When You Think You're Not Enough

This is not really a continuation from yesterday, but I'm still using the song I mentioned in yesterday's blog.  The song is "To Become Like Him" by Jenny Phillips and it begins:

"You look around you and you wonder if you'll ever measure up.  In this world it seems, you may never be enough."

This song rings so true for me.  I started out an outgoing, never-meet-a-stranger kind of kid.  I would talk to anyone and just loved being around people.  I was a vivacious, competitive kid.  My mom said I was fearless.

And then puberty hit and everything about me began to change.  First, my appearance began to change.  I went from this adorable kid, to an ugly duckling.  I was taller than all my classmates, and my features were suddenly not petite and cute anymore.  And, I say "ugly" because people let me know I wasn't pretty.  I never understood why people felt it necessary to make others feel ugly, but our society focuses on beauty and if you're not beautiful, it lets you know it.  

My coordination changed next and I suddenly was the worst at team sports.  I was the last kid to be picked for anything.  I was the kid the other kids made fun of, and so the joy of being a part of a team slowly died until I loathed anything that was team-oriented.

There's a scene in the movie Pretty Woman, where Vivian tells Edward about her life.  She says, "People put you down enough, you start to believe it."  Edward says,"I think you are very bright, a very special woman."  And Vivian answers, "The bad stuff is easier to believe."   For me, the bad stuff was all I could believe.

As I began to believe all the bad stuff my peers said about me, my personality changed too.  I wasn't the outgoing kid any more.  I was the kid who still craved attention, but wanted in no way to stand out.  I withdrew and became a quiet, try-to-fade-into-the-background person thinking if I made myself unnoticeable, maybe all the insensitive comments about my appearance and athletic abilities would stop.

As the years passed, I remained a prisoner of what other people thought about me.  And it's only been within the last few years that I've been able to even consider coming out of hiding.  And, I think about all the years I wasted trying to be invisible because now I see how foolish it was.  It's something I regret and of course must live with the consequences because the one thing we can't do is go back.

God made me.  It was His design to make me look the way I look and to not be very athletic.  There's a reason why He formed as He did.  I'm not sure why I couldn't have looked like Catherine Zeta Jones, but God had other ideas.  And the point to all of this is, the only thing that matters is what God wanted me to be.

In Psalms 139:13-16, we read:  ¹³ For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

I was wonderfully made, but I couldn't see it.  I'm still very quiet until I get to know people, and I know in the looks category, I won't win any beauty contests, but I do believe I have something to offer.  As I've matured, I realize how important it is to make other people feel special, especially children.  The world will always tell those not pretty or handsome enough, not smart enough, not athletic enough, not from the right social standards that "you don't measure up."  Kids especially need to know God sees the real you.

Sandi Patty sings a song called, "You Call Me Yours."  In it she sings: "You call me beautiful.  You call me righteous.  You call me worthy of your Son's own precious blood.  You call me holy.  You call me strong when I'm weakest.  Forgiven and pure, You call me Yours."

I wasted so much of my life believing the world, but God thinks I'm beautiful because He created me.  And, if the supreme creator of everything thinks I'm beautiful, then why should I believe anyone else.  I shouldn't and neither should you.