A couple nights ago, I stayed up writing a blog. I had it all nice and pretty and ready to post when I felt the Lord press a different topic onto my heart. So, instead of posting that blog I decided to lean into the topic that the Lord had given me. Y’all let me just tell you, this topic isn’t a pretty one. It’s raw and it’s real and it’s a place that I’ve been struggling in for months. This is about as vulnerable as it gets for me but when the Holy Spirit says move, you move and when the Holy Spirit says speak, you speak. So here it is..
Training camp was a whirlwind. I learned so much about myself and about my God in the ten days that I spent there. I got to know and love thirty-two strangers as family. It was amazing to see all that God did in such a short period of time simply because we opened up and let Him. God used those thirty-two strangers to bring home a lesson He’d been trying to teach me for months.
Back in August my face started breaking out badly. I don’t mean a couple more pimples than usual either. I’m talking big, cystic, painful acne all over both of my cheeks. I have never in my life had acne like that before and my little heart just didn’t know what to do. But what started out as a simple breakout quickly turned my whole world upside-down.
As the days went on, my skin started to get worse and my self-esteem went further and further down with each passing day. It quickly got to the point where I didn’t even want to leave the house for fear of what people might say about my face. I was confused and mad and self-conscious and all I really wanted was to wake up one morning with my face the way it was before. I felt unseen, unheard, and uncared for. I started to question God. I thought my acne was some form punishment for something that I had done. I couldn’t figure out what I had done to make God so mad at me, but surely it was something. I would wake up crying and go to bed crying. It just didn’t make any sense. Surely, He heard me literally crying out to Him, I just didn’t understand why He continued to punish me. My skin had begun to completely consume my thoughts. I had gotten to the point where I not only struggled to recognize myself in the mirror, but I also didn’t recognize the person that I had become. I was quiet, reserved, and had lost all self-confidence. During one of my many breakdowns over this, a sweet friend of mine looked at me one day and said, “Brianna, do you think that maybe you find your identity in your appearance?” In that moment it all became clear to me, all of the confusion, hurt, and breakdowns finally made sense. I wasn’t struggling with just a breakout. I was struggling with a full-blown identity issue.
At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know how to pick up those shattered pieces of my identity and give them to God to put back together. I cried, and I prayed, and I sought the Lord daily, but I still didn’t know how to rebuild my identity so that it was rooted in Christ and not in my appearance. I started small with simple things, like looking people in the eyes when I spoke to them and not canceling plans because my skin looked bad. I had to consciously choose Jesus over the way that I felt each day and it was hard y’all. And then training camp happened.
Right in the middle of trying to rebuild the foundation of who I am, I had to go spend ten days with strangers. God used those thirty-two strangers to walk alongside me in that task. These are people that had no obligation to “love me anyway”. They had no idea that I once had clear skin, they only knew the girl with a face covered in acne. I had to fight every day to make sure they got a clear picture of my heart since I felt like the picture they were getting of my appearance was so skewed. You know what? Those people came to know me for who I am, and they don’t care about the acne on my face. It was about day four of camp when I started to realize what it meant to be completely free in who I am. I wasn’t worrying about my skin anymore. Sure, I wanted my skin to be clear but the fact that it wasn’t was no longer changing how I felt about myself. I was able to look in the mirror and walk back into session with my squad and not think twice. That’s when I first knew God was up to something.
One of the last nights of camp we got to pray for healing. The speaker asked anyone who needed healing in their body to please stand. At that moment, I really felt the Holy Spirit telling me to stand and receive healing for my acne. I remember feeling like my skin was not as important as someone else’s back pain or digestive problem. So, I stayed seated on the floor. When everyone was finished praying, they dismissed us. I left to use the restroom and remembered that I left my water bottle back in the training center. So, I went back and as soon as I stepped back inside I knew that I couldn’t leave that room until I received prayer for my skin. I mustered up all the courage I could find and with tears in my eyes, I asked two of my sweet teammates if they could pray for my skin. They quickly agreed and asked if they could lay hands on my face. In that moment, my whole world fell back into place. As soon as their hands touched my face, I knew that God saw me and loved me and cared about me. I had spent months trying to cover up my skin, I didn’t want people looking at it, let alone touching it. When my two teammates laid hands on my skin, it was as if God was saying “Brianna, I see you. I even saw you stay seated when I asked you to stand. I’m not punishing you. I feel how much this is hurting you and I want you to be healed. More than that, I want you to know that I love you and that you’re not alone.” They prayed over my skin and asked the Lord for healing while tears streamed down my face. My skin has been healing more and more every day since training camp, but my heart was healed instantly. It’s a funny thing to look back on an exact moment and know that it’s the one that God used to put the broken pieces of my identity back together. That’s exactly how God works though, when I least expect it.
