A couple of weeks ago, I talked a bit about my modeling “career” and what triggered my incessant need to be noticed and feel significant in a world that sets the bar just out of reach. Like many of us have done, I started to weave bits and pieces of who I was and what I was worth in with my relationships, social media ratings, acceptance or rejection from other people, and how I measured up to society’s standards of beauty. The web I wove was indeed tangled and it wasn’t long before I was struggling to separate my feelings about me from how other people felt about me.
If they thought I was pretty, then I thought I was pretty. If they liked me, I liked me. If they thought I was good at something, I thought I was good at something. If they wanted me around, I wanted me around.
The problem was this: when the compliments weren’t coming, pretty was a descriptive word that I couldn’t identify with. Whenever I found out someone didn’t particularly care for me, my self-esteem took a crippling hit. If I didn’t receive the applause I expected, my default was to assume I must not be good at whatever I was doing. If I wasn’t invited, I didn’t feel worthy of belonging.
I wrapped myself up in the wavering opinions, the superficial nod of approval via social media and compliments from other people. But people change. People leave. They break up with you. They say the wrong things. They scroll right past your Facebook post without a single thought. They make mistakes and wrong choices. They decide skinny jeans are in one day and high-waisted mom jeans are in the next day.
Deciding who you are or whether or not you’re beautiful is an exhausting rollercoaster if you continue to base it on people or the world. Don’t get me wrong, many of these people are my people; and not only are they good people, but I would argue that they are the best people I know, but they have their own head to hold above water and they never signed up to paint a picture of self-love for me; they signed up to walk alongside me as we both stumble our way through this whole messy life thing. They are not obligated to tip-toe around the glass house of my fragile feelings.
I’d like to tell you that the rollercoaster came to an eventual stop and that I calmly unbuckled myself and stepped off in search of something a little more stable. But that’s just not my story. My story is more of the pull-the-ripcord, learn-to-fly-on-the-way down, hit-all-of-the-branches kind of story.
Have you ever thought you had hit rock bottom only to find out that you still had a ways to go before you actually hit rock bottom? Rock bottom is actually a metaphorical word for my bathroom floor which is where I seem to end up when I’m at the end of myself. This time, this night on the floor, this rock bottom was different for me. I knew that this rock bottom couldn’t be fixed with a few modeling photos or a new haircut or some grandiose adventure. I knew that because I had already tried all of those things.
I needed a different outcome to rock bottom and that meant that I needed a different approach. And I don’t want to tell you some story about how I opened up my Bible and it changed my life, but this is a story about how I opened up my Bible and it changed my life. I started to read—for the first time ever—what God had to say about me. The words I found there made up the most beautiful love letter I’d ever read. It was different from the compliments and date-night invitations. No, it wasn’t a quick-fix by any means—nothing on the path to wholeness ever is, but over time, I read the words again and again, and things started to shift.
But there is one verse above all of the others that catches my heart every time: in Isaiah 43:1, it says “do not be afraid. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine.” It goes on to say “you are precious to me. You are honored and I love you.” That verse is what moves me from God loves everyone to God loves me. When I read those words, it felt like Jesus whispered into the most broken places of me and said, I like you. You belong. You’re always invited to whatever good thing I have going on.
I want that for you, too. You should read the words that God uses to describe you: wonderfully made. precious. lovely. chosen. radiant. called. adored. Imagine if you saturated your life in words like chosen, called, redeemed, loved and precious instead of hashtags, likes and text messages. Do you know that if you were the only person ever created, Jesus still would have went to the cross for you? When He stepped forward for you, He stamped relevant all over you. Important. Understood. Loved. Worth it. I want you to know what you could have and what you could leave behind if you began to align your heart with the way God sees you.
It’s how I can stay off of social media. It’s how I forgive myself for skipping the gym or overeating. It’s how I walk away from things that aren’t good for me—good or bad. It’s how I can accept that there are some things that I’m just not good at and there are things I will never do as well as someone else. It’s how I hold my peace when I find out about what someone has said about me. It’s how I respond with grace. And it’s how I’m able to see myself now, free from the chains of perfection and shame.
Your worth is not defined by Friday night invitations, a relationship status, minutes on a treadmill, Instagram likes or the pretty filter. Your worth is defined by someone who couldn’t imagine an eternity without you. Who hand-crafted you before you were born. Who already knew all there was to know about you, like that you’d forever part your hair on the left side or that you’d always hate your knees.
I just want you to know that this God I know has said some really beautiful things about you. Things like:
- He’s set you apart (Jeremiah 1:5)
- He has good plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11)
- He will rescue you (Psalm 91:14)
- He collects all of your tears (Psalm 56:8)
- His thoughts about you are precious (Psalm 139:17).
- He is for you and not against you (Romans 8:31)
He says His good thoughts about you are endless and infinite. And for me, that was the beginning of a really beautiful soul-change.