To The Ugly Girl

   "I hate the way my nose is too big and my face too round. I hate the way I have a double chin when I laugh in pictures and the way my laugh sounds too manly. I hate the way my lips are too small and my waist not small enough. I hate how I don't tan and no thigh gap is to be found. I hate the way that my hair curls and the way my makeup is never just right. I hate the way I trip when I walk and stumble my words when I talk. I hate the way that I can't sing or be confident about myself. I hate the way I sometimes say too much and sometimes not enough. I hate the way...."

  "I hate [insert something about myself]" is an ever continuing spiral that I could probably write about for days. The ways in which I hate who God made me to be.

   From a young age I became obsessed with this idea that if I could just reach, act like, look like, be like... this perfect girl I had made up in my head that then, and only then, would I find love. That when I reached that point suddenly everything in life would work out, where everyone would want to be my friend and every guy would want to date me. Then and only then would I be happy.

  I've always been counted a positive, optimistic, joyful girl. Which are characteristics that can only be attributed to God, because on the inside of what everyone sees has always been a broken, pessimitic, self loathing girl. A girl who points out every flaw she sees in herself and is constantly living in a state of saying "if only, then".

"If only I had that body, then guys would like me."
"If only I had those clothes, then I would be noticed."
"If only I acted that way, then people would love me."

   It's a struggle I've learned to keep hidden and quiet, but it tends to rear its ugly head. Because Satan is never creative. Satan used the exact same insecurities throughout middle school, high school, and even college. From reapplying makeup in between classes in high school, to being scared of my hair getting wet at the beach and everyone finally seeing my curly hair, to sitting straight as can be to try and hide any rolls that I had convinced myself everyone else noticed.

    I came to college 17 hours away partially as an escape from those insecurities. In my mind PBA was going to be my ticket to being the beautiful, skinny, tan girl I had always wanted to be. Then college actually started and I just shoved those insecurities down and tried to mask over them, but God brought each one of them up to the surface and suddenly my fake confidence in myself was crippled.

  I was wrecked, and felt as though I had taken 3 steps forward and then 15 steps back. All my progress wasted. Only to realize how much of a lesson I had to learn. I mean I had made some strides, I had stopped wearing as much makeup and felt confident to wear my hair curly every now and then. But God wrecked me to make realize that every disappointment I felt from friends or guys or anyone around me I translated it through this filter of self-hatred as a rejection. I allowed each little thing that hurt my heart, even slightly, to become an hyperbole of that person telling me I wasn't loved, that I wasn't capable to be loved or wanted.


  And man did God open my eyes to see that. I mean I had years worth of self-made bitterness I had stacked up against others and myself because of this filter I had allowed myself to see everything through. God showed me that I had some serious heart work He was calling me to and still is calling me to.

  So while this isn't a normal post I make I just wanted to share a struggle of mine that has always been so near to my heart. I know what it is like to look at the pictures of models or to watch other girls on campus and to compare. To put their highlight reel next to your bad hair day and think you'll never be pretty. To look at the couples and the rom-coms and the worldly view of love and think to yourself that you are going to end up alone. But I want you to know you aren't alone. So many girls, I would dare to say every girl, has felt the same way.

  This is a struggle that looking back God has been so faithful in, and compared to high school He has brought me so far and helped me to conquer so much of it. There are days that I am confident in who God made me to be, knowing that the worlds view of me doesn't matter and that He made me perfectly in His image and I am beautiful and loved more than anyone on this world could. But there are days that I don't feel that. And I allow those words of self hatred and comparison to wash over me and infiltrate my mind. But just know today that in this struggle of beauty that firstly you aren't alone in it, that you always have someone to talk to, and that God yearns for you to see yourself the way He sees you: as beautifully and wonderfully made in His image.

You are altogether beautiful, my love;
    there is no flaw in you.

                  Songs of Solomon 4:7.