearance and vowed to never be fat again. She began denying herself food and exercise became an obsession.

She went away to college and joined a sorority. She learned how to keep herself thin by watching her sorority sisters binge and purge and take laxatives. Her athletic frame dwindled from 128 to 103 pounds. Her new weight loss gave Lisa a sense of power and approval from male admirers.

In the summer of 1982, she went home to prepare for her upcoming wedding. To her dismay she had regained some of the weight she had lost and was now unable to fit into her wedding dress. Her wedding was only two months away. So she tried everything to lose the weight but nothing worked. Lisa cried out to God for help. What she heard would break Lisa's heart.

Lisa learned she was more obsessed with food than with a personal relationship with her Creator. God pointed out Lisa's faulty thinking. Lisa thought she was worthy when she was thin and unworthy when she was fat. God asked Lisa to repent of making food her idol and in return He would heal her metabolism after a period of fasting. Lisa recalls that giving control back to God restored her spiritually and physically. Soon she was able to fit into her wedding dress again and all because God healed her!

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