My life has always been filled with many passions. One of my most adored passions before this year was interning with the Youth Ministry at my church, FPC. I absolutely loved assisting with Wednesday night youth group, Sunday school Bible lessons and taking the students on youth retreats in the mountains. One of my main focuses as an intern was leading a small group Bible study for middle school girls. We met twice a week discussing peer pressure, boys, self esteem and our walks with Jesus.
It is no surprise to me that half way across the world in Malaysia, God decided to have my team and I help lead a two-day youth camp for middle school and high school students. Pastor Samuel, our contact in Kuantan, asked us to lead the camp’s three main sessions on: team building, self esteem and Christian living. I knew this would make me feel completely at home. The Kuantan youth camp at the Tamil Methodist Church showed me yet another example of how no matter where you go in the world, no matter who you meet, we are all people, and we are all the same. This was especially true in regards to our evening leading the session on self esteem.
Mac and Phil took the young men into one room while Haile, Angela, Alana, Nikki and I had the young women in the sanctuary. Teenage guys and girls will not open up about self esteem and their “feelings� if they are in mixed company, whether they’re Malaysian or American. The women of team Refresh and I shared testimonies of how we’ve struggled with self esteem and had issues seeing ourselves as worthy or beautiful because of society telling us we’re not, people in our lives crushing our worth, or because of stressing over the parts of ourselves that we can’t control.
After sharing we did an activity with the girls where they got in partners and one of them was blind folded and had to put lipstick on the partner that wasn’t blind folded. They got the lipstick everywhere and it was a hilarious representation of the crazy things women do to make themselves fit the definition of what society says is “beautiful�. We then proceeded with Haile taking each young woman into a room with a full length mirror and having her declare Biblical truths over herself. They had to look themselves in the eye and say that they were beautiful, worthwhile, adored and precious…among many other truths.
It pains me that all over the world, people are unhappy with who they are and how God created them. We always want what we can’t have and are always desperately trying to change it. If our hair is curly, we wish it was straight. If our eyes are brown we wish they were blue. While in America we’re all obsessed with being tanner and more bronzed (or orange), Asia has an obsession with being whiter. Instead of grocery stores being stoked with self-tanner and bronzing lotion, every aisle has “whitening lotion� or “bleaching cream� so that the Filippino, Thai, Malay and Indian women can be as pale as possible. That is beauty to them, trying to look more Anglo. What is wrong with this picture?!?!!? We are constantly obsessing about changing ourselves and the problem is without a doubt universal. It’s been an issue forever I hate the fact that we all hate the way we look.
I’ve learned something very valuable while being on the World Race and I shared it with the young ladies at the youth camp during my time speaking with them. It’s that, not only have I lived my entire life as a “People Pleaser�, but that I’ve lived constantly trying to find my self-worth in other people. I have tried being the best daughter, the best sister, the best girlfriend, the best friend, the best student, the best intern, the best mentor, the best comedian, the best musician, the best speaker, the best “_____�and I always fall short. I can never do enough and I always leave people disappointed. It’s exhausting and impossible trying to be everything everybody. But I’m not called to be everything to everybody. I’m human…A HUMAN. That’s the Lord’s job. Why am I trying to do something that only the Creator can do? I will never be enough to others and they will never be enough for me, because we’re all people and we all fail.
This is why our identity has got to be solely on Christ Jesus, and why we constantly need to be finding our worth and value in Him. I have been looking horizontally for recognition and self esteem for the last 22 (almost 23) years and I need to be looking vertically to Jesus. So I’ve officially given up trying to please everyone all the time. I’ve been less concerned about the opinions of others and more concerned about the Lord’s opinion of me, and what to do to glorify and honor Him. The best part of this revelation is that with Jesus, I will always be enough.
“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.â€� –“Proverbs 31:30
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.â€� –“Psalm 139:13-14
“For we are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.â€� –“Ephesians 2:10
