He Makes Beautiful Things.

Sitting down to write this in my bed on a late Friday night (I have a life, I swear), I can’t help but get frustrated that the words to describe what I’m feeling are completely out of reach; so far gone I can’t even find them on the tip of my tongue. Insecurity is something we have all dealt with or are dealing with, regardless of who we are, where we come from, and what type of person we believe everyone thinks we are. It can come in a variety of forms, from being physically insecure about how your stomach looks compared to that athlete’s, or feeling unstable about your place in other people’s lives. Do you matter? Are you a priority? Do they care about you as much as you care about them? Are you worth the hassle?

See, these are toxic thoughts. Looking at things in retrospect, it worries me to think that so many people are feeling these exact emotions towards themselves. We beat ourselves up. I think that subconsciously, we ourselves come up with this ideal person that we THINK everyone expects us to be. We hold ourselves next to this person we have come up with in our heads and we put ourselves down when we’re nowhere near what they are. You can want to be the best linebacker on your team or the prettiest one at the pageant, and that is fine. Aspirations are great. But as long as you keep that image of the perfect person that you think you should be in your head, you will never be content with anything short of that, and more importantly, you will never be content with your true self. Although life can give you amazing things, it will at times give you something different than what you want; it happens. To accept that truth is the only way to accept ourselves. No matter our walks in life, I think we all want to be confident. We all want to feel collected and centered and content with who we are. We want to love ourselves.

Lately, I have been feeling unreasonably insecure. I don’t want to start a pity-party so I won’t mention each and every one of my meaningless insecurities. But I will state the most obvious one if you know me personally. I am the short girl. I am eighteen years old and 4’11 (and 3/4 in.!). I’ve always been told that I was short and that I looked like a middle schooler. It annoyed me to no end at one point, because trust me, I know that I am short. Some people don’t seem to think that I’m already aware of this and tease me about it, which is fine now. At some point between the ages of 12 and 13, being called short was nothing new to me and I decided to embrace my height. Being short is cute! I enjoyed being petite and adorable at that time in my life. But as everyone around me started to develop and grow, I remained as small as I was in the 8th grade (well actually, no. I grew 3/4 of an inch) and it affected me more than I thought it would.

Just a few weeks ago, as I was trying on my dress for my Senior prom (of course I had to get the bottom tailored), I was admiring how beautiful it looked in the mirror. This dress made me feel good. Sure, the tailor was going to have to cut about 2 and a half feet of fabric off the bottom, but once that was done, it was going to be perfect. My brother was with me and as I stepped behind the paper-thin door of the small changing room, I hear the tailor ask him, “So what is she, a freshman? That’s so nice that you’re taking her to your senior prom!”. Immediately, I wanted to correct her on the spot and inform her that I was his older sister and that no, we were not going to prom together. I said nothing once I had finished changing, but it upset me in a way I didn’t think it would. I thought I could just brush it off. But It catalyzed a whole months’ worth of feeling crazily insecure about my height and how young I look; and that is when I realized that I absolutely, 100% needed a change in mindset, a wake up call.

We are all insecure about something. My height is my biggest insecurity. But the hard truth is that we don’t always have control over the things we are most self-conscious about. I can’t just work to make myself taller. This is who I am! I’ve always been petite and I have always looked younger than my age. During this past month of focusing on this insecurity more than I should have, I wondered why God made me like this. I know it sounds dramatic, but hear me out. A special person told me that God makes no mistakes. When he said that, it hit me and it hit me hard. God. Makes. No. Mistakes. Whether you’re religious or not, I want you to understand and absorb the meaning behind what I’m trying to say here. We were made like this with full purpose. As cheesy as it’s going to sound, every quirk and freckle and dimple was placed onto us on purpose. It is the tiniest things that truly do make up someone’s individuality. For example, I have a huge birthmark on the middle of my thigh that resembles a black beetle, or to others, a chocolate chip (I prefer the chocolate chip). It’s odd and I don’t like it sometimes, but my mom has the exact same one. I remember saying as a six year old that when I grew up I was going to get it removed. But it’s also kind of cool that she and I share the exact same birthmark in the same place. I also remember saying that I was going to get toe surgery because my second toe is longer than my big toe and you can CLEARLY see it poking out through the toe holes of a Croc and it sucks. But, am I actually going to get toe surgery? No! (Does that even exist?) Because this toe will look a whole lot prettier with polish on and that’s something I can embrace. And also, “the toe” makes for an abundance of comedic relief when with friends.

One of my absolute favorite songs to sing at church is “Beautiful Things” by Gungor. Again, even if you’re not Christian, take a minute to go listen to this gorgeous song. And listen to the lyrics. Better yet, pull up the lyrics on the Internet. The repeated line in the song is “You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust, you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us”. Isn’t that the truth? We are made to be unique, not carbon copies of each other. It is about time that we start realizing this. No matter the insecurities we may beat ourselves up over, there is always something greater and more important. When I realized this, it made it a hell of a lot easier to see myself as the beautiful person I am.

We spend so much of our lives scrolling through Instagram and comparing ourselves subconsciously to the people on social media that seem to have perfect bodies or perfect lives. Or maybe we simply compare ourselves to people at our school, which can be even worse since they are not scrollable. We see them constantly. My advice to you when you come across people that seem to have it all together? Think twice. Everyone else is dealing with the same things you are. Again, we are all insecure about something. If you’re not insecure about anything, then more power to you! I wish I could be like that. But in all honesty, there are going to be good and bad days. That’s just life. Some days, we are going feel unbeatably confident and other days we are going to feel down in the dumps. It is okay to feel like that. It is okay to feel.

My dad has always told me that the best solution to feeling crappy about yourself, is to think outside yourself. Too much feeling sorry for yourself is a form of vanity, if I ever saw one. Talk to someone about their life. Ask them how they are doing and really listen to what they are saying. Get outside of your bubble of self-doubt, because that is never going to fix anything. Some people turn mean and cold when they have given into their insecurity for too long. It is a real thing. You can be so incredibly insecure that you become angry at the world. You focus on nothing but yourself and if you aren’t up to your impossible standards each and every single day, you feel worthless. I have seen this happen firsthand to several people, and it’s a shame. Before you get caught up in that, breathe. Think outside of you. You are not the center of the universe and odds are, no one else notices the little imperfections you’re working so hard to cover up.

So no, I am not going to tell you in a happy-go-lucky manner to “love yourself!” and “embrace your imperfections!” because that would be terribly naive advice to leave you with. It’s not that easy to up and love yourself. But you can start by reflecting. What are you insecure about? What can you change and what will you have to accept? How can you change the changeable things? What must you learn to embrace? Once you’ve laid out these things, it’s whole lot easier to take in the fact that yes, there are definitely things you can alter, but there are also things you can learn to love if you begin to find that they make up a part of who you are.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. And stop idealizing who you think you’re supposed to be. You are human, we are all human. Don’t put others down just because you feel bad about yourself, because you are going to look like the fool, and no one is going to sympathize. Go out and do something for someone else. Do you ever notice how good you feel when you give to others? When, for just a little while, you get out of your own head and give yourself to someone in need of a friend? Don’t do these things just to get a confidence boost, but do them because you should. Selflessness makes us better people. I have never admired someone because of their selfishness, and I’m sure most of you can agree.

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.” -Samuel Johnson