Postscript to "God Made Me Beautiful"

Lest anyone think that my previous blog entry is "unrealistic", as if it were "all breakthroughs" and "no struggles", haha, I also wanted to share some of the struggles in my mind that went through before and after I wrote the post.

I got a little depressed after the insult incident because I had been recently making an effort to "look beautiful", meaning, I have been putting on my makeup more often, dressing up nicer, etc. Then here comes someone making a coarse joke which struck a bad chord in me because my looks were precisely my source of insecurity. I thought, if I look ugly at my best effort in looking beautiful, then I must be really ugly! All these thoughts started going through my mind. I felt so bad.

Sometimes when we let these bad feelings overcome our thoughts we drown out God's voice of affirmation and assurance. I have a group of friends at my kids' school (our church's school, a Christian school) who are my encouragers. Yesterday, all the bad feelings surfaced again and I cried. I opened up my problem to them. They encouraged me that I am beautiful because God made me as I am. I told them I knew it, but somehow the bad feelings kept coming back. One of them prayed for me.

Throughout the day yesterday I still kept on nurturing my hurt. Then last night I was able to talk to a cousin of mine, who encouraged me with much laughing and some funny experiences. She was able to help me understand my feelings and reactions. She helped me to also understand the offender. The Lord also made me realize that I still had not forgiven the offender. I hated him for hurting me with those words. I told my cousin, you know what, in my mind, when I "rewind" to the scene of incident or "replay" it in my mind, I find myself slapping him or giving him a hard stomach punch. I was thinking of ways of getting back. I realized I was letting the hurt control me and my feelings and actions. I had to get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, and to forgive as the Lord forgave me, as the word of God says.

Through the Lord's grace, I have been able to forgive, and also to accept myself, and now a heavy load is off my heart.

God made me beautiful, and no one can tell me I am not beautiful. They'll have to argue with God! :-)