Embrace Your Uniqueness

A few days ago, I spoke with a young lady who struggles with constantly comparing herself to others.  Because she feels that her life isn’t what society tells her it should be at her age, she looks at the life of her peers who appear to have it all together and are doing well, and it causes her to believe that her life doesn’t hold a candle next to theirs.  Based on what she sees in other women around her, and in mainstream media, she doesn’t think she’s pretty, smart, accomplished, fashionable, or gifted enough to say that there’s anything special about her life.

My heart ached as I listened to my acquaintance criticize herself. I wanted to reach through the phone and shake her until all of those self-demeaning thoughts flew out of her head, so I could bag them up and send them to the trash pile.  Instead, I extended my heart, hugged her compassionately with words from the Lord, and encouraged her by sharing that I knew exactly how she felt.

I once walked in her shoes, feeling inadequate and inferior.  I compared myself to every woman I believed had a better life than mine, and in my eyes, everything about me enormously paled in comparison to those around me.

Read the rest here.