What areas of YOU do you struggle to accept?
I grew up hating my smile. It is easily the largest insecurity I have to date. I grew up overseas as a small child and most of my current ortho visits suggest that I must have been introduced to some chemicals that stained my teeth severely.
You won’t find a photo online from the past of me smiling to full capacity, I mean, smiling until my face hurts. I have been in group photos with friends and people have pinpointed me saying, “Why don’t you smile more” or “Deanna, SMILE with your teeth”. I almost killed a friend for that one. How dare she bring my insecurity to light. How dare she put a spotlight on something I was not yet ready to face.
What things are you not yet ready to face because you don’t accept yourself fully?
As I am sure you now guessed, I have had work done on my teeth. One year down of braces and still another one to 1.5 years to go, and I’ve become obsessed with the process. I can see corrective changes and shifts and alignment. I can see the progress. My teeth are still discolored and the plan is to get veneers MOMENTS after the braces come off, but sometimes we have to be corrected, shifted, and aligned before we get to the next step.
Pun intended.
I dream of a beautiful smile. The ones you see on billboards that look photoshopped down to the gums. Perfection, THEN, I would be worthy. THEN, I will be unstoppable. THEN, I will make more talking videos and content that includes me smiling more.THEN, I will share more of me because I will be more.THEN, I will have arrived. These are things I have said to myself.
We speak to our insecurities as if they can be fixed with the help of a doctor or dentist and although that may be true, we don’t deal with why we don’t feel enough as is.
The hard truth is that even after my teeth are fully corrected, I will still be the same person. I will still have to deal with my heart, my broken past, my other insecurities. I will still be me.
There’s a story in the Bible of Moses. He gave God every reason why He couldn’t go back to save his people down to his speech impediment after God told him he would be victorious. “God, how can I speak to them? When I am unable, I am slow with speech and of tongue”. He challenged God with excuses as to why he was imperfect for the job. Exodus 4:10.
What he failed to realize and what I fail to realize is that we were created in the image of God. He already sees you as perfect with your crooked smile. He sees you as perfect with your stutter. He sees you as perfect with your acne. He sees you as perfect when you feel overweight. He sees you as perfect even though you lost a limb in a car crash. He sees you as perfect in the middle of your mess. He sees you as perfect in your chaos. He sees you as perfect when you can’t see yourself.
You don’t need to change one thing about your appearance even though we live in a culture that constantly talks about upgrading yourself and becoming your best self. If we stay ignorant we wait until the opportunity is right. When I drop 30 lbs., I’ll do that. When I get this degree, THEN I’ll do this. NOW. He is calling you NOW for his purpose for your life, not when you deem YOURSELF perfect and ready.
Whatever you don’t like about yourself, God finds beauty in it. He sees humility in your specifics. They are not flaws. They are your specifics, and the great thing is that He already accepts you. You don’t even need to accept you, because He does right now, as you are.
