in my life i have been sure, without any trace of doubt, that the God of the universe who created glowworms and colors, created me too. i know that i am me and that there isn't anyone else like me. there's only one chelsea. well, ok that's a lie, there are tons of chelsea's, but you know what i mean. for the most part i like that. generally speaking i am proud of the woman i am. i didn't come by her easily.
but i think, as with everyone, there are moments where the chelsea i am just doesn't seem to be enough. there are times when i look at my behavior and i am ashamed. some mornings when i look in the mirror i hate the face i see staring back and if i'm honest, it is a rare morning when i look in the mirror and walk out of my room totally satisfied with everything i saw. just like everyone else i am broken and damaged. as my brother prepares to get married the question i hear more than anything else is: "are you ok?" i think the thought process is that if he's getting married, then i must be freaking out because i'm not. do you want to know a secret? i am a little bit. so the following is what i've been wrestling with, it's honest and raw and not well thought out, so feel free to bail on this post if you want.
growing up i wanted only one thing. i wanted to blend in. i just wanted to be beige. but from my earliest memories i have felt different. my brain never understood math the same way everyone else's did and so i had to work with tutors and go to a special class. my back couldn't stand straight on it's own, so i wore a brace and went to the doctor. i was sure that the girl i was would never be enough. to be honest, i hated me. i spent a lot of time and effort hiding that. but i hated me. i decided at a very young age that i would have to gauge my worth based on how other people valued me. and i placed my confidence in the idea of some man loving me someday.
i've been thinking a lot about that time in my life lately. i have been thinking about the girl i was. she was so scared of herself. she was so easily intimidated. i thought i had put her to rest. i thought that with time and therapy, and mostly with africa that she had disappeared. but i find there are still remnants of her.
when i was in africa i got to touch the face of God. it was these few short months when i never thought of how i looked. i never compared myself to others. i wasn't worried about blending into the background. i was too busy marveling over the tiny fingers and sweet smell of the babies we held. i was consumed with hammering the nails into the right places on the houses we built. i spent my mornings with my bible and my heart open to our Savior. in africa i breathed easy. i'm home now and my life is too full of junk. it's too full of noise. i've been so focused on finishing school, finding a job, finding a husband, making babies, putting money into a retirement fund and the further those goals have seemed the more depressed i've become. but my life won't ever be about those things. my God didn't create me that way.
he made me to be someone who cries every single time she thinks of children around the world who don't have enough to eat. he made me someone with something to say and a voice loud enough to make people listen. God made me a woman who wants to change the world more than she wants to change diapers (and believe me, there are very few things i want as badly as the chance to change diapers). there is a season for everything and hopefully someday i will get my season of marriage and babies. but, if i don't. if that never comes, i'll be ok. in fact i'll be better than ok, because i will settle for nothing less than living my life at the feet of my Jesus.
it isn't easy to write that, because i don't always believe it. but i am finding that in the moments of weakness. in the times when i want to crawl into my bed and never come out, i get two choices. i can either let my fear and sadness overwhelm me or i can snuggle into the arms of my creator and whisper for him to kiss my boo-boo and make it all better.
so those of you who read this, i want you to take two important things away from this blog. #1- i am ok. i have good days and bad days. but mostly i am at peace because i know that whatever happens, i'm strong enough to figure it out and i trust my God enough to live whatever life He has planned for me. #2- don't let your own hurts and fear and insecurities stop you from seeing the miracle that you are. don't let the voice in your head get bigger than God's. trust Him. i promise that there is nothing as sweet as that.
