When Hope Bonarcher became a Christian, she never imagined how dramatically her life and career would change. Here, the former model explains why she felt God calling her to leave the fashion industry behind and embrace motherhood – and why she has never regretted her decision.
Last month, six weeks postpartum, Victoria’s Secret model Barbara Palvin walked the eponymously named runway show, and boy, did it bring back memories. For years, when I was a full-time model, I’d witness model mums toting their babies along to casting calls, not gonna lie, totally judging. Why would a mother leave her precious babe in the hands of strangers, springing gingerly into audition rooms to smile and preen for casting and art directors? The two worlds didn’t seem to mesh. Were they that desperate? Mothers should stay in their lane, really.
I know now my take was ignorant, slightly haughty even. I’d soon understand a lot more through experience.
I met my husband at work on a photo shoot, got saved, engaged, married and pregnant in less than nine months. My eternity wasn’t the only thing that changed in a moment when I found Jesus. I had to choose whether I would navigate life as a potential model-mother differently than when it was a notion set far ahead of me, seeing how, if at all, my faith would inform things.
‘I am a Christian model, and this is why I decided to start an etiquette school’
The life and career of a model is not like most others. The job depends completely on looks; your value IS your marketability.
The life and career of a model is not like most others. The job depends completely on looks; your value IS your marketability. Things as changeable as your size, shape and body tone can make or break your bookability instantly. Job security is non-existent. There’ll always be another pretty face and fitter figure. Agents aren’t bound to submit you for jobs; clients aren’t required to book you unendingly. You’re expected to be available at a moment’s notice, ready to work, always looking picture-perfect. Fitting a helpless little human into the picture, whose needs don’t comply with schedules and superficialities, upends the jet-set apple cart, so to speak.
I didn’t chuck my career in immediately, the day I discovered the pink + on a stick test, but I did begin showing early. One day I’d had washboard abs, and the next I woke up with a potentially problematic, bulbous belly. I hadn’t managed to tell my agent before it was too late. She called to say I’d booked a job with a client she knew I’d long wanted. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I chuckled nervously, “I’ve got good news and bad news…all in one.”
READ MORE: Reality Check: America’s Next Top Model and the search for true beauty
There was another aspect of modelling that also needed considering. One morning I showed up early on set for a book cover shoot, only to learn it was for a romance novel. A rather hulking male model, who I’d imagined would soon end up shirtless, waited to shoot alongside me. Quickly, I called my agent and apologised: “I just wouldn’t be comfortable.” Opting out of jobs at the last minute is a real taboo in the industry, but along with my new faith came the leading of God’s Spirit. I wanted to please Him more than anything.
I don’t think God calls every mother to give up their careers.
I don’t think God calls every mother to give up their careers. God and the Christian share a personal relationship; He knows each believer intimately and writes a unique story through each life, individually. Still, scriptures like Titus 2:5, encouraging young women to be trained by older women to work in their homes and be concerned with their husbands and children, and Jesus admonishing those who desire to lead to instead desire servanthood (Matthew 20:26), aren’t like menu options we can pick and choose whether to honour. As opposed to the rich young ruler in Jesus’ parable, every believer must be willing to sacrifice the very things they hold dearest to be worthy of God’s Kingdom, even the career you may have worked for and dreamed of for years.
READ MORE: ‘I was devastated when I didn’t get on to Britain’s Next Top Model but maybe my rejection was a blessing in disguise’
God has spoken to me: the only thing that will make the difference between my children’s childhood and my own Jesus-less youth will be His manifest presence, abundant throughout it, not my own works. This happens when nothing is paramount in our hearts above the high place of honour for Jesus. I was happy to lay my life down as a brand-new baby believer, and Jesus has been consistently faithful, over our 16-year marriage and four children, to raise it up again (John 12:24). It’s a life of fruitfulness and spiritual abundance, to which no glamorous job could compare, not even supermodelling.
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