“She is more beautiful than you,” He told me.
Blue eyes are beautiful. Straight hair is beautiful. Blonde is beautiful. White is beautiful. Skinny is beautiful.
I have not posted a blog in such a long time, and although I have so many wonderful stories and testimonies to share about Mozambique, I will share my current struggle. Why not let you in, right?
As my squad traveled across continents from Mozambique to Cambodia, we made a stop in Ethiopia where I had the worst layover of my life.
As my friend Carissa and I sat talking in the general sitting area a man sitting to my right interrupted us with an innocent question, “where are you from?”
That was normal.
We get asked this question often while on the race. So we went ahead and answered.
After I responded, “Dominican Republic,” I could not help but notice his face disfigure.
I wish I would have stopped there. But I didn’t. Taken a back, I asked, “Why did you make that face?” I opened a can of worms.
He looked at me, looked at Carissa then told her, “You are very beautiful.”
Still looking at Carissa and pointing at me; he said; “You[Carissa] are more beautiful than her[me].”
Bless her heart Carissa tried to stand up for me stating that I was in fact very beautiful too. Unfortunately this did more harm than good because the man kept stating the opposite and assuring her that she was more beautiful than me and that it offended him that she did not recognize this.
As if that were not enough injury to the heart, he went on to describe all the things that made Carissa more beautiful than me.
She is more beautiful because she has straight blonde hair, which is better than curly brown.
She has blue eyes which is more beautiful than brown.
She is white which is again more beautiful than brown.
At this point, I spoke up and told him, a black man, “White is beautiful. But so is black. God made us all different shades and they are all beautiful.”
To which he responded, “Her color (pointing at Carissa) is beautiful. (Grabbing his own skin he said) I have good black. But you are ugly black (looking at me). You are bad black.”
Praise the Lord for He filled me with much grace to give this man.
But that night when I finally landed in Cambodia and was lying down in bed, all his comments began to sink in. And all I could do was cry.
Growing up as a Dominican, where our hair is predominantly curly, we are so often told to straighten our hair. To manipulate our curls into straight strands. To get a perm. We are told not to stand in the sun so we don’t get darker; lighter skin is better. I grew up always feeling too fat, never skinny enough. Never pretty or beautiful.
As I cried in my bed all of these insecurities surfaced. I heard that man’s words over and over. And I laid there cursing God for His creation. I rejected every thing He had made in me. I felt undesirable, and truly so far from beautiful.
I hate that this man’s words pierced me so much. When I opened up with a few people about what had happened, they could not help but grow angry towards that man. But my teammate Kimberly, hit it right on the nail when she shared that the reason why it impacted me so much was because this man’s words were thoughts that I had of myself.
And she was right.
I met my thoughts in the flesh. It was ugly. This man simply voiced out loud what I so many times think and believe of myself. It sucks that this is the way that I view God’s creation. It is sad that I look at myself and say, “not good enough.”
But I am done. I am done condemning what God has made. He created me. He knitted me together. And every part of me He intentionally chose & put together.
If this resonated with you… I am sorry. I am sorry if people have looked at you & made you feel less than. I am sorry if someone has compared you to someone else. If you have a hard time seeing beauty when you look in the mirror. God makes no mistakes & He made no mistake when He made you.
I pray that you & I will be able to embrace every intricate detail that makes us, us. That we would not rely on the opinion of man to believe that about ourselves, because that will change from person to person. Instead may we go to the source, the Creator, and believe His words when He says: “You are fearfully and wonderfully made”<3
