You are Beautiful

Today's story is another one that I wrote several years ago and comes from a place of struggle. Those who know me personally, know that I've had my battles with depression and low self-esteem for years. Sometimes I've gotten caught in the "I hate who I am so I feel sad; I feel sad because I hate who I am" hamster wheel. We have to seek an answer outside of ourselves from The One who knows us better than we know ourselves. This is my story told from 2 perspectives using primarily 2 characters... Little did I know when I wrote this that my calling would be as a writer and not a pulpit ministry. 😉

Preacher – Please sir might I have a word with you? 

Saint – Sure… What? 

Preacher – Come… Let us have a seat over here near the end of the platform and altar; perhaps the Lord will bless us with some privacy for a few moments and you with some encouragement. 

Saint – Encouragement?  Why would you think I need that? 

Preacher – I can read it all over your face and your spirit. 

Saint – Oh that. 

Preacher – It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine if your face isn’t showing the joy of the lord, then there is probably something going on beneath the surface; and I feel that you’re battling some things.  My brother, the very first night I preached here and the very moment I laid my eyes on you, God spotlighted you. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know how or when, but I felt that if God didn’t do anything else during these revival services, he had to touch you.  Don’t get me wrong God’s been doing exactly what he wants to do, but who’s to say that God didn’t bring you and I here at this time and at this place, for such a time as this. 

      I hope you won’t mind, but I did something “really spiritual”, and I asked your pastor about you.  I asked him, “What can you tell me about that man right there”? 

Pastor – He’s one of my best men. He’s very faithful, pays his tithes, gives offerings, and worships the Lord like I would imagine King David did when he danced before the Lord.  Alas, I know he struggles, and it seems his every step is a snare unto him; some days he prays and some days he doesn’t, he doesn’t think I know that, but I do because he’s human.  He knows how to pray, and I think if he realized that he already knows how to stir the gift within him; if he could make that connection, nobody could stop him.  

Preacher – Perhaps pastor, there is something else as well… 

Pastor – You may be on to something, but I couldn’t tell you what; we don’t know perhaps God has brought you all this way for him, for just such a time as this. Hey, while you’re here though, how about adding a few saints to his kingdom? 

Preacher – And God has done just that!  People have been baptized, filled with the Holy Ghost, Healed, repented in the altar, but perhaps, my brother; God has brought me here for such a time as this. 

Saint – I have the Holy Ghost, I’ve been baptized in Jesus name, I’ve been in church for a few years, and I feel that I’ve been shown a purpose for which I was made; I know more about the bible than I did before I got into church, but I’m just not sure about me.  I have dreams, desires, thoughts, but why me? 

Preacher – I think I now understand where you’re at and why I’m here. Be comforted my brother, I’ve been there too.  I was in my early thirties when I went through some of the roughest years of my Christian walk.  I’d been in church for only a few years at that point and had the Holy Ghost for less than 5 years. I had been called by God to preach the gospel and I knew I had a preacher’s heart, but I also knew I didn’t want to pastor, that’s just not something God’s put in my heart, even to this day, but if he does so, I’ll change my tune. 

      I’m not your pastor and I’m not here to pastor you, I just want to tell you a story from my life that I think will help.  When I was a child in school, I often found myself at the end of ridicule and mockery at the hand of kids that probably didn’t have a high self-esteem and resorted to picking on someone else to make themselves feel better.  I can’t tell you what came first the chicken or the egg; and I can’t tell you which came first my low self-esteem or the ridicule and mockery of my peers, but I remember at some point in my school years making what seemed like an intelligent plan.  I kind of took the old adage “If you can’t beat them join them” and twisted it into a plan.  My plan was to agree with them, ridicule and degrade myself before them, in hopes that if they couldn’t feel like they’ve “got me” they’d become bored with it and leave me alone.  My choices took me down a dark path; eventually I wanted my peers to leave me alone so bad I pretended to be psycho, I talked to myself and played mind games with them.  My choices effected how I perceived myself in my adult years.  Whatever it is that you believe will always reflect on how you act. Now here I am more than a decade out of school, born again, called of God to preach the Gospel, but I don’t believe in myself; I don’t think of myself enough to believe I can talk to some of the well-spoken of preachers, let alone stand in their pulpits and speak to their saints.  But listen here brother; I had struggled years with my self-esteem and now I struggled with my faith and my calling…  Every day I wanted to turn my back and say that’s not for me, but I was pulling hard in two directions, and I couldn’t do both.  Finally, I didn’t know what to say; I didn’t know what to do and I just cried out to God and desperately wanted to know how he saw me.  The Bible says, that “man’s sees on the outside, but God sees the heart”.  I think I know my heart, sometimes my actions speak from my heart and sometimes they don’t convey my heart at all.  Sometimes my actions betray me, and my intentions are not shown and if it happens too often, I’ll think I’m bad, I’m a horrible person, or I’m a backslider, but that’s not how God views you or me. 

     The Bible says that, “Though we may stumble, the righteous man gets up 7 times”.  Our church’s youth group had agreed to go to a Friday night home missions meeting in a nearby city; I went along.  After all the preliminaries, the worship service, and the offering had been taken, the guest speaker arrived at the podium and pronounced a blessing upon every individual in the building, “I bless you in the name of Jesus!”  Feeling resistance in the spirit he again said, “I bless you in the name of Jesus!”  He reminded us that what was bound on earth is bound in heaven and what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven and told us to turn to our neighbors and say, “I bless you in the name of Jesus!”  He wanted to loose a blessing upon every one of us.  He preached to us about Jesus falling asleep in the boat and the storm coming and Jesus’ disciples fearing that they’d drowned.  He spoke to the voices that have stormed into our lives and told them, “Peace, be still!”  He said a lot and didn’t spend much time doing it or so it seemed, but somewhere in that meeting God Spoke this word in my spirit, “You are beautiful.”  I then thought of the scripture in Psalms 139, where it says, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made.”  Later I remembered the scripture, “He gives us beauty for ashes sake.”  As the preacher stated in his message, “God doesn’t view us based upon who we were, nor does he view us based upon who we are now; he views us based upon who we are going to be according to his divine purpose and will.” 

     So, you see my brother, I believe God’s message for me then is now God’s message for you.  God is your father, and your father says, “You are beautiful.”  God knew you before you were born, and he had a plan for you then that we have yet to see come to pass.  Whatever dreams, desires, ambitions, or thoughts he’s put into you, they are still there and will always be there.  You can do things to try to drown them out, but you don’t seem to be that man; my suspicion is, like me, once this word settles into you and takes root you’ll get out of this slump and a new man will emerge. 

Saint – Thank you. 

Preacher – (As big tears came to this precious saint of god’s face, he thanked me. Being as we already were in the altar, he made his way to his knees and covering his eyes with his hands he wept before the Lord and spoke in that heavenly language that God had given him years before.  His pastor and I we laid hands on him and prayed with him along with two or three other saints. I truly believe this man has some kind of calling in his life as I did; it is possible that I might find him anywhere in the church next time I preach in his church… And then again, I may not find him in his church at all, but rather preaching or pastoring somewhere else.)