I love unconventional people. The weirder, the better.
Unfortunately, society disagrees. Society prefers people to be in neat, little pretty boxes with little room for uniqueness and creativity.
But we aren’t meant to live in boxes.
I was telling my teammates a story recently about the time I dressed up as Bugs Bunny and sang a parody of a Britney Spears song for a talent show in high school. One of their responses was, “It’s a good thing you were well-liked. Most people would have been made fun of for doing that.”
It’s a sad statement, but very true. Even though this story is silly, it’s a perfect example of how society suppresses our creativity and passes judgment on those who are different.
I am grateful to have had enough confidence to be myself at that time. I got away with being different. But what about people who don’t?
What about the overweight girl who starves herself to be skinny?
What about the intelligent teenager who is told that being smart is nerdy?
What about the autistic kid who is always told that he “cant”?
It’s crazy to me how much the fear of rejection cripples people. It’s scary to me how much weight people’s opinions have on others.
A girl on my squad told me a story about her past that involves some rude comments a boy said to her in middle school. Over ten years later, those words still haunt her. That night shaped the rest of her life until now. She was told she wasn’t good enough, and believed it.
It’s funny, because people are the only thing we question if God created correctly. We don’t look at nature and think God made a mistake. We don’t sit under a star filled sky and imagine how it could be better. We don’t frolic in the ocean wishing it was smaller. We are God’s creation too but we judge ourselves and others harshly, when we were made exactly how we were supposed to be.
What if we stopped believing that we are what other people are telling us we are, and instead fully accept who God tells us we are?
When God created the world, he called his creation, “good”.
He made the stars, it was “good”.
He made the oceans, it was “good”.
He made the mountains, it was “good”
And then He made us, and we were “VERY good.”
Very good.
Meaning more majestic than sparkling stars in the night sky.
More beautiful than the ocean.
More magnificent than the mountains.
Let’s take back what we were born to be…very good.
Let’s step out of the box, and embrace who our creator made us to be.
I have been traveling the world for eight months, and have seen some amazing landscapes. But I have found the most beauty in the people I have met.
My squad, the children in the African dirt, Thai children who used to be prostitutes, street boys of Cambodia, a prison full of men who are seeking truth….no two people have been the same. That’s the way God intended it, and I would want it no other way.
