From Self-Hate to Self-Love

I struggled with self-confidence from a very young age, which was partially due to me being bullied in primary school up until the beginning of secondary school. Haven grown up in Germany and being the only black person in my entire school, together with the bullying made me insecure about my skin complexion. So at one point, I even tried to bleach myself (it didn’t really work though lol).

Throughout my secondary school time I continued to struggle with my confidence. Unfortunately, it  got worst when I started having crushes on boys, who never liked me in return. I always thought, that if I found a boy that also liked me, I would feel more confident about myself.  Well to my surprise, I was wrong about that, as the guys never liked me for who I truly was. Since dating didn't work, I came up with the idea, that maybe loosing weight would finally help me to love myself. 

Lo and behold, after loosing weight everyone around me wouldn't stop complimenting me on how good I looked, this made me feel beautiful for the first time. However, this didn't last for very long, as I got into a relationship with a guy who constantly put me down. He would never compliment me, but rather complimented my friends in front of me. He always complained about my complexion and figure and he would always compare me to his ex-girlfriends. Before I knew it, I felt even worst about myself, then I did in my younger years.
My low self-esteem even affected my friendships, as I even started comparing myself to my friends and would always complain to them about what I didn't like about myself. One of my friends told me that she never enjoyed going shopping with me, because I would always get grumpy, whenever I felt that certain clothes looked better on her.  Ironically, around that time I was heavily into reality TV shows (which didn't exactly help), where celebrities flaunted their perfectly toned hourglass bodies in every scene. So I never thought that, I measured up to society's idea of beauty. My insecurities held me back in every aspect of my life, as I always worried about what people thought of me and never wanted to draw any attention to myself. I never wanted to breakout of my shell. I finally I had enough, in my final of University, I came to the realisation, that was looking for love and acceptance in all the wrong places. That's where I turned to God. 

The closer I became to God the more I realised my self-worth. I stopped worrying about what people thought of me. Few years ago, I would have never imagined to have my own blog, thanks to Christ I have come out of my shell and I am ready to concur the World. As it says in 1 Samuel 16:7(NIV) ‘But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”.’  We should not focus too much on what people think of us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We should care about what God thinks of us, not man. God didn’t create us to worry about how we look and as a result go into depression. That’s not the life He chose for us. Start concentrating on yourself and your relationship with God. He will get you through this situation-He did it for me. Whatever God creates is BEAUTIFUL.

Prayer point: Lord help me to overcome low self-esteem. Help me to love myself, help me to see what YOU see in me. For I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  

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