Fun Fact #4: I struggled greatly with low self esteem growing up.
When I was a kid, I was the textbook definition of a nerd. I was smart, and awkward, I wore thick glasses with gold frames and was really skinny. When I was in elementary school I was the only one of my friends that wore glasses for a while (I got mine in 4th grade) and when my other friends got them they just seemed so much cooler than me. All the boys liked them. They had lighter skin and longer hair, and well, I was the nerdy one, the church girl.
Up until sixth grade I had the same group of friends. We had been in school together since kindergarten so I didn’t have to make new friends really. After 6th grade I was the only one of my friend group to go to a magnet school – one where you had to make a certain score on a test to get in. I had been the class valedictorian so my mom did not want me to go to the public school she wanted to make sure that I was challenged. And believe me I was, in more ways than academically. It was a lot harder than I expected and while I did well in most classes, math was…dude😒 I know you shouldn’t say you hate things but I truly detest math, like I want to square up with it on a regular basis. (Anyone who is good at math, you’re my hero) But more than that, when I got there I had no friends.
My closest friend, my best friend, we weren’t really talking (to be honest I don’t know why) and we weren’t at the same school, so I had no one to talk to. Everyone, it seemed had been in school together for years and knew each other. The kids from my school that I knew weren’t my friends and one of them had been my biggest academic rival. I was alone. I felt alone. I made a few friends eventually but it felt like once again I was the nerdy one, “the good girl”. I started to retreat into myself. I was already pretty shy, I still am, but this was different. My mom, who was a teacher at my school, started to notice.
At the time I thought it was annoying, but now that I look back I am so very thankful. Every night as I got ready for bed and as I fell asleep my mom would play this song called “Little Girl” by Mary Mary. And every morning for as long as I can remember she would make me and my siblings and my niece who grew up with us too, read Ephesians 6 and put on our armor.
All throughout the day I would hear the words to that song playing in my head:
Little girl, Little Girl, I wonder are you listening
Little girl, Little girl, struggling with your confidence
Little girl, Little girl, God made you so beautiful
Little girl, Little girl, I just thought that you should know…
“Little Girl” by Mary Mary
I actually don’t remember looking in the mirror at all in middle school, especially 7th grade. I didn’t look at myself. I thought I looked like a pig. I would stand in the mirror to fix my hair and not look myself in the face. To this day when I think back about how badly I thought of myself I am heartbroken. There was a part in the song that tells you to look in the mirror and tell yourself “I love me”. It took me a long time before could say it without feeling silly, to even really look at myself, but one day I looked at myself and I said it and I believed it.
I’ve written about this before, but I was talking to my sister the other day and she mentioned that she had suggested this song to one of her friends whose daughter was struggling with her self esteem. I told her that this song was perfect because it is the type of song that can follow you your entire life. It has most definitely followed me.
Today, I am still the textbook definition of a nerd. I can still be pretty awkward, I would rather read than go out, my glasses are big and forever falling down my nose, and I am still pretty skinny. (Thankfully lifting weights gives me some curves lol) I am still the good girl, the church girl and a lot of times guys still don’t like me. The difference today is… I like me. I love me because God has introduced me to myself and he has shown me that he made me pretty amazing. The right people see that. Those friends that I made in 7th grade, one of those girls is still my closest friend today. And being the church girl isn’t bad, it just means you have standards and the people that don’t want to meet them, or don’t think they can will tease you about them. Let them. I was in the store with a friend of mine a few months ago and I picked up a magazine while we were in line. On the cover it talked about some celebrity having plastic surgery and he asked me would I ever do that. I said no. He asked why not. I said because I spent too many years learning to love myself as I am. I think that was the answer he was hoping I gave, but I would have given it no matter what. It took a while to get here, but I love myself and the woman I have become.
I still have my moments, like when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans when I was 14 and we moved to a new state. With no black people. As in I was the only one in my entire school. Or just a few months ago when I failed my Physics final a third time and thought I was gonna fail the class again and not graduate. I could go on… But each time I was reminded of the line that says ” even with all your flaws and all of your downfalls, just be your best cause to him you already are…” and well…If I don’t who will?
Playlist
- Little Girl by Mary Mary
- Lovin Me by Jonathan McReynolds
