Who I Am | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Who I Am | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sylvia Young
07/12/17
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Their lips shine with bright pink gloss, cable-knit sweaters hang down to their knees and fake pearls dangle from their necks. Each day they greet one another with effusive hugs as though they've been apart for years instead of less than twenty four hours.

As fake as they are, I long to be one of them, a part of the in-crowd.

With my homemade clothes, cheap haircuts and towering height, I have never fit in, never been invited to their parties or included in their conversations. I am an outcast.

It isn't just the clothes; I lack one crucial thing. On top of my outward atrocities, my confidence is in dangerously short supply.

Fast forward ten years to university, and I see myself laughing and talking with those who are comfortable in their own skin. I act the same and am accepted for a short time. However, eventually I talk too much and laugh too loud...and am rejected by the crowd. The sting is somehow worse than never having been accepted at all.

Five more years later I'm in a small church in Europe where my parents are supporting floundering pastors. I'm here after yet another rejection, but this one was of my own making. Fleeing a country where I'd gone to teach English, I arrived in the Netherlands emotionally, spiritually and physically exhausted . My direction in life was fuzzy, so I raced to the only ones who had always loved me: my parents.

Well into their retirement, they have obeyed the call to become missionaries. My pride in them knows no bounds. They know who they are and what they are meant to be doing. I, on the other hand, am flailing in shark-infested waters. A university degree behind me, a mountain of debt and uncertainty before me, I have nothing. I can't find my place in the world. I'm still rejected by the masses.

And then one day in my parents' humble church, boasting no more than fifty congregants, I spy a woman who is almost me: Amazonian, loud, and unbeautiful in the eyes of the world I know. However, unlike me, she radiates unapologetic joy.

Her handsome husband stares as she takes up her guitar and sings. He leans over and murmurs, “Isn't she amazing?” An awestruck smile lights his face.

It's on the tip of my tongue to answer no, but of course I don't. Instead, I offer a small nod which he does not see because his gaze is fixed on his wife.

How can this be? How can does this woman inspire such adoration? She and her husband are not equal in beauty, but his love for her is so obvious, it's almost painful to witness.

After service, she approaches me. My suffering must have been written on my face, for after we exchange a few words, she pulls me into a fierce embrace. With eyes that see into the scars of my heart, she whispers words sent from Heaven. “Jesus is the greatest Lover. He is the only One you will ever need.”

In an instant, all my longings for acceptance from a cruel world crumble and fall away. My heart fills and my eyes overflow, but suddenly I see the one thing I should have always known.

I, like she, am beautiful.

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