Beautiful Freedom

(this is an essay that I wrote for my composition class during Junior year of highschool, I will probably end up going in and editing it, or even completely rewriting it, but I wanted you all to be able to read it........)

Once upon a time, there was a young teenage girl in Kansas who did not like herself. No one else told her that she was not beautiful. No one else told her that she did not measure up. No one else ever called her “Freak,” “Dork,” or “Invisible.” She told herself. She felt like all of the magazine cover girls were staring her down with their perfect eyes, and pointing at her with their perfect fingers, telling her to look like them. She would look in the mirror and tell herself that she just was not good enough. That girl was me,

 

I have never had an eating disorder. I have never physically hurt myself intentionally. The only thing I have done to hurt myself is look at the girl God designed and created and say that she is not good enough, say that she is not beautiful. Also, even though I have a great family and parents that love me so much, I have not always felt loved. I knew the truth, but I did not believe. Over the past few months God has been helping me to learn to look at myself through His eyes; to see myself the way that He sees me. He has been showing me how much He loves me and delights in me and that once I understand that, I will finally understand and believe how truly beautiful I really am.

 

God loves me! Wait, the creator of everything loves me?! It blows my mind whenever I stop and really think about that. God loved me so much that He sent His one and only son to earth to die a brutal death so that I could have the chance to live with Him forever. In Romans, it tells us that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” (New International Version Romans 8.38-39). What does God’s love mean to me? Everything! No matter where I go, what I say, or what I do, He will always be loving me. He will never stop loving me no matter how badly I mess up. He is never going to leave me or forsake me (New Int. Ver. Hebrews 13.5b). Without God’s love I would be worthless. I would be nothing. I would not even exist without this amazing love. It is unconditional, unlimited, unstoppable, and even, at times, unbelievable. If God loves me that much, He must delight in me, too.

 

I have never really thought about the fact that God delights in me, but it does make a lot of sense. God is an artist, and I am His masterpiece. Every person is a masterpiece designed and created by God. Artists will show off the things that they have made and love. If they have made something that they like they are not going to keep it hidden away. They are going to put it on display. Artists want other people to see what they have made and enjoy it just as much as they do. God is the potter, and I am the clay that He is shaping into a beautiful creation (New Int. Ver. Isaiah 64.8). He delights in me. He “happily rejoices over [me]...and celebrates over [me] with shouts of joy” (New. Int. Ver. Zephaniah 3.17). A book that has helped me come to this point in my life is Redefining Beautiful by Jenna Lucado, one of Max Lucado’s daughters. This book showed me that God truly does delight in me and that He is the only one who can truly define beautiful. Some of the pictures Jenna puts in my head keep me smiling all day long. God is up in heaven “singing over [me], delighting over [me], and nudging the angels, saying, ‘That’s my girl. Isn’t she beautiful?’” (Lucado, 94). I am God’s beautiful daughter that He loves and delights in. That is what He sees and says whenever He looks at me.

 

I am beautiful! That is something that I have to tell myself, over and over again, every single day. I have to face the girl in the mirror, look her in the eyes, and tell her that, no matter what the world wants to say about me, I am beautiful! I am beautiful because God made me that way. I am “fearfully and wonderfully made” (New Int. Ver. Psalm 319.14). I have always known the truth. I know all the Bible verses, I could sing lots of songs, and I have read several quotes that all tell me that I am beautiful. I knew, but I did not believe. I would see all of the magazine cover girls and wish that I could look like them. All of the girls around me seemed to be prettier, sweeter, smarter, cuter, more likeable, and I wanted to be them. Reading through old journals, I can see that my life has been a roller coaster. Entries go up and down from liking myself just the way I am to not liking myself at all. I wanted to like myself, I really did, and I tried several different things, but I did not know how to go from basically hating myself to loving me the way I am.

 

I tried writing out step-by-step plans, I decorated my walls with verses, song lyrics, and quotes, and several other things, but nothing seemed to be working. I had this feeling of guilt because I was looking at something that God created and saying that it was worthless. This kept going on and on, until I got to the point where I pretty much hated myself for hating myself. I would ask God practically every night to help me get through this. Now I know what my problem was. I was using the world’s definition by beauty, not God’s. The world’s definition is all about how you look on the outside, but God’s definition is all about the heart and how much He loves me and delights in me. One of the things that helps me remember how beautiful and special I am are snowflakes. No two snowflakes are the same! If God put that much care, design, and creativity into something that is here today and gone tomorrow, He must have put a whole lot more into making me, His daughter.

 

Sometimes I really wonder why God had me go through this, but I think I know now. My dream for the past two years has been to do teen ministry, and over the past few months my heart for teenage girls has grown. Is does not have to be “normal” for teenage girls to struggle with self-image and self-esteem. I do not want girls to go through the same things that I have. I want them to know what I have learned. I want girls to know how beautiful they are. I want them to know that, no matter what the world around them says, they have a Father in Heaven who loves them, who delights in them, and who sings and rejoices over them.

 

Yes, it is true. God does love me and delight in me, and I really and beautiful. Not because the world says so, but because God does. The journey over the past few years has been a long and hard one. I still have bad days, but they are getting fewer and farther apart. I am finally learning to look at myself through the eyes of my Heavenly Father, not through the eyes of the world. No more calling myself “Freak;” from now on it is going to be “Jesus Freak.” If people think that I am a “Dork,” it is their problem because I am just going to be me and no one else. If I ever start to feel “Invisible” to the world, I will stop and remember that I have a Lover in Heaven watching me every single moment. There is one verse that can sum up what I am feeling now: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (New. Inter. Ver. John 8.32). I always thought that I was free, but in the past year I have gone from realizing that I am not, to learning the truth, to beginning to truly feel like I am free. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (New. Inter. Ver. Romans 12.2). For far too long I have been looking to the world to define what “Beautiful” means, but now I know that the only One who can truly define what “Beautiful” really means is the person who created it in the first place: God.