Today I read a quote by an author called C. JoyBell C., which said the following; “You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don’t know it, all of that doesn’t even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away. It’s not like you have forever, so don’t waste any of your seconds, don’t throw even one of your moments away.”
Isn’t it amazing how so many of us in life doubt ourselves? I’ll take my own life for example; I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m a woman who really suffers with issues of self-worth or low self-esteem (something I greatly attribute to the fact that I was blessed with incredible parents who only ever made me feel valued as I grew up). Yet, if I were to review my everyday life and my own expectations for that, being entirely honest with myself, I reckon I could most certainly plead guilty when it comes to being my very own worst, most brutal critic. It leads me to wonder then if self-doubt, even if only to a certain degree, is inherent in all of us? Perhaps it’s just part of the human condition?
I think it could be said that in today’s society it’s getting increasingly more difficult to feel like anyone can truly measure up to what’s presented to us on the world media stage as ‘acceptable’. Whether it be the Kanye’s ‘Yeezy Boost’, which let’s face it, most of us will never be able to afford let alone actually see in person or even the latest ‘must have’ designer haircut seen on every female celebrity worth their weight in gold, we are constantly bombarded with images, videos and news which form these idealistic benchmarks which in turn create an ‘aspirational lifestyle’ with things that frankly only the rich and famous of the world can and will only ever truly attain. Meaning, to some degree the rest of us will always fall short. This is particularly true when it comes to the female contingent of the globe. As women we are constantly presented with photo-shopped, nipped, tucked, unfairly unrealistic images of today’s ‘perfect’ standard of beauty. I’m not sure many of us are prepared to go the lengths that Kim K has gone to, to maintain her short-lived Paris Fashion week stint of now already defunct platinum locks, and let’s not even get on to her latest photo shoots, all of course done in the name of art. Yet, these things seem to have become the set criteria for beauty. Modern society’s benchmark of perfection.
Check out the following link;
Is this something you relate to in your own life? You know, in the Bible it speaks so clearly of how God knew us before we were even formed. It speaks of how He knit us together in our mother’s womb and how each and every one of us, no matter how we feel about ourselves, were created and individually designed by the Creator of life Himself. Despite this, similarly to the girl in the video, so many of us question our worth based on what we are being told is ‘perfect’ or desirable according the world’s standards. Whether it be our talent, our looks, our personality, what we have, all of the standards we are paying such close attention to are not based upon God’s opinion of us, but merely the changeable, fickle opinion of man. That said, even if we did at some point feel like we’d attained just one of these standards, how can ever we try to maintain it? It’s like trying to catch the wind.
The fact is, we have been fearfully and wonderfully made by God and it is only through a true relationship with Him that we will ever come close to understanding our true worth. Worth established by how He views us. Worth that isn’t changeable because God, unlike man, isn’t fickle and His opinion of us can and will never change.
You may feel that you fall short and have been overlooked by the world, but one thing is for certain, you are never overlooked by God. As the quote earlier on said, “Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away”.
So why waste another second? God is waiting to reveal to you just how very valuable you are.