I love holidays. Give me any reason to have a theme and I’m on board! But I especially love birthdays. SO much. I love getting to celebrate people just for being born! Seriously, why don’t we do that every single day of the year?! Let the next person you see know how excited you are that they were born. They’ll appreciate you!
Today was my 26th birthday. From the moment I woke, my day was showered with love and kindness from family, friends, even strangers! It made my heart so happy, and it got me thinking:
How differently would we all live if we woke up everyday knowing that God is celebrating us that way?! If we stopped living with insecurity and shame and saw ourselves and others as he sees us?
When I was in college, I went through a pretty ugly relationship. Two years where I was never good enough. Never skinny enough, smart enough. Never [ insert word here ] enough. I eventually fell for those lies. And now I’ve spent my entire adult life lacking confidence. But I was insecure about my insecurity so I couldn’t actually let anyone know how insecure I felt. Whoa.
And then I went to training camp:
150 people sporting men’s basketball shorts, bathing with baby wipes over bucket showers, sticky with sweat and red Georgia clay, eating lentils with our hands off a shared platter. The only time I saw my reflection was in the tiny scratched mirror inside the port-a-potty. Yikes.
We spent a good portion of camp talking about identity. Who we are and whose we are. Things I thought I knew and understood, but clearly didn’t. Emotions, circumstances, opinions and the world don’t get to define who you are. Your mistakes and your shame don’t get to define who you are. The whisper you still hear of that mean girl in high school or an aggressive boss, they don’t get to define who you are. You are a child of God. You are made in his image and he thinks you are beautiful. You are loved and you are celebrated by the King of kings, every single day of the year.
Y’all, the freedom found when you start to accept yourself as God sees you is unbelievable. When you truly begin to understand that God sees you as beautiful always, it doesn’t matter that you’re wearing U-G-L-Y shorts and your squadmates can smell you. It doesn’t matter that you can’t keep up with the American standard of beauty (because really, can anyone even achieve that?! I’m exhausted just thinking about it!). It doesn’t matter that some boy turned you away for somebody funnier, or quieter, or whatever it may be. Or that some girl wanted somebody taller. It doesn’t matter if you’re introverted, extroverted, whatever. Be confident in God, in others, and yourself! God made you perfectly. Know your worth. Embrace it. And then go celebrate people the way God celebrates them!
(And never, ever take clean hair for granted.)
